The fashion industry is the world’s second most polluting industry. By 2050, it’s expected to consume 25% of the worlds yearly carbon budget.
As part of my work experience with Context, I learned how one of the world’s biggest fashion companies, H&M Group (a Context client), is reporting on sustainability. I wanted to find out more about how some of its competitors are dealing with sustainability and reporting on their progress. This is a report on my findings.
I benchmarked the companies across four categories using their own website content and reports:
Does the company’s description of their business strategy include sustainability?
Where is the sustainability performance information housed?
What are the main messages and topics highlighted by the company’s 2020 performance reporting?
Are the company’s key 2020 sustainability achievements easy to understand?
What I found:
Companies’ business strategies vary in detail, but most have integrated sustainability into the business strategy to some extent. Of the companies assessed, Inditex has the most emphasis on sustainability within their business model.
Gap Inc. and Bestseller share sustainability performance information in a dedicated sustainability report, whereas ASOS and Inditex integrate it into their annual report. Gap Inc. was unique among the assessed companies for having a separate ‘Equality and Belonging Report’ dedicated to the social side of their sustainability work. The report emphasises their core focuses of representation within their workforce and empowering women.
The companies’ sustainability strategies cover similar topics, but each prioritise different aspects of those topics. For example, human rights is a common denominator in all the reports: Gap Inc. focuses on gender equality, Inditex concentrates on traceability and treatment of employees, ASOS supports communities through job opportunities, and Bestseller wants to improve working conditions. ASOS also has a significant focus on the wellbeing of their workforce and their community. They recently held 20 live educational events during Mental Health Awareness Week for colleagues and customers, and in response to the Black Lives Matter movement created a BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) colleague forum to give a voice to minority groups within their community.
The level of performance information shared varies significantly between companies, as does ease of understanding. We found Gap Inc. the best company at communicating their sustainability performance. Their reports and website have clear sections and include detailed performance data, as well as how they measure it, and give updates and progress on their initial goals.
My conclusions:
I found that companies organise their sustainability information very differently, using different types of reports and levels of integration, choosing to emphasise issues that they feel are important to their business. But they structure sustainability topics similarly, splitting sustainability into three main strands – the social, the cultural, and the environmental.
Overall, this benchmark has helped me understand the many programs, campaigns, and policies that leading fashion companies use to promote their sustainability work and meet their future needs.
Surely this is a quicker route to circularity than trying to unpick and recycle modern, blended fabrics? Chuck the stuff in an incinerator, capture the energy and make sure you catch the toxic fumes too. Job done?
Fashion and cosmetics companies have been burning their excess stock for years. It’s the most efficient way to get rid of items that would otherwise harm your brand if they flooded the market at low prices. And you can claim you’re recovering valuable energy that would otherwise be lost to landfill.
But as with every issue in the sustainability debate, there is no right answer when it comes to managing the 39 million tonnes of clothes we throw out every year.
Here are four reasons to keep burning:
Lots of jobs. Fashion employs an estimated 430 million people worldwide offering a way out of poverty. Most of these people are women who have little or no real job opportunities. Covid has been a disaster for millions of people who are now without jobs as the fashion industry has cancelled orders as it fights for its own survival. Sustainability arguments are predicated on fewer pieces being made. After Covid, that means even fewer jobs in the industry. And that means continued poverty for millions, especially in Asia.
Incineration is better than landfill. While some old clothes are re-sold, re-used and go to good causes, the bulk end up in in a hole in the ground. There the natural fabrics contribute to methane production which is a powerful greenhouse gas. The synthetics contribute to plastics pollution: fashion accounts for up to 35 per cent of microplastic flows into the ocean
Incineration is clean. Modern, well-managed incinerators are clean-burning and state of the art pollution control equipment prevents toxic emissions (such as dioxins).
Burning gives back. All the energy in fabrics is captured and can be used for district heating and/or electricity generation. Ask the citizens of Copenhagen who have an incinerator in the city with a roof designed to be used as a dry ski slope (but unused for years for safety reasons).
And here are four reasons to stop burning:
Incineration produces waste, some quite nasty. While it is technically possible to scrub the emissions free of toxins, nothing runs that efficiently and even the best incinerators pollute while producing potentially dangerous ash. How much air pollution, and how dangerous the ash, is open to debate but the negatives must be balanced with the downsides of other forms of waste disposal.
Principles 1. Using incineration as an excuse for over-production undermines efficiency and is, well, wilfully wasteful. Using incineration as a get-out-of-jail card defeats the principles behind the efficient use of the planet’s resources.
Principles 2. The world has (largely) accepted the waste hierarchy: reduce, re-use, repair, recycle, recover, dispose. Using incineration as the first, not the last resort, contradicts good planetary practice.
