Wasted Textiles Archives - Clothing research

Telling it like it is: Lambasting consumer-facing Higg-based label

tobiasson on 14. January 2025

Ingun Klepp discussing the NCA ruling in Nürnberg.

In a newly published article from Consumption Research Norway SIFO at Oslo Metropolitan University, Who Can Stop the Greenwashing, penned by Ingrid Haugsrud and Ingun Grimstad Klepp, the authors literally lambaste how the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (now Cascale) misused outdated and faulty data for their launch of a Higg (now Worldly) consumer-facing sustainability label.

In a detailed and thorough review of the case brought forward by Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth) in Norway against sportswear actor Norrøna, who used the Higg MSI tool-based labeling scheme to market an organic cotton t-shirt as ‘less thirsty’ than a conventional cotton t-shirt, the authors question who has both the will and the impetus to stop greenwashing.

In the chapter, which is published in Mediating Sustainability in Consumer Society (Routledge 2024), they highlight the specific case in which The Norwegian Consumer Agency (NCA) issued a ruling in 2022: “the Higg MSI data did not constitute sufficient documentation for the claims made by the Norwegian trader in their marketing. The NCA concluded that the trader’s use of Higg MSI data in marketing was misleading, and therefore prohibited under the Norwegian Marketing Control Act”.

How the Higg Index Sustainability Profile Label was presented by Norrøna.

The result of the ruling was massive international media coverage, name-changes for both Higg and SAC, and that the Higg MSI-based label was discontinued. Assistant Director Tonje H. Drevland was responsible for the case on behalf of the NCA and is therefore an important part of this case. In addition to ruling that “Higg MSI data in marketing [is] misleading, and therefore prohibited under the Norwegian Marketing Control Act, which is based on the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). This conclusion could be seen as a warning to other traders operating in the EU/EEA area, as the NCA found that the use of Higg MSI data in marketing towards consumers in general could easily be misleading.”

The NCA has for a long time provided general guidance on the use of environmental claims in marketing. As a result of the ruling, the SAC (Sustainable Apparel Coalition) asked for more specific guidance. This resulted in “GUIDANCE TO THE SUSTAINABLE APPAREL COALITION ENVIRONMENTAL CLAIMS IN MARKETING TOWARDS CONSUMERS BASED ON THE HIGG MSI” – written in collaboration with the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (the ACM).

Brad Boren (Norrøna) and Tonje Drevland (NCA) discussing the ruling.

The ruling was presented in letters, on webpages, in the aforementioned guidance, in lectures, and in the SAC’s annual conference for the textile industry. Here, Drevland’s message is particularly clear: “I want H&M, Inditex, all large players to take a step back and realize that the steps they are taking internally may feel [like a great cost] to them but remember to look at it from the other side, from the environmental perspective.” She also stressed that “wrong information is worse than no information“.

Which, of course, is counter to the argument used by SAC (Cascale), who have repeatedly claimed that lack of perfection should not come in the way of using the Higg data, nor hinder it from being fed into the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules data-base.

Ingun Grimstad Klepp explaining the process that is also described in the recent publication.

The critique from the NCA on the use of the Higg MSI or rather the Higg Index Sustainability Profile is as follows:

Global averages are not product-specific.
The LCA data that backs the global averages and the Higg MSI is outdated.
In addition, the LCAs underpinning the claims were not intended for the comparisons that were made.

More consequences followed: The NCA sent a warning to the Swedish fast fashion actor H&M, in case they considered using the Higg Index Sustainability Profile in marketing in Norway, as well as a letter to the SAC (Cascale) telling them to inform all their members about the ruling, and what consequences similar claims on the market in Norway could trigger. In addition, they informed other consumer authorities in the EU/EEA about the decision and issued a general warning to “other traders operating in the EU/EEA area”. Furthermore, NCA started a coordinated action from the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC), coordinated by the European Commission and led by four consumer protection authorities from Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden against Zalando. According to a press release from the EU from February 2024, Zalando removed all their misleading environmental claims from their website. Thus, a large international player was forced to follow “the ruling”.

The SAC issued a response to the NCA ruling, stating that they will launch a third-party expert review of the Higg MSI and collaborate with the NCA on how to present information to consumers, and in 2023 KPMG did publish a report, but this did not answer the main question whether the data was suited for consumer-facing information or not. They wrote that this would depend on how PEF developed. The NCA’s strong criticism of the Higg Index Sustainability Profile was particularly serious as the SAC and their work with the Higg have been central to the development in the early stages of the EU’s planned anti-greenwashing weapon, PEF. Seeing the ruling and PEF (and the data underpinning PEF) in coherence is a discussion theme – which the EU Commission has tried to avoid – repeatedly dodging the “bullet” and insisting that they are not at all related.

