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People over Profit: Creative Strategies for Holding Companies to Account

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Explore fast fashion advocacy strategies including law reform, corporate accountability, narrative change and campaigns.

Introduction

A panel at the 2026 Australian Progress Conference explored how campaigners are tackling the impacts of the fast fashion industry through a range of advocacy approaches, including law reform, narrative change, corporate accountability and community organising. Below is an overview of the key strategies and solutions discussed, along with four campaign snapshots highlighting these approaches in action. The Commons librarians have summarised the panel discussion and included links to further resources.

The panelists were:

  • Christopher Patz – Documentary filmmaker
  • Nina Gbor – Eco Styles, Australia Institute, Swap in the City
  • David Tran – Oxfam Australia
  • Ramila Chanisheff – Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association
  • Freya Dinshaw – Human Rights Law Centre

The Progress 2026 conference was hosted by Australian Progress on March 24-25 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Narrm/Melbourne. This article was produced by The Commons Library to enable ongoing learning.

Communities around the world are fighting back against corporate power, using innovative and creative strategies to hold brands to account and drive change in corporate practices.

Advocacy & Strategies

What can we do as individuals and consumers?

Campaign and Advocate

  • Support existing campaigns working for change, such as the Clean Clothes Campaign.
  • Join protests and public actions to pressure companies to improve their practices.
  • Challenge greenwashing and advocate for stronger laws, including supply chain due diligence requirements like those introduced in the European Union.
  • Demand supply chain transparency so companies disclose where and how their products are made.
  • Push for less production and consumption as millions of new garments end up in landfill every year.
  • Call on governments to regulate corporations and make voluntary schemes mandatory, such as Australia’s Seamless, a national product stewardship scheme.
  • Sign and start petitions, including campaigns calling for fashion industry reform, workers’ rights and ethical supply chains.
  • Advocate for legislation to prevent goods made with forced labour from entering markets.
  • Contact politicians, write letters and use social media to demand policy change.
  • Raise awareness in your community by talking with workplaces, schools and local groups to build understanding and collective action.
  • Support stronger accountability systems, including independent monitoring of certification schemes and industry standards.
  • Support affected workers and organisations providing assistance to garment workers facing exploitation.

Push for Law Reform

  • Regulate fast fashion such as France who have introduced the world’s first law to reduce fast fashion: French Senate backs law to curb ultra fast-fashion.
  • Push for voluntary standards/directives to become law such as the EU Forced Labor Ban coming into force in 2027.
  • Track trends of laws and judicial cases using different tools such as this website – Business and Human Rights in Law.
    “This website provides up-to-date information on both adopted laws and tabled legal proposals. It catalogues and describes litigation involving allegations of overseas harm. The website features a practical tool that facilitates the comparative analysis of legislative initiatives, across jurisdictions.”
  • Use non-judicial complaints mechanisms which allows one to raise grievances and seek redress without the cost and complexity of court action such as the OECD National Contact Point in Canberra to raise complaints against multinational corporations where there are allegations of breaches of human rights or environmental due diligence.

Shift the Narrative & Tell the Stories

Be a Responsible Consumer

Four Campaign Snapshots

Tell the Story to Make Change – Documentary

Discount Workers Documentary
A fire at a textile factory in Karachi, Pakistan that supplied a Germany chain store killed over 260 workers, among them a widow’s only son. Saeeda’s transformation from domestic mother to influential activist brings her to the centre of a male-dominated workers’ rights movement. This documentary takes you on a journey along the supply chain of the fashion industry, and reveals that change may in fact be coming from those at its very end.

Learn more:

Insider Advocacy and Public Campaigns – Oxfam

Oxfam started the What She Makes campaign in 2017. It is about paying a living wage to workers. This campaign uses insider track advocacy and public campaigns. David from Oxfam describes the organisation as a “critical friend” that both engages directly with companies and, when necessary, publicly calls them out.

Oxfam works through insider advocacy and public campaigning, including tools like the company tracker, to monitor progress on issues such as paying workers a living wage, where clear progress can be seen.

These brands that make billions in profit can afford to pay the workers a living wage.

Learn more:

  • Unravelling Exploitation
    Oxfam’s research reveals the impacts of slavery-like practices on women and children in the garment industry and the risks facing Australian businesses, while campaigns are led by people with lived experience and frontline workers who shape the campaign asks, supported by organisations and academics.
  • Made in Poverty: The True Price of Fashion
    Research from Oxfam showing the impact that low wages have on the lives of the people who make our clothes. 
  • Shopping for a bargain
    Research reveals how unethical business practices of Australia’s fashion brands impact the women who make our clothes.
  • Who made my Clothes? eBook
  • Oxfam What She Makes Brand Trackers: Canada, Aotearoa | New Zealand

Push for Policy and Legislative Reform – The Australia Institute

Explore The Australia Institute’s campaign against the fast fashion industry.

Australia has surpassed the US as the world’s biggest consumer of textiles per capita. Australians buy an average of 56 new clothing items a year, more than the US (53), UK (33 items) and China (30).

