What Do Christian Louboutin, The UN And Macys Have In Common? The Power To End Global Poverty.

This September marks the intersection of two prominent events. The first is the one-year anniversary of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.

The second? It’s New York Fashion Week .

Fashion Week shows from New York to Paris celebrate the stunning creations of unprecedented fashion designers like Tom Ford, Stella McCartney, and Christian Louboutin. But Fashion Week has also led to a problematic trickle-down effect. Snatching designs from the runway at the first flash of photographers’ lights, hundreds of clothing companies plunder the latest trends to produce cheap clothing at lightspeed.

This phenomenon is known as “fast fashion,” and it’s the people making this clothing who concern me the most. From China to India to Bangladesh, garment workers endure long and exhausting work days in largely unregulated, often dangerous factory conditions. Though most might consider themselves lucky to have a job in a struggling economy, the reality is that these jobs are doing very little to lift garment workers and their families out of poverty. The average garment worker - bringing runway-inspired fashion to a Zara near you earns less than $78 per month. (To give that number some perspective: Amancio Ortego, the owner of Zara, has a net worth of over $76 billion.)

The UN wants to see a metamorphosis in how the global marketplace makes goods and sells them. This means pressuring companies to transform their production practices and place a premium on everyone in the supply chain - from the farmer growing the cotton to the cashier ringing up the shirt woven from that cotton.

But clothing companies can’t go it alone. In order to make a lasting impact, we need the world’s leading retailers corporations like Target, Costco, Disney and Walmart to agree as a collective to begin sourcing ethically-made goods. Which means the UN has an even bigger role to play in this. How revolutionary would it be if the UN convened the world’s most powerful retailers, then asked them to commit to a global legal framework upholding ethical production? In the battle for conscious consumerism, this meeting would become the shot heard round the world.

There’s another important factor here, and it’s one that implicates all of us. Retailers aren’t mass producing fast fashion in a vacuum. We, the shoppers, are giving them a reason to. It’s the age-old chicken-egg question: What came first, the glut of cheap trends or the demand for it? Whatever the answer, it’s time to face the fact that we’ve become a nation of stuff-addicts. Today, the average American owns 400 percent more clothing than he or she did 20 years ago. We’re not even shopping because we need to: more often than not, we shop because we’re depressed, anxious, or bored, and see the purchase of material goods as a salve to sooth our souls.

But if shoppers stop and look a little closer, we’ll find that there’s a different kind of salve available: one with the ability to make us feel empowered by our purchases, knowing that a worker a nation away earns enough income to feed her family. All of us, together, have the power to pressure companies to improve their production practices by demanding answers to questions like: Who made this pair of jeans? Did they receive a fair wage? Are their children able to go to school? How transparent is this brand’s supply chain?

It’s in the interest of retailers to take these questions seriously as well. The fact that brick-and-mortar retail has taken a major hit in recent years is hardly news. This year alone, Macy’s announced plans to shutter 100 stores - and that’s on the heels of companies like Target, JC Penny, Kmart and Kohls having shut down hundreds of storefronts in recent months.

These companies are missing an opportunity to connect more deeply with their customer base. A whopping 84 percent of consumers claim to seek out ethically-sourced products whenever possible, but 81 percent say the lack of availability of such products is the biggest barrier to purchasing them more often. The time is ripe for retailers to step up and fill this gap, forging more intimate links between the products they sell and customers they sell to. (Which, of course, will only lead to an increasingly loyal customer base.)

Luckily, there are already many key players interested in promoting the UN’s goal of sustainable production and consumption. West Elm, Eileen Fisher, Patagonia and many others are among the torch-bearers. Even H&M, once the poster child for fast fashion, is now aiming for more transparent and ethical supply chains. My company, Same Sky , stands with these companies. Our hand-crafted jewelry is produced by HIV+ women in Rwanda and formerly incarcerated women in New Jersey. Our goal is to help women lift themselves out of poverty through the dignity of equitable work, but our mission is about shoppers, too. We want our customers to buy with pride, to treasure their jewelry and share its story.

We all have the power to create a more soulful economy and help the UN achieve its SDGs. Below are some steps that all of us can take together.

1. Make a pledge. Vow to spend 30 percent, 15 percent or even 5 percent of your purchases on ethical products. Or sign the Clean Clothes Campaign and make your voice heard. You can also visit change.org to view their list of opportunities to pressure the fast fashion industry to improve their practices.

2. Download and use an ethical consumer app, such as OpenLabel , BuyCott , GoodGuide , or Not My Style (launching in Fall 2016) which give you information about products you won’t find on the label.

3. Register yourself or your company with www.goodwellworld.com , to join the Goodwell mission of promoting transparency and uniting conscious consumers around the world.

As consumers, we have the opportunity to make a dent in global poverty and give shopping new meaning. So as Fashion Week wraps, and the anniversary of the UN’s SDGs begins, think about what you can do to help affect change. You could petition Fashion Week to incorporate a day of runway shows featuring only ethical labels.

More importantly, next time you see a pair of Christian Louboutin knockoffs, think twice.

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This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”). The SDGs represent an historic agreement a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here .