The SAC (Cascale) is also a member of the Policy Hub. Prior Chair of the Policy Hub Baptiste Carriere-Pradal has been the Chair of the Technical Secretariat of the Apparel EU Product Environmental Footprint. The secretariat voting members are dominated by the industry, and the SAC members have a majority of the vote, which they pay a substantial sum to have. As already mentioned, the data and the studies that underpin the Higg MSI are to a large extent the same data and studies that are being used in the development of the PEFCR.

Discussing the ruling during the IWTO Roundtable in Nürnberg in 2022.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has been tasked with verifying the scientific robustness of the database. Obtaining new Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) suitable for comparison is both challenging and expensive, and even more difficult if global averages cannot be used, which is the mainstay of the LCA-based Higg MSI. Another problem is that parts of the tool are behind a paywall and therefore unavailable to consumers and for documentation, further hindering a democratic process. When the complaint was filed by Friends of the Earth Norway, they chose to pursue the case because the complaint referred to scientific papers that questioned the Higg MSI data.

This gave research and critical journalism an important role in unpacking the issue. Most notable was the work of Veronica Bates Kassatly, an independent analyst and consultant who has authored several white papers with Dorothée Baumann-Pauly: The Great Green Washing Machine: Part 1 and more importantly Part 2) The Use and Misuse of Sustainability Metrics in Fashion. Worth mentioning is also her significant contributions related to cotton and other fibres, and how the incorrect claims and misuse of LCA data abound. The articles can be found here.

Both academic research and critical journalism have pointed out serious weaknesses in the Higg MSI in general, and the claims surrounding cotton in particular. It is also evident that research and critical journalism played a role in documenting the controversies and providing the necessary information to the consumer authorities.

The NCA’s ruling stated that the Higg Index Sustainability Profile was greenwashing if the use of the scheme was consumer-facing. In contrast, their authority had no means to say anything about the tool as such. It can still be used business to business (B2B). The same information used B2B could be particularly harmful because it is to a greater extent used as a basis for decisions – which in turn affects the consumers’ options and the downstream producers. It is also possible that the power of consumer authorities, and especially the NCA, shown in the ruling, is easily pulverized if the communicator of the unreliable information is no longer the company itself, or industry organizations such as the SAC (Cascale), but authorities such as the EU, through tools like the PEF.

The article stresses that this perspective is important, and also resulted in a lot of attention in the international press in the aftermath of the ruling. Articles with headlines like “EU PEF tool’s regulations in question now after Higg’s MSI” stating that “A group of 12 organisations have expressed their concerns over the EU Commission’s plans to use Product Environment Footprint category rules (PEF-CR) ‘as a standalone method’ for communicating green claims in apparel and footwear” or “After Higg Came Under Fire for Greenwashing, Now This One’s in the Hot Seat, Too”. PEF might, in other words, just as well be a powerful greenwashing tool – if the knowledge it is based on is insufficiently documented, outdated, contested, or irrelevant, to mention some of the criticisms against the Higg MSI.

The SAC (Cascale) themselves, have called for speeding up the PEF process, and one can wonder why.

It will become more difficult to stop greenwashing based on a lack of documentation if this is hidden in the PEF system. Finding the numbers behind the score will demand a lot of detective work from consumers and others. It will perhaps become even more important to establish what is essential and relevant information for consumers.

Tonje Drevland discussing the consequences of the ruling during an OECD conference.

“Mediating Sustainability in the Consumer Society”, edited by Astrid Skjerven, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, Liv Merete Nielsen and Dagny Stuedahl, will be launched in Oslo January 29th 2025, 4 PM. More info here.

The article Who Can Stop the Greenwashing, can be accessed here.

Clothing Research’s Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, who is co-editor, also has written the last article in the book: Indigenous approaches to mediation of the climate and nature emergency: a conversation with Vanessa Andreotti.

Access the book here.

Hello from Melbourne!

Kinga Zablocka on 14. January 2025

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.

– Vilde & Anna

4th International Artefacta Conference: Resolutions

Kinga Zablocka on 12. January 2025

Conference, 13-14 February 2025

University of Helsinki, Finland

The conference will be organised on 13th and 14th of February 2025 in Helsinki, Finland and the conference venue is in the Main Building of the University of Helsinki, right in the centre of the town. They keynote speakers; SIFO’s own Ingun Grimstad Klepp will speak on “Product attachment in politics and wardrobes” and Professor Daniel Miller from University College London will be holding a talk about “What kind of person is a thing?”. The talks will be held on Thursday the 13th and Friday the 14th respectively.

