Fast fashion comes at a cost - incurred mostly in the Global South - of enormously negative environmental and social impacts being embedded throughout its life cycle.

Behind the allure of the latest styles lies a stark reality: The fashion industry, particularly its fast fashion segment, is built on a foundation of environmental devastation and human rights abuses.

At the end of his visit to South Africa late in 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, Marcos Orellana, issued a statement which referred to the apartheid legacy of environmental racism and noted that environmental impacts are still "disproportionately impacting marginalised and poor communities" in South Africa today.

Although there is some mention of workers, Orellana did not mention constitutional labour rights or legislation when referring to several other rights and emphasising that there is a need for the environmental right to be upheld for all.

Unfortunately, opportunities for making the interdependence of labour and environmental rights visible are often missed, which obscures the need to address both in a synergistic way when tackling the root causes of environmental injustice.

What workers do within the factory fence, and what they are exposed to inside that fence, has an effect on the environment outside it. In that sense, workers are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine as poor working conditions often have spillover effects...