Can the fashion industry really become more sustainable?

Can a fash­ion col­lec­tion be mar­ket­ed as “cher­ish­ing waste” yet only con­tain a frac­tion of recy­cled mate­ri­als? Cur­rent­ly, yes it can. Is it green­wash­ing? The jury is out. But the UK Com­pe­ti­tion and Mar­kets Author­i­ty (CMA) wants to abol­ish grey areas, pledg­ing to name and shame fash­ion retail­ers that make false or mis­lead­ing claims about their envi­ron­men­tal cre­den­tials.

In March, the CMA said it would pub­licly list fashion’s worst green­wash­ing offend­ers, after pub­lish­ing a report that found 40% of green claims made online could be mis­lead­ing and sub­se­quent­ly launch­ing its Green Claims Code last year. The code is a check­list of 13 require­ments that brands must meet when mak­ing a green claim, to com­ply with con­sumer pro­tec­tion law.

The Cher­ish Waste col­lec­tion in ques­tion was launched by H&M last month and crit­i­cised for green­wash­ing by anti fast-fash­ion cam­paign­ers, includ­ing Vene­tia La Man­na, who cit­ed a pair of den­im-print jog­gers made from 100% cot­ton – the garment’s shell is made from 50% recy­cled cot­ton.

“This is wor­thy of nam­ing and sham­ing,” agrees Orso­la de Cas­tro, co-founder of Fash­ion Rev­o­lu­tion. “I wel­come the CMA’s review but I don’t wel­come steps that take years to turn into action. And sim­ply stop­ping a brand from say­ing some­thing isn’t the same as being gran­u­lar and accu­rate [about their sup­ply chain].”

Cap­sule col­lec­tions such as Cher­ish Waste often come under fire for rep­re­sent­ing a small pro­por­tion of an oth­er­wise large cloth­ing offer­ing – H&M pro­duces 3 bil­lion gar­ments each year. Glob­al­ly, the equiv­a­lent to a rub­bish truck full of clothes ends up in land­fill sites every sec­ond.

Some believe that small­er ranges could lead to sys­temic change if the right para­me­ters are applied. Amy Powney, cre­ative direc­tor of Moth­er of Pearl, points to her recent cloth­ing and home­ware col­lec­tions with John Lewis.

“The team want­ed to tap into the sus­tain­able knowl­edge I had,” she explains. “But it is vital that these col­lec­tions lead to evo­lu­tion­ary change in the com­pa­ny as a whole, not just as a mar­ket­ing one-off.”

Ensuring sustainability is about more than marketing

Fab­rics are one of the most com­mon entry points for retail­ers look­ing to change their busi­ness mod­els. Powney high­lights Ten­cel as a fab­ric that brands should explore for its cel­lu­lose fibre of botan­ic ori­gin, which comes from sus­tain­able forestry.

“For us, our most com­mon­ly used mate­r­i­al is cot­ton – used in 60% of our prod­uct ranges – so we start­ed there,” says Nick Steven­son, trad­ing direc­tor at Fat Face. “We used three cer­ti­fi­ca­tion bod­ies to help us – Bet­ter Cot­ton Ini­tia­tive, Organ­ic Con­tent Stan­dard and the Glob­al Organ­ic Tex­tile Stan­dard and we’re now mov­ing on to our oth­er mate­ri­als.”

But fab­rics rep­re­sent only one part of fashion’s noto­ri­ous­ly com­plex sup­ply chains, sec­tions of which are often untrace­able by the brands them­selves.

“I’d like to see ‘trans­paren­cy’ become the main vocab­u­lary in an indus­try where brands are open and hon­est, where they give real insight into the progress they have made and where they want to improve,” says Powney. “Our web­site is set up so that you can see the ‘sus­tain­able attrib­ut­es’ of each piece. We are trans­par­ent.”

If “sus­tain­able” was the orig­i­nal buzz­word – and one com­ing under scruti­ny by the CMA – “trans­paren­cy” is already vying to replace it. When approached for com­ment, H&M issued a state­ment: “At H&M Group, we strive to act in accor­dance with local reg­u­la­tion and in coop­er­a­tion with the rel­e­vant bod­ies. We wel­come ini­tia­tives that con­tribute to an open dis­cus­sion regard­ing the impor­tance of trans­paren­cy in the fash­ion indus­try.” 

The CMA will have its work cut out to ensure “trans­paren­cy” – along­side emerg­ing terms such as pur­pose­ful, respon­si­ble and regen­er­a­tive – are not co-opt­ed for green­wash­ing gains. As Stel­la McCart­ney said: “I bare­ly even know what the word ‘sus­tain­able’ means any­more.”

But can the CMA’s Green Claim Codes hold any busi­ness to account with­out leg­is­la­tion to sup­port it? De Cas­tro isn’t con­vinced. “Brands like H&M are used to being named and shamed, so noth­ing will be effec­tive unless it comes with indus­try reg­u­la­tion to ensure brands tell the truth,” she says, adding that dis­clos­ing infor­ma­tion such as how much gar­ment work­ers are paid is cru­cial to a trans­par­ent sup­ply chain. 

Legislating to make fashion greener

There is leg­isla­tive hope on the hori­zon. Last month, the gov­ern­ment pub­lished its response to reform­ing com­pe­ti­tion and con­sumer pol­i­cy, includ­ing the inten­tion to give the CMA the pow­er to enforce leg­is­la­tion direct­ly. The CMA would be able to impose a penal­ty of up to 10% of glob­al annu­al turnover to brands that breach such laws. 

“It would be a game chang­er because it would allow the CMA to act fair­ly quick­ly,” says Dun­can Reed, part­ner at law firm TLT. “The cur­rent regime for pun­ish­ing organ­i­sa­tions who mis­lead con­sumers is quite clunky and involves bring­ing pro­ceed­ings through the crim­i­nal courts. This is dif­fer­ent.”

Reed believes we will see some casu­al­ties, not least because the CMA wants to be seen as a “world-lead­ing reg­u­la­tor” post Brex­it. The Euro­pean Secu­ri­ties and Mar­kets Author­i­ty pub­lished its own road map, in which it iden­ti­fied tack­ling green­wash­ing as a pri­or­i­ty.

“The CMA will seek to exer­cise [its pow­ers],” he says, cau­tion­ing retail­ers who can’t trace every part of their sup­ply chains. “They’ll need to tight­en up the indem­ni­ties and war­ranties with­in their sup­ply chains.”

Busi­ness­es can – and many will – wait for reviews and leg­is­la­tion, which are undoubt­ed­ly nec­es­sary. But time isn’t on our side when it comes to the cli­mate emer­gency. Rev­o­lu­tion­ary brands have shown what is pos­si­ble, with­out the threats from gov­ern­ing bod­ies. Busi­ness­es must be account­able for their actions; they have an oblig­a­tion to know and show the peo­ple and resources behind their col­lec­tions with­out sug­ar-coat­ing. 

“I’ve jour­neyed, and con­tin­ue to jour­ney, to find the best fac­to­ries, sup­pli­ers and farm­ers who care about the plan­et and its inhab­i­tants,” says Powney. “We’re a small brand with lim­it­ed means. If we can do it, any­one can.”