Programme can be found here (University of Helsinki webpage)

Designa: Seeing design with new eyes

Ingun Grimstad Klepp on 29. October 2024

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.

Link to book of abstracts here (labcomca.ubi.pt)

Clothing Research at ESA 2024

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 11. October 2024

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

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.

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.

You can read more about the conference by clicking here (europeansociology.org) and the abstracts from the SIFO clothing researchers’ papers below.

Conference Abstracts

Futures literacy: Norwegian Imaginaries of Food and Clothing Consumption

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, Justyna Jakubiec & Atle Wehn Hegnes

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.

TPR brought forward in What Fuels Fashion? Report

tobiasson on 5. August 2024

In the recently published report, What Fuels Fashion?, issued by Fashion Revolution, Consumption Research Norway SIFO’s suggestion for a Targeted Producer Responsibility method has received substantial attention alongside the Plastic Elephant report. In addition, the ruling by the Norwegian Consumer Authority against the Higg consumer-facing label also is brought forward.

All in all, What Fuels Fashion? gives much attention to the research from Oslo Metropolitan university, which is an important part of the Wasted Textiles project. What Fuels Fashion? is a single-issue, special edition of Fashion Revolution’s annual Fashion Transparency Index. They have reviewed 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers and ranked them according to their level of disclosure on climate and energy-related data in their own operations but primarily in their supply chains.

A key finding is that there is hardly any transparency around over-production. “The fashion industry wants to have its cake and eat it too. Most big fashion brands (89%) do not disclose how many clothes they make annually. Alarmingly, nearly half (45%) fail to disclose neither how much they make nor the raw material emissions footprint of what is produced, signalling the industry prioritises resource exploitation whilst avoiding accountability for environmental harms linked to production.”

On page 36 in the report, we can read: “Governments are now cracking down on greenwashing. In addition to investigations into several brands’ environmental claims taking place in the UK and Australia, the Norwegian Consumer Authority ruled the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (Higg MSI) unlawful to support such claims from retailers. These actions, which have resulted in accountability, illustrate why transparency is crucial to enable change. Nonetheless, the need for robust evidence-backed claims remains a persistent issue.”

Furthermore, on page 38, we find this quote: “Already we are seeing that overestimating the importance of garment durability and underestimating the environmental impact of overproduction is shaping the policy landscape. Research by Oslo Met University reveals the “Plastic Elephant in the Room” – which critiques the EU’s Sustainable Textiles Strategy, particularly its focus on durability. The research argues that the most effective way to reduce the fashion industry’s environmental impact is to cut production volumes rather than merely extending product lifespans (and that focusing on durability unintentionally supports synthetic fossil fuel-derived fibres).” Let’s hope someone from DG ENVI and DG GROW actually read this report!

On page 39, the report has a full-fledged explanation of TPR as a viable alternative to EPR (see illustration). Which is good news for the on-going discussion on how we can make fast fashion actually ‘out of fashion’ with regulatory instruments, and halt business as usual. Being taken seriously in such an important report, will hopefully garner further attention to SIFO’s research.

Socks – the most neglected of all garments

tobiasson on 5. June 2024

Master student Maria Kupen With with her two supervisors on either side.

Maria Kupen With’s Master thesis is entitled A new narrative of Neglected Socks. An exploration of new value creation and narratives for materials through creative fashion practice. She recently delivered her Masters at the Department of Art, Design and Drama – Fashion and Society – at OsloMet.

Inspired by the preliminary results from Anna Schytte Sigaard’s PhD in Wasted Textiles, Maria Kupen With decided to work with socks – the item discarded in the largest quantities and the worst condition. Socks are so intimate and used socks are not sold in second-hand shops, maybe not even shared for fear of contamination. If these could be upcycled, then what could not be?

Her practice-led approach included collecting socks from friends and family and a local charity, analyses of the socks’ condition, their disposal reasons etc., and creative exploration of the material and its potential. She created prototypes and a pre-exhibition to confront viewers with the transformed material – in the form of a jacket-tent, sweaters and textured pieces – and registered their potential to elicit emotional responses and challenge current attitudes and perceptions of discarded and worn-out materials.

