EU’s fear of addressing overproduction uncovered in eye-opening research

A new research article in Journal of Sustainable Marketing address EU’s Textile Strategy’s blatant avoidance of the volumes issue, and raises the question of why.

In the Journal of Sustainable Marketing, a new article penned by Irene Maldini and Ingun Grimstad Klepp, The EU Textile Strategy: How to Avoid Overproduction and Overconsumption Measures in Environmental Policy, takes the bull by the horn.

The analysis, which was just published, shows how the focus on product durability avoided addressing production volume reductions measures, leading to the exclusion of marketing-oriented regulation (applied to price, frequency of new products put on the market, product placement with influencers, advertising including social media strategy, etc.), which could have actually significant effect in tackling overproduction and overconsumption.

No volume-related questions

Instead, in the open hearings, no questions were asked that were volume-related, only related to durability (with the exception of overconsumption being mentioned once). In the answers, however, volume-related wordings are common – however, in the summary of the feedback, everything about volumes again disappears.

The article is based on the analysis of public documents and interviews with participants of the policy making process, the study unpacks the factors that enabled such a decision, and how it was integrated in the final document.

In sum, the analysis suggests that measures aimed at reducing production and/or consumption volumes were out of the scope of the Textile Strategy already from early stages. The public consultation process was designed, conducted, and analyzed in a way that ensured this exclusion, despite the efforts of some stakeholders and many survey respondents in bringing this issue to the table. The final document does not propose any mechanisms to check and ensure that these have an effect in volume reduction or on the environmental impact for that matter.

Only three peer-reviewed scientific articles

The analysis rather shows that by focusing on product durability, an explicit aim to reduce the volume of clothing was avoided, leaving potentially impactful marketing-related measures out of the scope. The study also uncovers that of the 56 different publications cited to provide the data base for the Textile Strategy, only 3 are peer reviewed scientific articles.

And this is not because there is no knowledge available on textiles and the environment impact from researchers. However, in a marketing journal, we think our perspective from consumption research ploughs new ground.

Thematically, there is a lot of overlap between consumer research and marketing research on consumption. Yet there is little cross-citation and little collaboration. This is probably related to a certain mutual skepticism. Consumer research is about taking the consumer’s position, while marketing is the opposite – at least initially, with the desire to sell something and later change consumers in one way or another. Therefore, it is extra gratifying that we have managed to overcome this barrier by publishing in a marketing journal. With great help from Diego Rinallo, Doctorate in Business Administration & Management, Bocconi University, Milan, Marketing Department. His input has been invaluable.

In EU's meeting room.
Irene and Ingun attending EcoAge’s round table on A fair phase-out of fossil fuels from the fashion industry.

The more we have seen the limitations of product perspectives (such as making products “repairable” and the ideas of “educating” consumers to act “sustainably”), the clearer it becomes that marketing must also be included in policy. We need knowledge about how it works and how it can be limited.

The EU, like Norway, is proud of its democracy. In the mapping of why policies develop as they do, and how and by whom decisions are made, it has been surprisingly difficult to gain insight. As the article shows, there was a lack of written documentation about the processes, a reluctance to be interviewed (although no personal questions or questions about opinions were included) and anonymity was ensured.

Sensitive stuff?

How are decisions made and are they really this sensitive to scrutiny? This begs a bigger question perhaps media should ask.

This raises questions not only about why transparency is not valued more highly in democratic countries/regions, but also about the relationship between the research community and policy.

The article sheds light on this relationship directly, and an analysis of what the EU strategy refers to, i.e. what kind of knowledge is used as a basis.

As first author, Irene Maldini reflects: “It has been an adventurous journey to develop my work into this area, and to experience the double role of trying to influence policy building on scientific knowledge (advocacy) and at the same time analyzing the processes of policymaking as an outsider (research). The former has also enabled the latter, because resistance to acknowledge the limits of the planet and economic interests in policy making processes become so clear when you are trying to bring the sufficiency agenda forward.”

To access the open access article, click here.

Feedback delivered on ESPR 2nd milestone

Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) and NICE Fashion have delivered feedback on the Preparatory study on textiles for product policy instruments: Ecodesign, EU Green Public, Procurement EU Ecolabel 2nd milestone. All in all 19 comments were prepared and submitted, after attending a two-day webinar in December 2024, where the 2nd milestone document was introduced.

The submission focuses on issues related to ‘durability’ and ‘repairability’, as these are key concepts from EU’s Joint Research Center, and according to them the main drivers for consumers to keep their apparel for longer. We do not agree with this, and have argued why in the feedback. The idea that Duration of Service can be predicted at the start of a product’s lifetime, is one of the things we argue against, and our recommendation is, as we have repeated often, to immediately start dating products, and use waste audits, or even better, SIFO’s new method to capture relationship between properties and use (more information on the method here clothingresearch.oslomet.no).

There are several other points we make, around issues such as PEFCRs, replacement, environmental impact, aggressive marketing, and volumes; and we hope this will be helpful in the work moving forward. We would wish that JRC took more of a consumer perspective, than an industry perspective in their future work on ESPR for textiles and apparel.

To read our feedback, you can download a pdf of our 19 comments here, each comment starts with where in the 2nd milestone the wording or issue we address is, as this was required in the feedback.

Announcing the publication of Decentering Durability: Decarbonizing and Decolonizing Ideas and Practices of Long-Lasting Clothes

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.

Sustainable clothing design: use matters

Kirsi Laitala and Casper Boks

Abstract

Many life cycle assessment studies document that the use period is the most resource-demanding phase during the clothing life cycle. In this paper, we discuss how design can help to reduce the environmental impacts of clothing. Motives behind clothing disposal, acquisition practices and maintenance habits are analysed based on two surveys, qualitative interviews of households, and examination of disposed clothing. The main reasons for clothing disposal were changes in garments, followed by size and fit issues, taste-related unsuitability, situational reasons, functional shortcomings and fashion or style changes. Several design solutions can enable the users to keep and use the clothes longer, and reduce the need for laundering, thus potentially decreasing the total environmental effects of clothing consumption.

Click here to read the full article (inderscienceonline.com).