Corporate social responsibility teams have been elevated in recent years as the growth of the Gen Z influence towards purchasing better has meant that companies have taken their environmental responsibility more seriously to gain these sales. In academia, I am fortunate to be the one associated with outdoor in a school of fashion – so the P word has always allowed me to be the smug one with the example of how some textiles have changed to less bad as a way of trying to combat the overriding reputation of all apparel just being bad.
People who have heard me present know that I am always keen to example other brands than the Ventura one, but credit to Patagonia: they do good product and excellent communications. It is the latter that brings more to the cause than anything else.
Another driving factor was the new EU Green Deal, passed by the Parliament a year ago. The push-through was because it was expected that a more right learning majority would be returned (in fact – it wasn’t: the influence of the right has grown in individual country governments’ instead). This has opened up the way for further direction to come from this Parliament to take these strategies to a deeper level – however, the focus is on just smoothing the implementation of the new boundaries. Initially, the Green Deal will just be applied to clothing, batteries and electronics – products that have become associated with single-use applications.
This is an opinion column: if you want details of what has been passed, speak to your membership organization and hope that they have the services of Ohana Public Affairs on retainer (as they are the best textile lobbyists, IMHO). Essentially, it is split into three sections that will be adopted as a minimum by all countries over the next couple of years.
Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation has a focus on making it recyclable and from recycled materials, as well as repairable. Think lower-impact Ingredients and extending the original life of the item by offering a service function.
The provenance segment is best summed up with the Digital Product Passports (DPP). The good news is that the average outdoor brand will already know more than 80 percent of the information required; this is one area where the squeeze will be on the fast fashion brands. Before this year’s end, the DPP criteria will be confirmed. At this stage, it is still unknown whether this means NFCs, RFIDs, QR codes or whatever. The label will start to be apparent in just over 12 months’ time on product.
The third section is around Green Claims, for which the ground rules (as this part is already in place in some instances) are to always compare your claim to a judgeable norm and to stop using vague descriptions (like “green”, “eco” or “environmentally friendly”).
The first milestone became operational for all companies outside of the EU from mid-December, when the General Safety Production Regulation came into effect.
It is times like these when you should be grateful that there is an active trade body keeping its eyes open for the membership – the European Outdoor Group (EOG) is on the ball better than most others. Performance Days is also hosting a Day 0 event on March 4 at Messe Munich that provides continuous professional development training for the common ground between textiles and Environmental Social Governance (ESG). The trade show over the following two days has a focus topic of “Certifications: Which ones matter?”