Learn more:

It can’t get worse until it actually does. – Nina Gabor

Ramila Chanisheff, President of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association (AUTWA), is using legal action to expose forced labour in supply chains. She became an activist after migrating to Australia in the 1970s. She says she never wanted to be an activist but felt compelled to speak out because “no one else is talking about this.” For decades, information about the persecution of Uyghurs was hidden behind an “iron curtain,” receiving little media attention.

Ramila describes how detention camps in China’s Xinjiang region have become forced labour camps, where people are made to work simply to survive. She argues that Western demand for cheap products has helped sustain these systems of exploitation, asking, “Why do I get to buy a T-shirt for $2?”

Established in 2020, AUTWA advocates for the rights of Uyghurs and raises awareness of the Chinese Government’s repression, forced labour and attempts to erase Uyghur culture and identity. Believing that transparency and accountability are critical in the fight for change, the organisation launched legal action in 2025 against Kmart Australia, alleging misleading conduct regarding the use of forced labour in its supply chains. They chose to focus on Kmart as it is a leading company in Australia with many of its products made in China. The case aims to hold a major Australian retailer accountable and encourage greater transparency in corporate supply chains.

Ramila says the legal action is about using the freedom Australians enjoy to speak on behalf of those who cannot. She also argues that governments have been reluctant to act because of Australia’s trade relationship with China, making consumers, businesses and governments complicit in maintaining systems of forced labour.

Freya Dinshaw from the Human Rights Law Centre, said alarm bells had been “ringing for a long time” regarding forced labour risks, especially in the Chinese garment industry, and pointed out that “85 per cent of the cotton in China comes from the Xinjiang region”. – Source

Alongside the legal case, Ramila is advocating for stronger powers for Australia’s Anti-Slavery Commissioner to improve oversight, transparency and accountability across Australian businesses.

Video – Australian Uyghurs take legal action against Kmart over labour camp allegations, 2025

Learn more:

There needs to be sanctions and penalties when companies do wrong. – Freya Dinshaw

Presenters

Christopher Patz (Documentary filmmaker)
From 2017-2025 at the European Coalition for Corporate Justice, Chris advocated and campaigned for landmark EU legislation to hold corporations liable for the human rights and environmental harms in their global value chains. He worked on cases against EU textile companies and factory auditors and told the story in the documentary Discount Workers.

David Tran (Oxfam Australia)
David is acting Campaigns and Advocacy Lead at Oxfam Australia. He has led work on and written about labour rights, tax and inequality, climate justice and climate inequality.

Nina Gbor (Eco Styles, The Australian Institute, Swap in the City)
Nina Gbor is a media personality, sustainable fashion & circular economy expert, international speaker, researcher and clothes swap maven dedicated to transforming the fashion industry’s impact on people and the planet. Nina is the Director of the Circular Economy & Waste Program at The Australia Institute. She has co-authored notable papers such as textile waste research highlighting that Australia is one of the world’s largest consumers of textiles per capita. She was featured in Australia’s most prominent environmental TV series, the ABC TV’s award-winning, War On Waste.

Nina has launched a Change.org petition for reform in Australia’s fashion and textiles industry, calling on the Australian Federal Government to revive the sector through holistic sustainable, circular economy and ethical legislation.

Nina founded Swap in the City, Australia’s first no fast fashion clothes swap hub. She also works with media, councils, organisations, schools, community groups and individuals to develop strategies for holistic systems change towards a more circular and sustainable future. Nina has a master’s degree in international development and guest lectures at universities in Australia and abroad.

Ramila Chanisheff (Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association)
Ramila Chanisheff was born in Urumchi, East Turkistan (Xinjiang, China), came to Australia with her parents and sister in early 1980 as a child. She has lived in Adelaide most of her life, but has studied and lived overseas for a period of time. She has been an active part of the Uyghur community in Adelaide, and is currently the inaugural President of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association, when it was established in early 2020. She considers herself an activist by default, and has been working together with her team on community and also advocacy work since 2017. She is passionate about human rights, and has been an active advocate for Uyghur voices in Australia, educating the general public and lobbying the Australian Government to do more to hold China to account.

Freya Dinshaw (Human Rights Law Centre)
Freya Dinshaw (she/her) is an Associate Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, with over a decade of experience specialising in business and human rights. Freya’s work focuses on exploring opportunities for deploying advocacy, strategic litigation and international mechanisms to challenge the treatment of marginalised communities by governments and companies. Examples include supporting Australian Uyghurs in legal action against Kmart over forced labour concerns, co-authoring the Paper Promises and Broken Promises reports on the Australian Modern Slavery Act, assisting Bougainville communities in a human rights complaint through the OECD National Contact Point, and Supreme Court litigation in relation to an asylum seeker’s death in offshore detention. Prior to joining the HRLC, Freya was a Senior Associate at Allens Linklaters, and she previously worked at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. She is an honorary research fellow in modern slavery and regular guest lecturer at Melbourne Law School, and serves on the Modern Slavery Expert Advisory Group, Australian OECD National Contact Point Advisory Board and steering committee of the Australian Corporate Accountability Network.

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  • Organisation: Oxfam Australia, The Australian Institute, Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women's Association, Human Rights Law Centre
  • Location: Australia
  • Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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