Ethics & Sustainability
WEAR Sustain acknowledges the interdisciplinary and diversity of the wearable technology, smart and e-textile fields and advocates the need for a more sustainable, ethical approach to technology and textiles development.
Our mandate is to contribute to a change of culture and practices, to endorse the societal and economic added-value of creativity, and promote a more innovation-oriented mindset rooted in silo-breaking collaborations between technology, the arts and creative industries.
The recent exponential development of wearable technology, smart and electronic textiles has highlighted the apparent and critical need for sustainability and ethical issues to be better addressed at all levels, stages and points in the life-cycle development of these products and within the these industries.
WEAR Sustain critical concerns:
- The amount of data that wearable technologies capture, in particular their users’ personal data, raises critical, ethical questions regarding ownership and processing of this data by the wearable technology manufacturers and service providers.
- The combined negative environmental, economic and social impact of the electronics, textiles, and fashion industries on society is staggering Which is increased by the problematic ethical issues that include: poor labour practices and conditions within manufacturing, as well child slavery in mineral sourcing and the supply-chain.
- We hope to help these industries clean up their practices and be part of the solution.