SIFO’s advocacy work is influencing international public policy, step by step.
The Dutch Circular Textile Policy Program for 2025-2030, released in December 2024, includes measures to reduce the volume of raw materials used in textiles, including the reduction of incentives that stimulate consumption (low price, advertising, sales), measures to help consumers to make sustainable choices, and limiting the production and import of textiles. As such, this policy takes a daring step towards acknowledging that overproduction and overconsumption are the key challenges in enabling a sustainable clothing sector. In doing so, it shows a higher level of awareness and ambition of impact than the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles issued in 2022, where these issues are completely ignored.
The work of SIFO has been influential to these developments. Irene Maldini has conducted research on growth in the volumes of clothing circulating in the Netherlands and the associated environmental challenges since 2016 and on the development and impact of the Amsterdam policy initiatives to limit local consumption levels since 2020. This research was conducted in her previous affiliation at AUAS. In late 2024, a continuation of this research was published in the Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society, in the context of the CHANGE project and her affiliation at SIFO.
It was long thought that the amount of production is determined by demand, in particular the demand to replace a garment. Research shows that this is not true. The production volume is determined by growth objectives of companies and demand is driven by companies, including by the rapid succession of collections. This means that there is a production-driven system. As a result, textile consumption continues to grow, even though most Dutch people already have more than enough clothing at home. It therefore seems a logical step to investigate a production quota as a solution.
The way that this quota will be implemented has not been yet disclosed, but the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure has assigned the consultancy Sufficiency the task to investigate possibilities and implications. SIFO has provided input stemming from all relevant research conducted during recent years on this, including the proposal for a Targeted Producers Responsibility instrument.
In the context of rapidly emerging policy in recent years, we have worked hard to combine our research activities with advocacy work, so that the results of this research are considered and make an impact. It has not been easy, and we have found that scientific knowledge does not have the place it deserves in environmental policy development. But sometimes, we have found a way in, by being in the right place at the right time.
In September 2024, we left autumnal Oslo behind to embark on a research exchange at the University of Melbourne with the Critical Fashion Studies research collective. This group, led by Professor Natalya Lusty and Dr. Harriette Richards, brings together fashion scholars, practitioners, and industry members to advance research on sustainability, ethics, and innovation in fashion.
During our stay, we had the privilege of attending several inspiring events. In October, we participated in an Ethical Fashion Walking Tour, facilitated by Ethical Clothing Australia as part of Melbourne Fashion Week. The tour took us around the suburb Fitzroy, where we visited local fashion businesses, including Denim Smith, Remuse Designs, and The Social Studio – all ethically accredited.
Among these, we were particularly impressed by Remuse, which works with recycled materials and natural, low-impact dyes. Inspired by their designs, we attended a highly anticipated fashion show later that week, where Remuse was featured. The show was an incredible experience, blending art and fashion in memorable performances.
In the week before Christmas, we were invited by Dr. Alice Payne and Dr. Yassie Smith to give a talk at the RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles for the staff. During the session, we shared insights and findings from our projects and received valuable comments and questions following our presentations. This opportunity allowed us to meet several colleagues who have worked with similar theoretical and methodological perspectives, fostering important connections for potential future collaborations.
The second week of January brought the highlight of our exchange: the Critical Fashion Studies Symposium at RMIT. The symposium focused on rethinking clothing and textile practices and consisted of three panels that explored key themes within sustainable fashion research. Anna participated in the first panel, which delved into circularity and disposal. She presented findings from her project on disposal practices and garment care, with a specific focus on participants’ expressions of care, both towards other people and their clothes. The following panel discussion touched on the challenges facing second-hand clothing markets in Australia. This session provided fascinating insights into how circularity is approached within the local context. The audience expressed interest in and prior knowledge of SIFO’s clothing research and inquired about funding opportunities in Norway.
