“Fashion’s Dirty Secrets, shown on prime time BBC1, provides a wakeup call to all fashion lovers who don’t realise the impact our insatiable appetite for cheap throwaway clothing is having on communities around the world. The programme opens our eyes to how the fashion industry has spun completely out of control, and how it has become one of the most toxic and water intensive industries. Ultimately, someone somewhere is paying the price for our cheap clothing; whether it’s the environment, a child sewing your clothes in Asia or a refugee in another part of the world.

“Globally we’re producing over 100 billion new garments from new fibres every single year, and the planet cannot sustain that. Systemic change is needed to the way the fashion industry sources cotton, as it is also responsible for providing a livelihood for 300 million people who work in the cotton sector. For farmers, the challenges range from the impact of climate change, poor prices for cotton, through to competition from highly subsidised producers in rich countries and poor terms of trade.”