Circularity killer. Creating a waste-free circular economy is deemed to be a good thing. Easy access to incineration kills the idea. Dead.
The way forward is predictably complicated. All the arguments being used to plunge a knife into the heart of fast fashion are perfectly sensible and valid. But only if – and this is a very big if – only if ways are found to provide fair jobs for the bulk of the 430 million unfairly facing destitution.
Sustainable apparel was a key topic during this year’s London Fashion Week, and for good reason. The apparel industry knows their current status quo — the one that made them the fourth largest polluter of air and water, and responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions — is not a good look.
I recently came across the Save The Planet Go Nude campaign, which aims to educate consumers on the impact conventional clothing has on the environment. The campaign was launched by sustainable apparel company Toad&Co. This reminded me that within an industry that’s struggling to mitigate its impact, a select number of brands have found success with sustainability. And I wanted to know how.
I sat down with Toad&Co’s Materials Manager, Ciara Cates, to understand their approach to sustainability and how other apparel brands can follow suit.
Meet Toad&Co:
…hell-raisers in sustainable fashion, guided by three main principles: make quality clothing worth the resources we use, change the way clothing is made, and give back to people and planet.
Q1: What does sustainability mean to Toad&Co?
CC: Sustainability makes us who we are and is a personal passion of our CEO. Although sustainability is integrated
into every aspect of the business, we primarily focus on three main initiatives:
Eco materials – Our recently launched Spring 2019 line is 100% eco. This means every garment is made from a minimum of 80% sustainable fibers and/or fabrics that are 3rd party certified for responsible manufacturing.
Renewed apparel – We partnered with the Renewal Workshop to extend the life of our
garments by transforming damaged, excess, and returned Toad&Co clothes so they can be resold and worn for longer.
Reusable
shippers – We reduced the waste associated with our shipping by working with Limeloop. They developed a reusable shipper (made from vinyl recycled from billboards) that last for 10 years.
Q2: There are many environmental impacts of apparel, why did Toad&Co choose to prioritize those three?
CC: We looked at the lifecycle of our clothing and started asking, where are our biggest impacts? Eco materials were a natural focus for us. As an apparel company, we were already keeping a close eye on our fiber portfolio. Not only is it easy to trace, but when managed correctly it can reduce our impact on the environment, benefit our fiber suppliers, and lead to cost savings.
We also knew we could reduce our impact by extending the life of our garments. Partnering with the Renewal Workshop means used clothing, including those with tears, broken zippers or missing buttons can be reused, instead of going to landfill.
Addressing our shipping was a no-brainer for our logistics team. We knew there must be a way to reduce the amount of waste generated from shipping, we just needed to find it.
Not so fun fact: in the U.S. more than 85% of clothing is sent to landfill
Q3: What were some challenges to achieving the three initiatives?
CC: For eco materials, we had to find good suppliers at a good price, this took a lot of searching. But it was
worth it. We ended up with likeminded suppliers that were just as interested in providing eco materials as we are in using them. As a result, we have a smaller supply chain made up of quality partners.
When it came to re-purposing used Toad&Co garments and finding a solution for our shipping, we really had the same dilemma… where do we even start? Since we aren’t experts in these areas, we knew we had to find partners that were. That’s how we ended up working with the Renewal Workshop and Limeloop.
Q4: Brands note cost as a roadblock to creating more sustainable clothes, how has Toad&Co gotten around this?
CC: We deal with cost issues too. When we’re faced with price, sourcing, or other challenges, we get really creative and really resourceful to meet our sustainability standards. I like to think of this as the MacGyver approach.
For us choosing sustainability isn’t the easy route, it’s the only route
Q5: Where do you think the trend of sustainable apparel will be in 5 years?
CC: I’ve worked in sustainability for more than a decade, and in recent years I’ve seen a lot of progress. I think this progress will continue for the apparel industry due to a few drivers.
First, the price for resources like energy and water will continue to rise, so companies will inherently find solutions to reduce their consumption. Secondly, the pressures from consumers and regulators will only continue to grow. And lastly, I think technology will make a huge contribution to our industry by making supply chain transparency and sustainability attainable. Mapping and understanding your supply chain are huge tasks for companies, this will free up time and resources for them to implement sustainable solutions.
Q6: What advice would you give other apparel companies starting their sustainability journey?
CC: Understand where your biggest impacts are and start with the low hanging fruit. Use the momentum from these wins
to tackle more complex issues. Brands should also view their suppliers as partners – they can be huge in helping to achieve sustainability goals. Certification agencies are also a great resource, they have a pulse on the industry and are there to provide expert guidance.
Lastly, it’s important to remember that this is a marathon not a sprint. For example, it took us over a decade to achieve 100% organic cotton from when we first started using it. Implementing initiatives can take time, but it will pay off.
