Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
 Printable version
|
 E-mail this to a friend
|
Sustainable Clothing action plan launched at London Fashion Week
A new action plan to make fashion more sustainable and less environmentally damaging was launched today at the start of London Fashion Week, by Defra Minister Lord Hunt.
The Sustainable Clothing Roadmap has brought together over 300 organisations, from high street retailers, to designers and textile manufacturers to battle the environmental impacts of 'throw away fashion'. Companies and some of the biggest names in fashion have signed up to take actions to make a significant difference to the environmental footprint and social inequalities which blight some of the production and retail processes of consumer fashion.
While having many economic benefits, clothing has a significant environmental and ethical impact ranging from increased carbon emissions, waste, water usage and pollution to child labour and unfair trading conditions. The clothing and textiles sector in the UK alone produces around 3.1 million tonnes of CO2, 2 million tonnes of waste and 70 million tonnes of waste water per year - with 1.5 million tonnes of unwanted clothing ultimately ending up in landfill.
Lord Philip Hunt, Minister for Sustainability
said:
"This action plan represents a concerted effort
from the fashion industry, including top names in the high street
and manufacturers to change the face of fashion.
"Retailers have a big role to play in ensuring fashion is sustainable. We should all be able to walk into a shop and feel that the clothes we buy have been produced without damaging the environment or using poor labour practices, and that we will be able to reuse and recycle them when we no longer want them.
"I'm delighted that so many fashion companies have signed up to the sustainable clothing action plan and I look forward to seeing these actions come to fruition."
Action takers for the roadmap will be concentrating on the
following key areas:
1. Improving environmental performance
across the supply chain, including: sustainable design; fibres and
fabrics; maximising reuse, recycling and end of life management;
and clothes cleaning.
2. Awareness, media, education and
networks for the sustainability of clothes.
3. Promoting
markets for sustainable clothing.
4. Improving traceability
along the supply chain (environmental, ethical, and trade).
Actions that retailers are taking include:
* Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury - all of these have
signed up to a range of actions on increasing their ranges of Fair
Trade and Organic, increasing take back and recovery of unwanted
clothing and supporting fibres/fabrics that enable clothing
recycling.
* In addition M&S and Tesco are supporting
green clothing factories, improving
animal welfare across
their supply chain and increasing consumer awareness on washing at
30 degrees centigrade.
* Tesco - are extending their
traceability programme across cotton supply chains to ban cotton
from countries known to use child labour as well as carbon
labelling of Tesco laundry detergents.
* Nike - applying their
Considered Design ethos to improving the sustainability
performance and innovation of all their product ranges
* Adili
and Continental Clothing - Continental Clothing have measured and
reduced the carbon footprint of their clothing products. They are
now working with sustainable online retailer Adili to promote
carbon labelling to consumers.
* T Shirt and Sons - already
using organic cotton to manufacture their T Shirts, T Shirt and
Sons are now developing the first Global Organic Textile Standard
(GOTS) certified system for eco printing on Organic cotton.
*
Association of Charity Shops, Oxfam, Salvation Army Trading and
Textile Recycling Association - increasing consumer awareness on
the environmental benefits of clothing reuse as well as increasing
clothing recovery infrastructure in the UK. They will open more
"sustainable clothing" boutiques of high quality
second-hand clothing and new sustainably designed garments.
*
Fair Trade Foundation UK - will increase the volume of Fairtrade
cotton products to be in at least 10 per cent of cotton clothing
in the UK by 2012.
* Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the
London College of Fashion - setting up this centre to provide
practical business supports to the clothing sector on
sustainability and fashion.
Notes to editors
1. Please see the roadmap with all actions and the action areas.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/consumerprod/products/clothing.htm
2. For more information on Estethica see http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk
3. Please see quotes from Action Plan participants
http://defrawebd/environment/consumerprod/products/stakeholder-quotes.htm
Public enquiries 08459 335577;
Press notices are available on
our website http://www.defra.gov.uk
Defra's aim is sustainable development
To subscribe
or unsubscribe to Defra's mailing list go to:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk
Once on the GNN website see Sign up
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR
Website
http://www.defra.gov.uk