The second panel explored wardrobe stories, and the personal relationships people have with their clothing. Vilde shared findings from her research on interviews with couples, emphasizing how gender dynamics play a significant role in shaping clothing consumption. She also mentioned some findings from our scoping review of wardrobe studies and encouraged those in the audience that have worked with wardrobe studies to contribute to the wardrobe studies blog on the website. The panel highlighted how wardrobe studies can capture everyday practices that support sustainability and included findings from an intriguing wardrobe study with individuals who are blind and therefore rely on sensory engagement with their clothing.
The final panel examined remaking and repair as innovative pathways to sustainability. Topics included remake collaboration processes, community repair in Melbourne, fashion-based social enterprises, and local fashion ecologies. The discussion emphasized the need for systemic changes to promote circularity, transparency, and place-based regenerative practices in the fashion industry.
Anna returned to Oslo after the symposium while Vilde still has some travelling to look forward to and will be returning later in February. Our exchange has been an incredible journey of learning and collaboration, filled with inspiration and new perspectives on fashion, design and sustainability.
Time to celebrate! Traditional costumes, the craftmanship and social practice from Norway, and summer farming (seter and fäbod) in both Norway and Sweden are now on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list!
This gives an unexpected boost to the Amazing Grazing project and puts some recent and older publications in a new light.
First and foremost a big congratulations to years and years of hard work from Norwegian and Swedish organizations to put these two intangible cultural heritage traditions on the radar of the global work with protecting the many disappearing or vulnerable cultural practices.
For summer farming at fäbod and seter: knowledge, traditions and practices related to the grazing of outlying lands and artisan food production, this is more related to cows and goats, and milking in Norway, however, the Cultural Ministry, when announcing the win on their web-page, chose a picture of (amazing) grazing sheep as their illustration! Traditionally, sheep in Norway were also integral in this practice. (As I can attest to, my father spent the summers of his youth at the family farm mountain seter, shepherding both sheep and cows.) It was the Swedish government, not the Norwegian, who fronted this application.
The Norwegian government, on the other hand, fronted the application of traditional costumes (bunad) in Norway, their craftsmanship and social practice.
The point is, for Clothing Research, that we need to understand ‘local’ dress better, and that the bunad is one of possibly many (or a few) dress practices where local is important, being very concrete and related to the material aspects (the textiles, the embroidery yarns, the sewing), but also the understanding of being ‘from a place’. This is part of a concrete use of clothing that enables being a part of a geographic community, a fibershed. This is described in this paper on Local clothing: What is that and how an environmental policy concept is understood.
The under-pinning idea that clothing is culture, is important here, and a big win, and exactly what is missing in the EU textile strategy.
We also notice the rise of other similar inscribes into the UNESCO list:
The women’s ceremonial costume in the Eastern region of Algeria: knowledge and skills associated with the making and adornment of the ‘Gandoura’ and the ‘Melehfa’
Custom of Korean costume: traditional knowledge, skills and social practices in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Craftsmanship of traditional woven textile Kente
The result of these two inscriptions will be a renewed interest in the cultural heritage, is assumed, but the organizations behind the applications have big plans for recruiting the younger generations and leveraging more interest both nationally and globally. 150 years ago, there were 100 000 summer seter or fäbo locations in Norway and Sweden, today there are 750 in active use in Norway, and somewhere between 200 or 250 in Sweden.
On the bunad side, the situation is brighter: there are 450 different traditional costumes in Norway, and an estimated 80% of Norwegian women own a traditional costume, and 20% of all men, this number is however, on the rise.
So what happens in the years to come, will be very interesting to follow!
As part of the SIFO presence at the recent Friluftsliv conference, Kate Fletcher, ran a “Photo Booth” to record the thoughts (in a thought bubble!) of conference delegates about clothing and nature. Delegates responses ranged from desirable practical qualities of clothes for use outdoors, to the feelings that clothes imbue; and from aspiration about the potential length of life and compostability of clothes, to questions about whether clothes are needed at all when living en plein air!
A huge thank you to all those who took part and to the conference organisers for hosting us.
