The document, the Sustainable Clothing Guide, provides information on how to extend the life of clothes by making changes in design and production.
Emphasis is placed on boosting both physical and ‘emotional’ durability of clothing. The guide provides ‘actions to enhance durability’ such as timeless design, use of quality materials and dyes as well as incentivising reuse through providing ‘in-store take back options.’
Report
Underpinning the guide is a clothing durability report with technical data on extending the life of clothes. This demonstrates the importance of good practice in order to “aid moves towards garments that will last longer and thus help to protect brand value, screen out garments which fail prematurely and reduce the environmental impact of the clothing sector.”
WRAP research has shown that extending the life of clothes by nine extra months of active use would reduce carbon, water and waste footprints by around 20%-30% each and cut resource costs by £5 billion.
In addition, the technical data showed that more durable clothing can strengthen brand reputation.
SCAP
The guide comes under the remit of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP). Led by WRAP, the initiative aims to improve the sustainability of clothing across its lifecycle by bringing together industry, government and the third sector.
As part of the action plan, the SCAP 2020 Commitment was launched in 2013 for leading clothing sector companies to pledge to measure and reduce their environmental footprints (see letsrecycle.com story). SCAP is overseen by a steering group and four working groups including design for clothing life, reuse and recycling, influencing consumer behaviours and metrics.
F&F at Tesco, George at ASDA, John Lewis, Stella McCartney and Cath Kidston have provided insight for the development of WRAP’s new guide.
Leigh Mapledoram, programme area manager, sustainable textiles WRAP, said that WRAP’s focus is on catalysing and supporting sector action in the seven areas of the SCAP 2020 Commitment with a particular focus on clothing durability and undertaking further pilots.
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