The thesis touches upon our relationship with nature through cleanliness, bacteria, bodily fluids, as well as pilling and other signs of wear, and how this can change when engaging with the objects, as Maria herself experienced in the practice of making from worn socks, going from thinking they are “icky” to deciding to wear her own pieces. The visitor of her pre-exhibition also reflected on their relationships with second-hand clothing usage more broadly. The thesis hence uses design to create both value and discussions around value, a much needed perspective in a throw-away consumer culture.

Maria Kupen With was supervised by Lisbeth Løvbak Berg at SIFO and also Siv So Hee Steinaa. In the photo we see the three of them at the Master’s exhibition, enveloped in Maria Kupen With’s work.

New method to capture relationship between properties and use

tobiasson on 18. April 2024

Dresses that are picked out by consumers to be discarded

Waste audit interviews: A method for understanding the link between intrinsic quality and apparel lifespans, is the latest publication from Consumption Research Norway SIFO at Oslo Metropolitan University, co-authored by Kirsi Laitala and Ingun Grimstad Klepp.

New proposed regulation of clothing and textiles in the EU necessitate a deeper understanding of the products, encompassing their usage patterns, duration of use, and strategies for prolonging their lifespan and enhancing utilization rates. SIFO has therefore developed a new method for this purpose, and are simultaneously asking for funding to do studies based on the method, in order to guide the regulation processes for clothing and textiles.

The method is based on the many years of research in this sector, pioneered through wardrobe studies, and lately enhanced by waste audits of different waste streams. The former method is extremely rich in data-collection, but very costly; the latter captures data by casting the net wider, but with less detail about how long the service life has been. Further, the method connects the real use of clothing with results measured in a laboratory related to physical durability. This approach shows that it is feasible to measure the use phase objectively, something policy makers, the industry and research organizations advising policy have so far deemed to be “difficult” or “impossible”.

This note gives an overview of the method and the project proposal, with a rough budget estimate.

The note can be accessed and downloaded here.

Download the document here Download

TPR gets some serious airplay

tobiasson on 1. April 2024

Volumes, policy measures and Targeted Producer Responsibility all fitted into discussions the week before Easter, where some of us jumped back and forth between Webex, Zoom and Teams, recordings and live webinars. The take-aways are that several policy tools are mired in antiquated ideas that seriously need updating from research, and that the conversations around volumes and sufficiency are what actually can drive change.

STICA’s Climate Action Week coincided with intense webinars from EU’s Joint Research Center on ESPR’s stakeholder review and also PEFCR for apparel and footwear’s open hearing, presented by the Technical Secretariate’s lead. Yes, it was dizzying, but most importantly, Targeted Producer Responsibility and questions surrounding how EU actually plans to address the issue of volumes and degrowing the sector did got airplay.

Kerli Kant Hvass, who is one of our Wasted Textiles partners, presented Targeted Producer Responsibility during the session on the obstacles facing new circular business models during STICA’s Climate Action Week, hosted by Michael Schragger from Sustainable Fashion Academy and lead for Scandinavian Textile Initiative for Climate Action (STICA). In the session Circular Business Models Are Critical for Climate Action – So What Is Preventing Them from Becoming Mainstream? she explained the concept, and continued her argument during the panel discussion towards the end:

“Focusing on the product and assuming this will result in sustainability has serious limitations. Instead, collecting data in the waste streams, and establishing if a product has been used for half a year or for ten years, actually establishing its duration of service (DoS), can give the database for modulating fees.”

TPR got nods

We noticed that Maria Rincon-Lievana, from the EU Commission and DG ENV nodded a lot when Kerli repeated this. Sarah Gray from UK’s WRAP, who is wrapping up a PhD on to what degree circular business models actually have climate and environmental impact, wholeheartedly backed Kerli’s call for dating products in order to gain data on the actual DoS of products for comprehensive LCAs.

Sadly Paola Migliorini, also from DG ENV, did not hear when Luca Boniolo from Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS) said the following in the session on The Legislative Race Is On: Legislation & Regulation in the European Union (we can only hope she reheard the entire session later):

“Labelling regulation presents an opportunity (…) for instance introducing the production date on the label (…) we can know how long the product has been circulated at the end of life. If we do waste audits, we can estimate the DoS to understand was it used to 10 years or was it used for two weeks and then it was discarded and it can also support consumers in knowing that they have the right of a legal guarantee from the purchase date of two years during which if the product fails under normal circumstances, they have the right of it being repaired for free.”

He said much of the same during the session on Sufficiency, To Green-growth, Overconsumption & Degrowth: Can Sufficient Emissions Reductions Be Achieved in the Current Paradigm?