Just published in Fashion Theory, an article exploring durability through a decolonial lens. The research it builds on was conducted as part of the LASTING project, led by our very own Kirsi Laitala and funded by the Research Council of Norway.
The article, written by Kate Fletcher and Anna Fitzpatrick, is open access. Please share widely. Grateful thanks to all those who participated in the research. Link to article here
From the abstract: Durability is widely recognized as a key feature of materially resourceful, lower-carbon clothing lives. Yet most of what is known about long-lasting garments is rooted in Euro-American ways of thinking, and reproduces its structures, priorities, values and resulting actions. This paper brings a decolonial concern to understandings of clothing durability to enlarge the conceptual boundaries around it, including those that break apart dominant ideas and approaches to clothing durability in order to show difference. It presents both the “workings” and the “findings” of a small research project, ‘Decentering Durability’, examining both how research is conducted as well as what is uncovered at the intersection of decolonizing and resource-efficient, decarbonizing agendas for fashion.
Big congrats in order! WOOLUME recently got some more good news: ‘We are pleased to inform you that “Thermoregulation and Soil Moisture Management in Strawberry Cultivation Mulched with Sheep Wool” by Jan Broda, Andrzej Gawlowski, Monika Rom, Tomasz Kukulski, Katarzyna Kobiela-Mendrek has been published in Applied Sciences and is available online’:
Due to its beneficial and unique insulating properties, wool mulch ensures a proper microclimate on the soil surface, preventing the overheating of the soil during the summer heat and protecting excessive cooling during cold nights. The wool spread on the soil surface minimises the fluctuations between the soil’s day and night temperature.
The fluctuations do not exceed 2–3 degrees on hot summer days, which are five times smaller than for the control plot. Due to its excellent absorption capacity, wool mulch ensures high rainwater retention, providing a humid environment during drought. The performance of the wool mulch in the soil thermoregulation and water retention is better than that of other organic mulching materials of plant origin. For wool, the temperature fluctuations recorded in summer are two times smaller.
The water retained in wool is released into the soil more slowly, ensuring a longer-term higher water content in strawberries’ root zones. In addition to being beneficial for plant growth, wool is difficult to biodegrade and maintain its properties for a long time.
The application of wool as mulch in strawberry cultivation was analysed to find a solution for the rational use of wool from mountain sheep. In the plantation, the experimental plots mulched with wool, straw, and bark were appointed. The plots were monitored during the experiment, while the soil temperature and moisture content were measured.
The data collected in two-hour intervals were analysed, taking into account air temperature and falls registered in the local meteorological station. Additionally, the progress of mulch biodegradation was tracked. The changes in the wool morphology that occurred by biodegradation were observed during microscopic examinations using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). It was stated that wool mulch plays an essential role in thermoregulation of the soil surface, prevents the overheating of the soil during the summer heat, and protects soil against excessive cooling during cold nights.
The wool mulch minimizes the fluctuations between the soil’s day and night temperature. The fluctuations do not exceed 2–3 degrees on hot summer days, which are five times smaller than for the control plot. The wool retains large amounts of rainwater several times its weight. The water is then slowly released, providing the growing plants with a moist environment during a longer rainless period.
Moreover, wool is difficult to biodegrade and maintains its properties for a long time, lasting longer than one vegetation season. Compared to straw and bark, the temperature fluctuations recorded for wool are two times smaller, and its effectiveness in water management is considerably better. The beneficial impact of the wool mulch ensuring favourable conditions for strawberry growth was explained by the specific wool structure and its unique properties.
The Wool museum and universitty in Covilhã, Portugal hosted the Designa conference, where Clothing Research’s Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Kate Fletcher were both key note speakers. Here is their report:
Kate and I felt very honoured and privileged to be able to open this conference together. Both the importance of the environmental crisis and of textiles was taken as read in the conference, and this made it easy to talk to this diverse group of designers representing a range of disciplines from all over the world.
