One of the biggest ways we could support the environment is to bring the manufacture of outdoor clothing and all its related equipment back to the UK.
Why does everything have to be made abroad? The only answer I can see is to make the manufacturers rich! They have everything made abroad at the cheapest possible cost then import it all the way back to the UK and sell it to us at the highest rates. This does not make any sense, we have lost the manufacturing jobs and yet are paying through the nose anyway for overpriced goods!
The 'celebrity' outdoors people are just as much to blame as anyone, they make a very good living out of promoting all this foreign 'stuff' in magazines etc.
What about the foreign stuff that is good though, like Hilleberg! Surely this is all merely just meant only to mean the cheap stuff end of the market; as many makes of real quality outdoors goods are sometimes still to be found traditionally made abroad!
Trevor, I am not against anybody buying whatever they want of the good foreign makes, but the importation of thousands of tons of clothing and equipment which is being flown all around the world cannot make any sense from an environmental viewpoint. We may think we are getting a bargain, but we are paying through the nose compared to what it costs to make these things, also we are paying hidden costs in our own taxation system to subsidise unemployment and the low wage system in this country.
I believe that if it came to it we could make anything in this country that was the equal of the best in the world. We used to!
The trend for domestic manuacturing to move overseas is probably due to market demand, a decent Goretex hiking jacket costs about the same now as it did 10 years ago (in spite of inflation) but I bet that a hitec petroleum based product like goretex is a lot more expensive to manufacture now, this is a trend across the clothing market as people want prices to stay the same or even get cheaper over time (if you look what has happened to the prices of basic high-street clothing over the years you would see what I mean).
It is tempting to think that because of the relatively high prices of big outdoor brands that those companies must all be rolling in it but I suspect that if we want to help the environment by having more of these products manufactured in Britain we will have to accept much higher prices.
> The trend for domestic manuacturing to move overseas is probably due to market demand
That's another way of saying "The only answer I can see is to make the manufacturers rich!"
One manufacturer transfers production overseas, for cost reasons. Result: increased profits, or increased sales, due to ability to offer lower prices. Consequence: all other manufacturers have to follow suit, or disappear from the market place due to being out-competed.
> but I bet that a hitec petroleum based product like goretex is a lot more expensive to manufacture now
Actually, quite possibly not, due to improved production methods, improved processes, increased production volumes, transfer to Far East manufacturing (e.g. Pertex)... And the raw petrochemical feedstock may be quite a small fraction of the cost of production, and, ultimately, garment cost. Granted, I'd imagine that the energy required for plastics production is probably one of the larger cost inputs... Okay, I may be swayed...
" The production of synthetic textiles, for example, is far less significant in terms of sustainability than power generation"
I've always thought it a great shame that we burn off so much wonderful plastics feedstock for fuel. It's an interesting point that, from an environmental PoV, synthetics may actually have a lower impact than organics...
What I mean is if they have made a move to bring their costs down they are not going to go back unless they can recoup that difference elsewhere so unless they are prepared to be less rich if we want their products it will cost us more.....damn their eyes.
Well, what I can say is most outdoor clothing manufacturers make 40-50% margin on the clothing they produce.
Equivalent fashion brand clothing manufacturers make 200-500% margin generally .
I work/ have worked in both indistries and thats what I have seen for the last 10 years.
Also in the current climate the UK does not have the factories/ skill level/ machinery to make high end Gore tex jkts.
Gerard
Gerard
I wish I could get a 40-50% return on my investments! Also the reason that fashion garments have such a big mark-up is probably the scale compared to the outdoors world. Everybody buys ordinary clothing, only a small percentage outdoors stuff.
This country used to be able to make everything, so why not again? Mardale Clothing of Preston seem quite capable.
Skills can be taught, machinery brought in, factories built. No it's all an excuse to make more money than companies should be allowed. We have just got used to being ripped-off in this country. Anyway now there is going to be real downturn let's hope these companies get bitten in the bum!
I am going to buy British wherever possible in the future.
Very specialist kit manufacturers (PHD, Mardale, West Winds, Buffallo, etc.) would not benefit from sticking their manufacturing facilities elsewhere: they make such little kit compared to other brands that the costs of setting up factories and shipping kit would be far larger than the profit they could ever generate. Building a factory overseas will be an enormously expensive proposal, but cheaper than in Britain (and that's before we get onto the wages thing), so unless the company is guaranteed to sell bucketloads of product, it's too large a risk and financially stupid, which as we've established, isn't what business is about.
Ray Mears once said on his TV program that he couldn't understand why not everone used twine made from trees and plants, instead of string and plastic twine. It's such a nice idea, but is also extremely naive at the enormous demand for these products, and it's a similar story with the production of Gore tex, etc.. We'd love to have it produced by small family firms in our village shop, but it's unrealistic because of the extremely complex and dangerous production methods, let alone the huge demand for the products.
Buying better quality kit in small amounts is a nice idea - who's ever worn out a merino top compared to a £3 tesco t-shirt? That's environmentally sound (though I'm not sure of the environmentalism of merino) and everyone gets a better product that lasts longer.
> Also in the current climate the UK does not have the factories/ skill level/ machinery to make high end Gore tex jkts.
No, but it did have. As can be said for many manufacturing industries. It's a worrying trend. The UK gets a lot of its GPD from financial services. These were, historically, using money from our manufacturing industry. Johnny Foreigner now has the manufacturing, and the money it brings. He's also pretty adept with financial matters. How long before our lauded financial services sector is undercut by dastardly JF...?
Oh, and Johnny Foreigner also seems to value technical education, and has a history of inventing things...
I guess we can sell them Big Brother and other products of our wonderful Media and Culture sector...
Where was this concern for British jobs when the miners, steelmaking, shipbuilding and heavy engineering jobs were being exported?
Jobs that meant mass employment, not a minority niche market like outdoor clothing!
We need to wake up, when REAL jobs have been and are still being exported, do we really imagine anyone with the power to do anything about it will worry about minority specialised waterproof manufacturers?
> Where was this concern for British jobs when the miners, steelmaking, shipbuilding and heavy engineering jobs were being exported?
Where it is now. I'm an engineer. Of course it irks me to see Britain's engineering heritage sold down the river. But a lot of the heavy engineering industry you speak of seemed doomed to self destruction; both sides utterly entrenched in their positions, locked in a death struggle with hands around each other's throats.
Aided and abetted by a government that thought it didn't need 'dirty industry', and that those lovely chaps in smart suits would provide all the income we needed. The same lovely chaps in smart suits who recently creamed in huge bonuses and commission on loans that even the most feckless, innumerate idiot would know had no chance of ever being repaid. Probity? What's that? Personal profit, did you mean? After all, the government will bail the bank out...
Sadly, the economics of UK manufacturing simply don't add up, when compared with labout costs in the far east. Shipping around the world is cheap. Labour in the UK isn't. The global economy will swing around eventually. After all, when we invented machine weaving, we destroyed the Indian cotton handweaving industry. Now machines have moved to the far east, our fabric industry is dead.
> do we really imagine anyone with the power to do anything about it will worry about minority specialised waterproof manufacturers?
Peter's original comment was wide-ranging: "Why does everything have to be made abroad?"
