C: Consumer waste

A coat made from recycled materials that costs half as much as it would be if it had been made from virgin wool. That’s the first shwop coat by Marks & Spencer. The limited edition coat, which hit the stores in October 2012, is the first tangible result of Marks & Spencer’s shwopping initiative. With shwopping, the British retailer encourages customers to donate an old item of clothing to charity every time they come into the store to buy something new. In collaboration with Oxfam and Italian fibre manufacturers, Marks & Spencer upcycles these donations into new must-haves.

It turns out that Marks & Spencer receives lots of unwanted clothes that are suitable for recycling: in the first six months of the shwopping initiative, a staggering one million clothes have been donated. That’s no mean feat: in the United Kingdom, approximately 1 billion clothes end up as landfill each year.

Shwopping may sound revolutionary, but there are several other innovative clothing companies embracing recycling. Retailers like Eileen Fisher and Patagonia have been accepting returns of their worn products for quite some time. Fisher resells them in her Green Eileen retail store, while Patagonia recycles theirs into new products.

Patagonia is known for its imaginative approach to sustainability in fashion. It’s famous ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign called upon consumers to think twice before buying something new. Advertising a fleece jacket made from 60% recycled polyester, Patagonia wrote: ‘We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.’ Now that’s a remarkable challenge posed by a company that’s been among the most sustainable brands in the fashion world for many years. Marks & Spencer still have a long way to go, I’d say.

N: Naming & shaming – and beyond

In October 2012, Textile Exchange put the spotlights on ten companies that are committed to organic cotton. Anvil Knitwear, C&A, Dibella, Ethicus, Gossypium, H&M, Hess Natur, Nike, Patagonia and Veja all received a Future Shapers Award, a reward for their growing use of organic cotton and for their ambitions to adopt more biocotton in their future collections.

Textile Exchange is a non-profit organization that aims to accelerate sustainable practices in the textile value chain. It was founded in 2002 in the United States and works with clothing brands as diverse as Adidas, H&M, Patagonia, Anvil and Lenzing. The Future Shapers Awards ceremony was part of the annual Textile Exchange conference, which took place in Hongkong in October and celebrated the organization’s ten year anniversary.

Handing out awards to companies that have demonstrated a willingness to adopt sustainable practices seems to be more popular nowadays than the naming & shaming strategies that labour associations and organizations like the Clean Clothes Campaign have traditionally adopted. For instance, in 2012 a number of Dutch consumer groups launched the Push Fashion Forward campaign, which rewarded companies that publicly admitted to improve environmental and social standards in their supply chain. After critically reviewing brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, DIDI, Steps, Zara, Esprit, Mango, Only, Pieces, Jack & Jones and River Island, those that pledged to commit to more sustainable practices were surprised with a visit from a group of enthusiastic consumers. In the end, three Dutch brands – Hema, Sissy-Boy and Protest – received a Push Fashion Forward Award to celebrate their increased commitment to sustainable fashion.

Cynics will be quick to point out that it remains to be seen if mainstream brands such as Hema, C&A, H&M, Nike and Adidas will live up to the expectations that have been created by their elaborate CSR policy reports. I’m sure that organizations such as Textile Exchange and GoedeWaar.nl will keep an eye on that. And of course, let’s not forget that consumers can stimulate sustainable change as well, both through their buying behavior and by consistently pestering their favourite stores and brands about environmental and social standards.