Daill Mail - 08.08.2019

Page 54 Daily Mail, Thursday, August 8, 2019

54 femailMAGAZINE

by Radhika

Sanghani

Clothes that help save the planet are

the latest trend. But are shoppers who

embrace ‘sustainable’ ranges having the

(recycled) wool pulled over their eyes?

but are all sustainable items

equally saintly?

Take Asos’s Responsible Edit,

described as a ‘one-stop home’ for

environmentally-conscious clothing,

accessories and living items from

different brands featured on the

website. One of the first products

to come up is a recycled T-shirt.

The description is promising:

‘Made with recycled cotton. Instead

of ending up in landfill, clothes and

textile waste are reclaimed and

turned into new fibres. This saves

water and energy. Bonus: it

reduces C0 2 emissions, too.’

It doesn’t tell me exactly how

much cotton is recycled, but it’s

the next line that makes me pause

before clicking ‘add to bag’. It

describes the fabric as 50 per cent

cotton, 50 per cent polyester.

Can a T-shirt that contains poly-

ester really be considered envi-

ronmentally-conscious? Admit-

tedly, polyester can be recycled,

but not if — as in this case — it’s

blended with another material, as

mixed fibres cannot be recycled.

As the fashion industry has no

standard to define sustainability, a

garment can be labelled ‘sustaina-

ble’ even if it contains only 1 per

cent organic cotton or is combined

with a man-made synthetic fabric.

Asos said that, for a product to

feature in its Responsible Edit

range, it must contain 50 per cent

sustainable materials at a mini-

mum; the only exception to this is

recycled cotton, which has a lower

threshold (20 per cent) due to tech-

nical limitations with the fibre.

‘If a brand sells an item as

sustainable, then usually some-

thing on the label says why — but

not always,’ says Tamsin Lejeune,

CEO of Common Objective, a tech

platform designed to make it easy

for fashion professionals to

work sustainably.

It’s positive to see big brands

taking action, but are they just

telling shoppers what they

want to hear? Inditex,

the world’s largest

clothes producer

and owner of

Zara, promises

all its clothes

will be made

from sustain-

able fabrics

by 2025.

H&M vows

to use 100 per

cent sustain-

able cotton by

2020, and ensure

all its products

are made from

sustainably sourced

materials by 2030.

Maxine Bedat is the founder

of the New Standard Institute

(NSI), a scientific organisation

focused on improving sustainability

in fashion. She is concerned that

brands merely pay lip service.

‘It almost feels like sustainable

fashion is the latest trend,’ she

says. ‘I question whether a lot of

brands are truly reducing impact

— or just trying to be trendy.’

While she praises the commit-

ments of Zara to stop using

hazardous chemicals by 2020 and

H&M’s promise to ensure workers

are paid fairly, she believes their

biggest vow — to eventually use

100 per cent sustainable fabrics —

is ‘so loosely defined as to be mean-

ingless’. The NSI has created a

‘measuring stick of sustainability’

called the Life Cycle Assessment

(LCA), which tallies a company’s

total carbon, water and chemical

footprint, and requires them to

make these details public.

A number of brands, including

Stella McCartney, Patagonia and

Kering (the group that owns

Gucci) use this system, but the

majority of High Street retailers

have yet to sign up.

While some use other measures,

many keep their figures private.

Mango says between 2017 and

2018 it doubled the number of

garments produced sustainably

and plans to ‘increase’ the per-

centage of sustainable fabrics

used in all collections, but hasn’t

yet stated its figures publicly.

A

N INDITEX spokes-

man said: ‘We produce

durable, high-quality

fashion which custom-

ers can wear again and again. We

strive to create products that are

not only right for our customers,

but right for the people who create

them, and work in partnership

with suppliers, unions, govern-

ments and other brands to do so.

‘We know where our garments

are made and the social and envi-

ronmental conditions in which

they are produced, and our sup-

pliers must follow our stringent

code of conduct which empha-

sizes workers’ rights.

‘Sustainability is a neverending

goal and we have set very specific

commitments and targets, notably

that by 2025, we will use only

organic, sustainable or

recycled cotton, polyes-

ter and linen.’

Asos says it trans-

parently and pub-

licly reports its

uptake of sustain-

able fibres each

year via the Tex-

tile Exchange

benchmark. The

number of clothes

it sells that are

made from recycled

materials varies over

time, so it is not able

to give a fixed percent-

age on this.