The overarching theme was citizenship, a challenging one in a time of decline of democracy and increasing differences and distrust. The first Designa conference took place in 2011 and the themes have always been important and challenging. It also felt special to be able to attend an in-person conference in the heart of Covilhã.
The town is characterized by its steep hills and lies tucked into the mountainside, and is a tourist destination, made clear by the pictures of skiers in our hotel lobby. The hotel’s name was Solneve (sun snow in Portuguese) and it felt an apt choice in which to host researchers from Norway! It is also the main urban hub for the region with a long industrial tradition, a place where textile history is embedded in every house and stone. The university and the wool museum hosting the conference are interwoven, making this a unique place for a conference. Kate was told, time and again, how Covilhã was the Manchester of Portugal. However, in Norwegian eyes, it is more reminiscent of Lillehammer. The closeness to the mountains with rich pasture landscapes, wool (not cotton as would have been the case with Manchester) and water for dyeing and power, all had more in common with Lillehammer – and possibly Leeds (sans mountains).
Nonetheless, the textile industry has been important to the development of the local university, similarly to Manchester and Leeds. Lillehammer lacks that aspect.
The building in which the conference took place was part of the wool museum and was originally the site of the Royal Textile Factory from the 1760s. The museum and the university have brought new life to the old industrial buildings. The new institutions are literally building on old textile production locations, layering on top on old terrasses, and wells previously used for dyeing and scouring, and all the other stages of production.
After a formal welcome, Kate’s and my keynotes opened the conference. The session was led by the director of the wool museum, Rita Salvado. In her talk, Kate explored design themes and actions of nature relations, extending the ideas of citizenship to include the greater-than-human world. I followed up with “Clothing consumers as citizens, and the role of design” where I ended with wool as an example of design for and by citizens, with the example of Tingvoll ull. It was a fitting and soft place to land in this wool-town.
While Kate lifts and expands on concepts, my perspectives are often rooted in the technical and practical realm, as well as including material and political aspects. We were both able to respond to the many questions that followed our key notes, a both felt this was rare moment for us and our clothing research colleagues in the audience, Irene Maldini and Ana Neto.
Other conference-goers included fashion and design students from the local university and researchers from many other corners of the world, including a group from NTNU, representing Norway and brought with them warm greetings from Mari Bjerk, in addition to many excellent thoughts and reflections on the presented material. The themes that were discussed were broad, with a lot of emphasis on AI and different forms of design of systems and social relations. This was made possible by a responsive and positive audience, who were given ample time to ask their many questions.
In between we were also able to tour the wool museum, which impresses with its size, content and engagement with the town’s citizens and visitors, adding to the interesting discussions between Rita, Irene, Kate and myself. Rita’s background as a textile engineer, paired with an openness and curiosity about how wool’s history can come more to the forefront in understanding the places geographically and for tourist development, made it easy to find common ground.
The last keynote speaker, Nuno Jardim Nunes, represented the impressive initiative, the New European Bauhaus, with the talk “Bauhaus of the Seas”, in which he emphasized the importance of interviewing non-humans, and with that made a nice connection to Kate’s keynote. Nuno spoke on how they feed sounds from sea dwellers through AI.
It felt like it was not the last time our paths will cross the warm and sometimes snowy Portuguese wool town: Covilhã.
Join us for a thematic session at PLATE conference in Denmark (July 2025).
2025 is the last year for the CHANGE project and one of the closing activities is a thematic session at the Product Lifetimes and the Environment (PLATE) conference. The thematic session on “Rebound effects and critical views on product durability”, co-chaired by Irene Maldini, Ingun Klepp, Kirsi Laitala, Eléonore Maitre-Ekern, Harald Wieser welcomes contributions until November 29th, 2024. The conference will be held at Aalborg University in Denmark from the 2nd to the 4th of July, 2025, and you can read more here.