“EPR can for instance be based on how long the product was on the market based on waste audits and the date of production, and thus we can modulate who will have to pay a higher fee. We need to incentivize the reduction of the volumes placed on the market.”

This is the whole idea behind TPR, and even if Luca did not specifically mention TPR, he was voicing the principles behind it.

Old-fashioned or not fit for purpose, or both?

So, what is old-fashioned about the approach the policy-makers are taking? What are the tools that are not fit for purpose?

As it was ESPR and PEFCR we were lectured on the same week, the following thoughts arise.

ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation) clearly is based on the faulty assumption that 80% of a product’s environmental impact is decided in the design phase. So, it is intertwined with predicting for example durability, repairability, recyclability and thereby assuming DoS. The problem is, as SIFO research shows, only one-third of textile products or apparel go out of use because they are used up, so if ESPR is going to eco-modulate EPR fees (which seems to be the idea) this will be based on pure guess-work, or what could be more diplomatically called predictions.

TPR suggests the opposite, building the eco-modulation on what becomes waste prematurely and modulated ‘against’ what captures value in the new business models, as Kerli so well described in her presentation.

The hen or the egg?

For PEFCR (Product Environmental Category Rules) the problem is that they are meant to underpin ESPR, but JRC have actually not decided if they are fit for purpose, they said as much in their presentation. So, currently PEF seems to be in limbo, perhaps only fit for Green Claims (Baptiste Carriere-Pradal said as much in his presentation, but also hinting that ESPR would have to use PEF).

PEF is not aiming to be a consumer-facing label, only a set of 16 “frankenproducts” (12 for apparel, four for footwear) which you as a company can compare your product to, and say if your product is “greener” than the “frankenproduct” based on very strict LCA parameters. The data-base that these parameters are resting on, have serious data issue, and may be why France when presenting their “amost-PEF-compatible” label, have taken out one of them (physical durability), In addition, France also is not making GHG emissions the most important parameter – counting for 1/4^th of the ‘score’, which PEF currently does.

The main problem, though, is understanding. Consumers understanding what and why.

Simply: In ESPR there is a demand for recycled content, and this is heavily stressed. During the sessions, I asked simply “why?” and presented the latest IVL report with a 1.3% climate reduction for large-scale recycling in the EU. What also surfaced during the week was that only 11% of EU’s population want recycled content. So, win-win or lose-lose to demand recycled content?

Apparel for real life or for bureaucratic purposes?

The issue then feeds into PEF, and how the scores of the “frankenproducts” actually have meaning when talking about real life. Why are stockings, socks and leggings the same “frankenproduct”? What are sweaters actually – when we all know they differ enormously and also their function. It seems, in the end, that everything is a desktop solution for real life actualities.

Having good clothes that are fit for purpose, not apparel that fit policy purposes, should be the goal. They will be used the longest and deliver on DoS. Using ESPR, with PEF as the underpinning logic, will not at all help either the environment, climate change or Europe’s consumers.

So, all in all, listening to the STICA webinar, so well organized by Michael Schragger, gives better insight on where we need to go, than both the JRC organized webinar (which sadly is not publicly available even if it was recorded) and the PEFCR webinar (which can actually be accessed), put together. EU still needs to get their heads around that it’s not at the product level, but at the systems level, that change needs to happen. Let’s hope STICA gave them food for thought.

Used but not used up – what do we know about textile waste?

tobiasson on 23. October 2023

Ingun Grimstad Klepp presenting the findings from the Plastic Elephant

If you are interested in the findings presented during the hybrid seminar, the video and the presentations are now available.

Both the volumes of textile waste, and the interest in what to do with it, is growing. Fortunately, knowledge about what textile waste consists of is also growing, as is the interest to regulate the sector.

In this webinar, we will summarize several recent reports on textile waste in Norway and other countries, as well as a report that examines whether environmental strategies take seriously the fact that if the textiles are to be used up, then less must be produced. The clothes we dispose are often used – but far from used up.

– How can disposed textiles be used in the best possible way to ensure new use, and what kind of knowledge enables us to reduce the amount of used but not used up textiles?
– How much textiles, especially synthetics, are disposed in Norway? What does wasted textiles consist of, why and how are they disposed?
– Which regulatory measures will can be implemented in order to reduce the volumes of textile waste?

Click here to see the video (link).

Click here to find the PDFs of the presentations (link).

This is an open dissemination seminar under the Wasted Textiles research project at SIFO, OsloMet, funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Retailers Environment Fund.