‘We’re working to increase

our use of recycled fibres as these

are always preferable to virgin

fibres. We recognise the impor-

tance of designing products with

recyclability in mind from the

start, which is why we’ve part-

nered with the Centre for Sustain-

able Fashion. We have many varied

commitments, of which training

our designers on circular design is

just one.’

An H&M spokesperson said they

display the precise material com-

position of every single garment

they sell online. ‘For a material to

be labelled as Conscious, at least

50 per cent of the material compo-

sition must be recycled or sustain-

ably sourced. This is the minimum

requirement, but a lot of our Con-

scious garments far exceed this.

‘One of our goals is to use 100 per

cent sustainably sourced or recy-

cled materials by 2030 — currently

57 per cent of the materials we use

meet this standard.

‘H&M group will never decide for

itself whether a material can be

considered sustainable. We follow

the Textile Exchange’s Preferred

Fiber & Materials benchmark to

establish the sustainability creden-

tials of a material; and for us to

class a material as sustainable, it

must also meet the independent

accreditation requirements of a rel-

evant third-party body.’

Mango did not respond to a

request for a comment.

Here’s our guide on how to shop

sustainably — and whether you

can do it on the High Street.

CAN POLYESTER BE A

SUSTAINABLE FABRIC?

POLyESTER is the world’s most

commonly used fibre, but the

chemical process by which it is

made from crude oil releases

pollutants into the atmosphere,

depletes finite resources and does

not easily biodegrade. Worse, if it’s

blended with other fibres, such as

cotton, it cannot be recycled.

A more sustainable alternative is

said to be recycled polyester, which

forms much of H&M’s Conscious

collection. Mainly made from recy-

cled plastic bottles, it takes between

30 and 50 per cent less energy to

make, doesn’t use up oil reserves

and reduces the amount of polyes-

ter disposed in landfill.

But each time plastic is reheated

for recycling it degrades, so it

cannot be recycled indefinitely.

Then there’s the problem of

polyester garments releasing

plastic microfibres into water when

washed. Already, 110kg of micro-

fibres enter waterways daily for

every 100,000 people — the equiva-

lent of the pollution caused by

about 15,000 plastic bags.

Recycled polyester might be

even worse at shedding plastic

microparticles. ‘Reports on

water contaminated as a result of

synthetic clothes being

washed found recycled fabrics are

the worst; they degraded more in

water,’ says Tamsin Lejeune.

‘you can’t call a recycled

polyester collection sustainable.’

TOP TIP: Check labels and avoid all

polyester, whether recycled or not.

WHAT COTTON LABELS

SHOULD I LOOK FOR?

THE term ‘sustainable cotton’ is

used by High Street retailers, but

there’s no set definition.

It can refer to five different

initiatives, from Certified Organic

which strictly monitors pesticide

and insecticide use, to Fairtrade

which guarantees farmers a fair

minimum price for their cotton,

and the Better Cotton Initiative

(BCI) which tries to improve the

social, economic and environmen-

tal outcomes for farmers.

But BCI, which Zara and Mango

grow their cotton in line with, has

been criticised for its tolerance of

pesticides and GM crops, as well

as its lack of clear figures about

how much water it aims to reduce

in cotton production. ‘There’s a

difference between BCI which is

slightly sustainable, and things

like organic cotton and Fairtrade

cotton which have specifics,’ says

ethical trade consultant Clare

L

IKE many people, I worry about how my

everyday choices affect the planet, from

the food I eat to the clothes I wear.

And as someone who likes to dress well — and can’t

resist the lure of a discount rail — I was horrified to

learn that the fashion and textile industry is one of the largest

polluters in the world, second only to oil, according to the UN.

Every stage in the life cycl e of our clothing causes damage to

the natural world, from toxic chemicals used in factories to the

carbon footprint of shipping goods globally, which is partly why

the clothing industry is responsible for more than 8 per cent of

all the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Fortunately, things are changing. Walk into any High Street

shop, or click onto an online store, and you’ll find ranges

claiming to be ‘conscious’, ‘better’ or ‘eco’. It all sounds great,

Star

backers

Celebrities promoting

more sustainable

fashion include Emma

Watson, Jessica Alba,

Gwyneth Paltrow and

Miranda Kerr

saintly

ISN’T

as

as it seems

Why

fashion

ECO

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