With this session we would like the PLATE community to press pause for a couple of days and reconsider: Are we moving in the right direction? What are the assumptions that underlie the claimed benefits of durability? Are our efforts really helping to reduce material depletion at a significant rate? What are the material and behavioural conditions that need to be met for durability to have the desired effect? And are these conditions present in real product lifetimes and in our everyday lives? What new ways of thinking can help us in advancing the field for more significant impact? These are questions that we (co-chairs of this session) find very relevant today and would love to address together with the presenting authors, while building on the quality research that we know this community can deliver.
The European Sociological Association’s main biennial event this year took the clothing researchers to Porto!
When: 27th – 30th August 2024 Where: University of Porto, Portugal
Set on the beautiful backdrop of Porto, the main themes of the 16th ESA conference were “Tension, Trust and Transformation”. About 20 researchers from Consumption Research Norway SIFO participated in the conference this time around, which for a long time has been a very important arena for the institute, in particular, through the Sociology of Consumption Research Network.
Between sessions, we also had time to visit the city, eat some Francesinha and get acquainted with the chickens living on campus.
Four presentations from the SIFO Clothing Researchers
Vilde presenting at ESAAnna presenting at ESA
In the session ‘Clothing consumption 1: Fashion’, Vilde Haugrønning presented the paper ‘Gender Dynamics in Clothing Consumption: Examining the Inflow and Outflow of Clothing from a Practice Oriented Perspective’ based on results from the wardrobe studies of her PhD project in the CHANGE project.
In the session ‘Clothing consumption 2: Identity’, Anna Schytte Sigaard presented her paper ‘Social Practices and Identity-Work: Life Course Changes as Drivers for Textile Disposal’ based on results from the wardrobe studies of her PhD project in the Wasted Textiles project.
Kirsi presenting at ESALisbeth Presenting ar ESA
In the session, Imaginaries of Consumption, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg presented a paper from the IMAGINE project, “Futures Literacy: Norwegian imaginaries of food and clothing consumption”, co-written with Justyna Jakubiec and Atle Wehn Hegnes. The paper explores how futures literacy of food and clothing consumption is exhibited in the material collected in the project, across the three stakeholder groups, consumers, businesses and policymakers.
In the session ‘Clothing consumption 3: Sustainability’, chaired by Anna, Kirsi presented the paper ‘Wardrobe Revelations: Rethinking Repair Practices and Clothing Consumption’. The paper is based on survey data collected in the CHANGE project.
In the same session, our research friend, Réka Tölg, PhD Candidate at Lund University, also presented the paper ‘Caring Circularities: Enacting Circular Consumption by Caring for and with Clothes’, co-authored with Christian Fuentes.
UNESCO has championed futures literacy since 2012, highlighting its importance in the context of imagining alternative futures and directing change towards desirable futures. It follows that futures literacy allows people to actively engage with the plurality of images of the future and relate them to their own choices and ideas of (un)desirable futures. While this includes understanding the role of the future also in people’s everyday consumption practices, which inevitably play a major role in the green transition, efforts are largely focused on policy planning, business innovation and higher education. We, therefore, ask what level of futures literacy Norwegian stakeholders exhibit related to food and clothing consumption. Based on stories collected from 137 Norwegian consumers, advertisements, and business strategy and policy documents, we highlight the different stakeholders’ narratives of food and clothing consumption to compare their engagement with present imaginaries of future consumption. We find that businesses and policymakers display a higher level of future literacy than consumers. In general, the narratives of food consumption are richer and more well-developed than those of clothing consumption: business and policy documents’ narratives of sustainable clothing futures are limited to the repeating narrative of ‘repair, reuse, recycle’, whereas food consumption narratives range from self-sufficiency to alternative protein sources. The latter suggests a higher level of future literacy, which may reflect a more mature discussion of food futures: adversely, the lack of attention to alternative forms of clothing consumption decreases the likelihood of a larger transformation of clothing consumption patterns.
