What is the hidden human cost of ethical fashion? Explore how clothing supply chains affect garment workers, human rights, and human flourishing.

Every time we buy clothing, we participate in a global supply chain. But how much do we really know about the people who make what we wear?

In this episode of Stories of Impact, Dr. Robert Handfield and Dr. MD Rejaul Hasan of North Carolina State University explain why ethical fashion requires more than environmental sustainability. It also demands safe workplaces, fair treatment, and respect for the human rights of garment workers.

Drawing on decades of supply chain research and firsthand experience in apparel manufacturing, they examine the conditions behind global clothing production, including child labor, forced labor, unsafe factories, and the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh.

The researchers also introduce their proposed Ethical Apparel Index, a project designed to make information about factory working conditions more accessible to consumers and investors. They explain how greater transparency could help people make informed decisions, hold brands accountable, and support better treatment of workers.

At its heart, this conversation is about human flourishing: how our everyday choices connect us to people around the world, and why dignity, safety, and opportunity should matter at every stage of the supply chain.

Chapters:

1. Global supply chains and human rights (2:48)
2. Introducing the Ethical Apparel Index (7:10)
3. The countries and workers behind our apparel (8:08)
4. How transparency can change buying decisions (26:41)
5. What ethical fashion means for human flourishing (28:29)

Dr. Robert Handfield — Bank of America Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, with approximately 35 years of experience studying supply chains.

Dr. MD Rejaul Hasan — Textile engineer and researcher working on the Ethical Apparel Index at North Carolina State University's Poole College of Management. His research draws on experience in the garment manufacturing industry.

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Stories of Impact explores the art and science of human flourishing through conversations about wellbeing, hope, compassion, altruism, mindfulness, spirituality, positive psychology, and human connection. Presented by journalist Richard Sergay and writer-producer Tavia Gilbert, the podcast brings together research, personal stories, and conversations with experts to explore how individuals and communities can flourish.

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. In the next two episodes, we dive into the climate crisis. Today, we hear from Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and tireless advocate for climate justice. She explains why we must include everyone — young people, indigenous groups, women, the natural world — when we talk about the future of our planet.

Learn more:

• Mary Robinson
• The Elders
• Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice
• Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
• More about Constance Okollet
• "East Biloxi loses an icon. She shared MS Coast climate issues across the world."

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. Today, we revisit an episode from last season, where we heard from Dr. Berry Billingsley, an education researcher in Swansea in the UK. Frustrated by the lack of questions in her science class, she began a quest to encourage students to think, about themselves, life, and the universe.

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Catch the video edition of this episode here: Big Questions in Classrooms

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Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. In our last episode, we visited Medellín, Colombia. Today, we travel to Rwanda, a country that was ravaged by the genocide against the Tutsis in 1990, for a story about how a path to forgiveness and piece is possible even after the worst of tragedies.

Today's episode offers a powerful example of courage, peace, and forgiveness. Our story looks back thirty years, to one of the most violent periods in modern history — the genocide against the Tutsi — and to the resilience and wisdom of the Rwandan spirit and heart.

On April 6, 1994, beautiful Rwanda, known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, became a hell on Earth. Between April and July 1994, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered in a horrifying frenzy of state-sponsored terror.

Freddy Mutanguha, an ethnic Tutsi, was just eighteen years old when the genocide began. Today, Freddy shares the story of his unimaginable losses, the miracle of his survival, and his life's work nurturing peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation in his country and across the world. A warning: this episode includes descriptions of murders – it's a difficult listen, but an important one.

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• Learn more about the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the Aegis Trust
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• • Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. Our expert today is not a researcher, but a former world-class dancer: Judith Jamison. Judith sadly passed away in 2024, but when we spoke with her in 2021, she shared the incredible story of revered Black dancer Alvin Ailey and what she's learned from a life spent in the arts.

Learn more:

• Judith Jamison
• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
• Alvin Ailey
• Video: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performing Revelations

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• More about this episode
• Read the transcript of this episode

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. This time, we travel to Medellín, Colombia, to meet Dr. Santiago Tobón. He has dedicated his life to understanding the structures and societal role of Medellín's criminal gangs, why teenagers want to join them, and how to help them see that a lawful life can be prosperous, too.

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. Today we revisit an episode from our first season, aired during the Covid-19 pandemic. Dr. David Sloan Wilson is a biological sciences researcher at Binghamton University, and he explains what actually makes teamwork dream work, how cultures engender or discourage cooperation, and how to get people from different backgrounds to cooperate during times of crisis.

Learn more about David Sloan Wilson and the Evolution Institute.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Elinor Ostrom
• Michelle Gelfand's Tight and Loose Cultures
• Robert Putnuam's Bowling Alone
  
  
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• Supported by the​ Templeton World Charity Foundation

Stories of Impact brings back some of our favorite conversations this season. In our last episode, we heard about the positive effects of coming together and sharing a meal. But for millions of Americans, that rarely happens. In fact, some 20 million people in the US today say they don't have any friends. So how do we solve this loneliness epidemic? Today, we revisit a conversation with Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas, who studies just that.

Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas is the Science Director at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, which tracks cutting edge research studies that focus on how important our relationships, our tendency towards generosity and cooperation, and our sense of mattering or contribution to our communities are to our health and wellbeing over the course of our lives. She wants to understand the science of loneliness.

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation