THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Sustainable investment expert Sasja Beslik thinks the fashion industry is a very poor performer and possibly a stranded asset.
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Sasja Beslik, Head of Sustainable Finance Development at J Safra Sarasin, fled Bosnia when he was 18 to escape the war. He ended up in Sweden and today spends his time leveraging the power of the financial sector to improve the world. He is particularly interested in the fashion industry's impact on people and has recently attracted attention for his calculations showing that a well-known fashion brand could afford to pay living wages to garment workers by increasing the prices on their clothes by only a few cents. In this interview Sasja weighs in on the apparel industry's sustainability performance and - spoiler alert - he comes down very hard on the industry. Sasja and Mike cover a range of topics, including the strengths, weaknesses and greenwashing of the sustainable investment industry in general, why he thinks apparel brands should be more directly responsible for paying living wages to factory workers, why a t-shirt should be more expensive, and why, despite it all, the fashion industry is still worth investing in.
United States