Gender Dynamics in Clothing Consumption: Examining the Inflow and Outflow of Clothing from a Practice Oriented Perspective
Vilde Haugrønning
The present-day consumption of clothing is marked by excessive production and consumption, leading to issues of water scarcity, microplastic pollution, chemical contamination, CO2 emissions, and textile waste. In order to mitigate the environmental impact of clothing, there is an urgent need to examine the factors influencing the high volume of garments in wardrobes. This study explores the influence of gender and age on clothing consumption based on a qualitative and quantitative wardrobe study of 15 households in Norway from a practice oriented perspective. Each household had a man and a woman living together as partners to enable a gendered comparison between couples that take part in many of the same practices and share the everyday life. In the wardrobe study, the participants conducted a counting exercise of all the garments they owned, including underwear, socks and accessories. Following this, each participant was asked to register all inflow and outflow of clothing for 6 months. The analysis focus on the turnover rate of clothing and employs Evan’s (2019) six moments of consumption that focus on processes of acquiring and disposing in relation to practices. Preliminary findings show that female participants acquired a higher quantity of clothing compared to male participants. However, age also play a significant role in determining the turnover rate of clothing. The study highlights the social mechanisms and gender dynamics that shape clothing consumption patterns and challenges the prevailing studies on clothing and fashion that often overlook the nuanced practices and actions that influence clothing volumes.
Social Practices and Identity-Work: Life Course Changes as Drivers for Textile Disposal
Anna Schytte Sigaard
In this contribution, the complex interconnections between social practices and textile consumption are explored. Based on wardrobe interviews in 28 Norwegian households, investigation is carried out of the influence of two major life course changes, cohabitation, and parenthood, on disposal of clothing and other textile items. In the transition from living alone to cohabitation, it is found that the disposal of clothing and textiles emerges not only as a functional act but as a symbolic act of divestment. Spatially and temporally separated practices, such as pre-move closet purges and post-move decoration, underscore the profound identity-work involved in this transition where discarded items come to symbolize remnants of single life. Parenthood introduces a challenging balance between environmentally conscious practices and time constraints, unveiling compromises made in sustainable practices amidst the demands of parenting. The disposal of impractical gifts and inherited baby clothes reflects the negotiation of a new parental identity. In this contribution, the importance of individual reflexivity in the negotiation of identities during major life transitions is emphasized. Thereby, it contributes to expanding the understanding of clothing and textile consumption as both routinized and mundane practices at the same time as involving intentional and reflexive discursive activities.
Wardrobe Revelations: Rethinking Repair Practices and Clothing Consumption
Kirsi Laitala
Global clothing production and consumption pose significant challenges to environmental, social, and economic sustainability, particularly driven by the fast-fashion business model linking the global North and South. This study, based on a Norwegian consumer survey (N=1200), investigates factors influencing volumes of clothing consumption. Analyzing acquisition, ownership (wardrobe size), and disposal volumes, principal component analysis (PCA) factor extraction was used to identify key constructs related to respondents’ preferences and perceptions of clothing acquisition, use and repair practices. Gender and age emerge as pivotal determinants, with women reporting higher acquisition, ownership, and disposal levels than men. Those in their 50s possess the largest wardrobes, while younger individuals exhibited a higher frequency of clothing acquisition and disposal, and thus higher turnover rates of their wardrobe contents. Surprisingly, the study reveals that higher repair intentions or focus on quality do not correspond to reduced consumption. These counterintuitive results challenge conventional assumptions about the relationship between these practices and overall consumption. Similarly, factors such as the allure of sales, impulse buying, and the desire to appear well-dressed contributed to increased consumption levels, emphasizing the influence of psychological and social factors. The lack of correlation between reduced consumption and the intention to focus on buying fewer quality items and repairing more implies a need for alternative strategies that consumers can apply to address their consumption levels and related sustainability challenges in the fashion industry. This research emphasizes the urgency of reevaluating current practices and fostering a more sustainable and conscientious approach to clothing consumption.
A new initiative from Sweden has surfaced, The Good Wool Collective, started by Lisa Bergstrand. As part of their inaugural webinar, Australian Wool Innovation’s Angus Ireland and I gave talks.
