The Fashion Industry Commits to Go Green
The food industry has been under the loop for some time, when it comes to adopting to go green. The clothing industry has just recently started to commit to a more sustainability approach.
For a long time role models like Stella McCartney has been advocating for pursuing a more sustainable fashion line, also smaller companies have made attempts.
Just recently brands like H&M, Zara, GUCCI, Vivienne Westwood and Versace have commit to a greener approach, just to mention a few. All of them going green in their own way. It will be interesting to see how much of the production chain they can make sustainable. It is after all important that bigger brands push factories to act on smarter production and fabric sourcing.
In a study by ECAP supported by Life funding, “Sustainability Strategies For The European Clothing Sector – Fibre Footprints”, one have set a sustainable Fibre Framework:
FIBRE BASELINE: Baseline fibre footprint and understand key impacts
SET STRATEGY: Set strategy and targets to integrate more sustainable fibres
IMPLEMENTATION: Implement sustainable fibre strategy with guidance
FIBRE ENDLINE: Track progress and uptake of sustainable fibres
COMMUNICATE: Communicate progress and share learnings across the sector
The aim is to help set some standards in order to get started. The study claims that it is important to cut the environmental impact across the clothing supply chain and generate value for business through collaboration, measuring and sharing best practice. That means companies should understand the fibre baseline, invest in internal engagement, frequently talk to suppliers and most of all, learning by doing.
The total quantity of clothing consumed in the EU-28 in 2015 was: 6.4 million tonnes. Annual carbon, water and waste footprints for this total quantity are: CARBON 195 million tCO2e WATER 46 400 million m3 WASTE 11.1 million tonnes.
(Source: ECAP’s Mapping the clothing impacts across Europe report)
As a small company we work in order to keep a transparency towards our clients and have started to set a fibre baseline and set a strategy.
We hope you will join us on this journey!
