22 organisations sign up to clothing commitment

The commitment, co-ordinated by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), was launched yesterday (June 20) and will see signatories and supporters commit to reducing the waste, water and carbon footprints of clothing by 2020, against a 2012 baseline.

The 22 companies represent more than a third of UK clothing sales and consist of high street retailers, charities, recyclers and other major players in the industry. They include fashion retailers Arcadia Group, Next and Marks & Spencer alongside Tesco and Sainsburys. Government department Defra and the British Retail Consortium have also signed up.

There are seven action areas for the signatories to focus on (see letsrecycle.com story) including driving clothing out of landfill and reducing the environmental footprint of clothing through fibre and fabric selection.

To help the organisations measure their overall carbon, water and waste footprints, WRAP has developed a spreadsheet-based footprint calculator. This tool, for the first time, will enable companies to quantify and report the total global impacts of the clothes they make, sell and recover, in a consistent way.

WRAP said this baseline data for 2012 will enable the signatories not only to identify and agree targets for carbon, water and waste savings, to be delivered by 2020.

Opportunity

Liz Goodwin, WRAP chief executive, said: The fact that 22 organisations have already signed a commitment that explicitly sets out their determination to reduce the carbon, water and waste footprints of clothing is very encouraging. We know that overall, clothing contributes around 5% of the carbon footprint and between 6-8% of the water footprint of all the UKs goods and services. It also accounts for more than 1 million tonnes of wasted materials, making it the most significant category for consumption impacts after food and drink, housing and transport.

Dr Goodwin added: SCAP is an opportunity for all players in the sector to work together to reduce these impacts, making individual changes for a common good. The launch of the calculator represents an important step forward.

Benefits

The initiative has also received support from both resource minister Lord de Mauley and Scottish environment secretary Richard Lochhead who said they were pleased to see so many organisations working together to reduce the environmental impact of clothing.

Lord de Mauley said: I am very pleased to see so many leading UK organisations signing up and making this important commitment towards reducing the environmental impacts of clothing. I hope that other UK organisations will join them in the coming weeks. By working together in this way, government, industry and third sector can deliver real economic benefits, and reduce carbon, waste and water impacts.

The full list of signatories and supporters are: Arcadia Group; ASOS; BCR Global Textiles; Biov8tion; British Retail Consortium; Centre for Sustainable Fashion (LCF); Clothes Aid; Defra; East London Textiles Ltd; Ethical Expert; GOTS; I&G Cohen; John Lewis; Lawrence M Barry & Co (LMB); Made-By; Marks & Spencer; Next; Next Best Clothing / Bags2School; Sainsburys; Salvation Army Trading Company; Tesco; and, Textile Recycling Association.