The theme was the shortcomings of EU’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and how it disadvantages natural fibers. The audience was mainly Nordic brands, but also some from further afield.
Lisa Bergstrand is a wonderful Swedish woman with an extensive design background who has embraced wool and its benefits, while Angus Ireland has been an important driver in the PEF process, and for wool’s sustainability credentials, and part of the ongoing work in PEFCRs. He is Program Manager for Fibre Advocacy and Eco Credentials at AWI, with extensive experience in wool’s environmental impact and advocacy in EU sustainability initiatives.
During the hour and a half long webinar with breakout-rooms towards the end, Angus Ireland first described the role of the wool industry in the PEF process, but also the work outside ‘the box’ in Make The Label Count (click here), and who are key players in this landscape. Next, he went on to PEF’s 16 parameters, with details about shortcomings and how plastic waste and microplastic release are not accounted for. With recent publications from Nature (click here for access) and from Changing Markets Foundation, have more or less upended the arguments that we do not have enough knowledge on microplastic release during laundering (a main argument from industry), as the Precautionary Principle is now being called into action, as laundering only represents a microscopic percentage of the total release over time, according to the Nature study.
The endemic bad quality of data and questionable parameters were Angus Ireland’s main focus. He also brought into play Consumption Research Norway’s research that relates to duration of service, that France’s Ecobalyse has been sniffing around, alongside the natural fiber sector seeing a ‘French opening’ with ADEME’s approach (sorry, only Scandinavians will see the humor in a French opening).
There is hope, as Angus Ireland described, even though the new LCA commissioned and peer-reviewed, still has not been accepted un GaBi – the database used by the EU – a process that has taken close to two years with no results so far. The Holistic Durability Working Group in PEF for apparel and footwear will hopefully succeed in their work to make for a more even playing-field.
Next up was myself, questioning whether natural fibers will ever get a fair rating in LCAs. I did a historic backtrack to the Made-By assessment tool in 2011 (wool labelled as ‘red’, recycled polyester as ‘green’) and fast forwarded to the Pulse of Fashion Report in 2017, where recycled polyester is what consumers should be ‘enhanced’ to choose. Certainly, over cotton, but obviously over all natural fibers. Amazing Grazing and other wool projects, such as the Textile farmer were introduced to the audience.
Alternative thinking needed
Changing Markets Foundation recent report Fashion’s Plastic Paralysis: How brands resist change and fuel microplastic pollution, was also something I came back to, especially the implications for our health related to microplastics. This is, as Angus talked about, something that should enter under the precautionary principle, not be continually dragged out in endless debates and delaying tactics.
Talking about “durability” and the general misunderstanding that ‘more durable products’ are going to save the world, when we are drowning in products, I went on to talk about TPR and work by the OR Foundation, which has been inspired by the waste audit approach.
My talk then turned to the functional unit, and pointed to a new PhD (click here to access) that has raised the million-dollar question not addressed in PEF; what is actually the functional unit for apparel? Is it number of wears, really? I used the example of my bunad and my daughter’s imminent marriage (wedding dresses are worn once, at least by the first owner), and my national costume’s 50 years of service, while my daughter’s is inherited from my mom, so the functional unit and duration of service will be exponential. I chose my bunad for the event (first part) and another not-enough-worn for the second disco-dancing part, and the functional unit of feeling worthy, safe, socially acceptable and dressed for the occasion – delivered!
Summing up, it all comes down to common sense, which is currently lacking in the whole shebang, and that the small ray of hope is that France has understood that solutions and how one evaluates companies and products needs to address the business model that underpins everything, not the product-specific criteria. This was followed by passionate and very good questions and engaging break-out discussions, showing that once one gains insight into the process surrounding PEF, people in the industry understand that the EU is currently headed on a fast track in the wrong direction.
Some more thoughts on this theme can be accessed here, if you’re on LinkedIn.
