Kanye West's Yeezy brand has become a world-famous clothing and footwear brand. Sports shoes and hoodies sold by the brand are very expensive. But how do you get the price of 98 euros, which is almost 53,000 AMD, for a hoodie? First, the factory produces that hoodie, which will cost 13.44 euros. The hoodie then has to be shipped to the country of sale, meaning shipping and insurance costs of around €0.90. Then you need to pay customs duty at the border: 2.24 euros for each hoodie. Added to this are store costs and taxes of €2.70 and €1.80, respectively. In total, it turns out that Kanye spent €21.08 per hoodie and earned €75. Of course, he also spends on marketing, advertising, and branding. But is it fair that factory workers receive such a small percentage of the product's value?

Today, most clothing is produced in Asia. And most of the workers are not paid even the minimum living wage, i.e. enough wages to live on. Bangladeshi workers are considered the lowest paid in the industry in the world. In Cambodia and China, the minimum wage should be at least twice moreso that people can simply live. Very often, workers are forced to work 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week. During the peak season, they can work until 2 or 3 in the morning to meet the brand's deadlines. Even children have to work in factories because their families have no money. In other words, they cannot get a quality education and somehow get out of that chain.

There is a Global Slavery Index, a modern slavery index. Recently, the amount of slave labor in the fashion industry has increased. There is a big difference between how much money is needed to live in these countries and the wages that workers actually receive. If you don't want to be a part of this, you want to buy clothes that are made properly and the workers are paid decent wages, pay attention to such credentials/certificates. Fortunately, some organizations are trying to solve this problem. For example, Oeko-Tex focuses on product safety for human health. They update their standards every year.

But there are brands that think about sheep and even use them in their marketing. There is a very cute eco-sustainable brand called Sheep Included. They put trackers on the goats, and by buying the sweater, you can not only find out which farm in New Zealand the sheep that provided the wool for your clothes live but also know its name and see its location. Sheep Included's goats graze freely in the pastures, are treated humanely, are well fed, lead a natural and healthy lifestyle, and are not harmed. Sheep wool, however, is an environmentally sustainable material if the animals are treated well and responsibly. This is a renewable material. After shearing, the wool grows back.

Once, a young journalist, Tess McLure, went on another trip for her article. She arrived in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, and then drove to the village of Anjoma Ramartina. It was dangerous to go alone, so a convoy of local cars accompanied her. It takes a day to reach the village, but it is very dangerous to be on the street after 5 pm, so they had to find a place for dinner and a safe night. In the morning, they continued their journey. The closer they got to the village, the more clearly they felt that there were rose quartz, amethyst, and tourmaline under their feet. Jewelry is made from amethyst and quartz. And pink quartz is also used in face massagers that are trending now.

When they approached the village, the girl was informed that most of the houses in the village had no electricity, no connection, and no running water. Approaching the village, she saw children working in the mines. Children used to break rocks and find quartz, amethyst, and other minerals. Finding precious stones and metals is extremely hard work, even for adults. The workers, mostly children, go underground. The deeper it is, the less air there is, and it is very difficult to breathe. Finding the stones, they carry them all up and start breaking them. This is not only physically difficult but also dangerous for health. When you break the stones, the dust and the smallest particles of quartz settle on the lungs and cause inflammation.

There is also a possibility of landslides which, unfortunately, often happens. The soil falls on the workers, and they die. For 1 kg of pink quartz, a worker gets only 23 cents and can buy only one cup of rice in the local market. And one 200-gram massaging roller costs 48 USD at Sephora. Marketers, Instagram bloggers, online stores, shareholders of online platforms, etc., earn money in a chain. Is it true that a blogger who sets up lighting for 10 minutes to photograph a jade massager will earn more than a kid who went down a mine and scraped stone all day?

If the work is so hard, why don't they stop doing it? Why don't they leave? Why don't they go to school? The problem is that they have no money and live on an average of $2 a day. They have families as we do, and they also get tired of physical work, but they don't have the education or connections to get out of this situation in any way.

Endangered species of South Africa and Botswana live in these reserves. These animals include elephants, rhinoceroses, leopards and giraffes. Along with providing jobs, De Beers supports programs that focus on health and education, empowering women and girls, and invests in local entrepreneurs; as of today, the company helps 700 entrepreneurs and 7,500 individuals in Botswana and South Africa.

This year, Cartier also switched to sustainable jewelry production, that is, without child labor, without slavery, with safe conditions for workers. They have announced that they will strive to reduce their ecological footprint, track their industrial waste and use of chemical mixtures, and reduce the use of water and energy resources.

De Beers has been mining diamonds since 1871 and is considered one of the most responsible and sustainable diamond mining companies. De Beers diamonds are mined at their own mines in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Canada, which means they can control the entire process of extraction, labor use, worker pay, conditions and safety. At the same time, they fight for the protection of the animal world. They have allocated 200,000 hectares (six times the area of their mining enterprises) to the animals, which is known as the Diamond Road and includes 8 nature reserves.

A girl named Annick lived in London and led a vegan lifestyle. She knew where to buy good vegan foods and what recipes to use. But it was not always easy to find vegan and eco-friendly cosmetics, creams or clothes. She was constantly searching for sustainable cosmetics and brands on Google, reading articles, and checking information. Still, she could not find a single platform with all the necessary information to enter and learn everything quickly. That's why she decided to do it herself. With her friends Simon and Vai, she collected vegan cosmetics, clothing and accessories brands and created the website Immaculate Vegan. Actually, this is a marketplace. The site has no physical space for storage. The marketplace is like an online supermarket without space.

Various products are presented on the website. The buyer selects the product, and the order is sent directly to the manufacturer. The task of the marketplace is to select and sort the producers. And what to do if you want to understand how sustainable certain cosmetics are? For this, the Environmental Working Group has created a database, the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, which lists 78,000 toxic ingredients in cosmetics. You can even write the name of the product you bought or want to buy there, and the database will show the toxic additives contained in it.

Let's move to Asia, the capital of South Korea, Seoul. Today, the city is one of the leaders in the field of new technologies and environmentally sustainable solutions. But Seoul once had the Cheonggyecheon River (pronounced "Jung-ge-chun"), and because of the high level of pollution, it looked like a sewer. Instead of clearing it, the local authorities decided to cover it with concrete and build a highway instead. It became a highway with more than 168,000 vehicles passing each day. But as the population and employment declined, and some companies moved their headquarters to Gangnam, the highway lost its competitiveness. Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak decided to restore and clean the river. By the way, Lee Myung-bak later became the president of South Korea and was convicted of corruption and imprisoned for 15 years.

The quality of air, water and, in general, the life of citizens has improved. In addition, two parts of the city that were previously separated by road infrastructure were reunited. The essential habitat for local fish, amphibians, insects and birds has been restored.