May 13, 2024
The environmental impact of the fashion industry is huge, and addressing it will require a coordinated effort from legislators, brands and conscious consumers. With the wheels of legislation turning slowly, and many mainstream retailers focused more on easy wins, a new cohort of innovative brands and startups are leading the charge, challenging traditional materials, manufacturing approaches and business models. From made-to-order slow fashion to seed-to-sew farming, here's a run down of some of the best out there at the moment:
Clothing rental is nothing new: Moss Bros’ hire department has been a staple of the UK high street since 1897. But what was once the reserve of tuxes and prom gowns is now seeing growth into more mainstream categories, driven in part by changing attitudes towards ownership of the iTunes and Netflix generations, and in part by the cost of living crisis.
With the industry facing a huge overproduction problem, rental and 'share-washing' has the potential to be a useful piece of the sustainability puzzle. It's not perfect: in one sense rental models encourage wider consumption, and also increase transport use through deliveries and returns. But several lifecycle analyses have shown that overall rental leads to a net reduction in emissions and water use over direct ownership.
Rental apps like Hurr, as well as progressive multi-brand retailers like Selfridges offer curated collections of designer items at accessible pricing. Challenger brands like Baukjen have created exclusive for-hire collections to suit occasional needs.
Australian startup Rntr have focussed on B2B instead, with a full service rental and resale platform that can be easily integrated into ecommerce sites.
Overproduction is a massive issue. Driven by manufacturing practices that favour volume, and the world’s thirst for fast fashion, over 30% of new clothes (around 30 billion garments) go unsold every year, with most of them headed to landfill or the incinerator. Unsold inventory of course also impacts the bottom line for brands, reducing margins and pushing up prices for consumers.
Several sustainable brands like Neem and Twothirds are challenging this status quo, through pre-order systems. Because advance orders give better line of sight on demand, and reduce wastage and overstock, these savings can be passed on to the consumer willing to wait that bit longer.
Another smart approach to combating overproduction and wastage is on demand production. Citizen Wolf and Teemill have quite different approaches. Bespoke, or short run, garments can be produced and ship to order based on customers specifications, not only reducing deadstock but also reducing the returns too.
Citizen Wolf’s AI powered digital twin produces a surprisingly accurate and detailed set of personal measurements from a small set of inputs, from which customers can then order tailored items guaranteed to fit perfectly.
Teemill are a market leading print on demand service in the UK with a whitelabel platform that brands can plug into their own ecommerce sites. This ultimately means they only need to hold generic stock, with all bespoke designs printed to order.
A distributed supply chain introduces a wide range of challenges for sustainable brands, from supplier costs, to difficulties in traceability, monitoring standards, and emissions from production and transport.
To tackle this, some great brands are adopting a seed to sew model, growing their own fibres locally. Aussie brand Afends for example recently invested in a 100 acre hemp farm, while Oshadi produce their collections exclusively from their own 250 acre regenerative cotton farm in Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile Fibreshed has emerged over the last few years as an international grassroots network local production of textile fibres.
Conventional textile production generates a massive amount of waste and toxic byproducts, in the form of greenhouse gases, waste water, solvents, dyes and microplastics. Around 150 liters of water alone is required for every kilogram of conventional fiber produced.
Closed loop systems can help tackle this wastage and pollution, and reduce costs at the same time. Materials like Lyocell are well suited to closed loop manufacturing and brands like Ettitude and Cariki have applied it across their businesses, capturing and reusing 98% of the water and 99% of the solvents used in the production of their garments.
UK platform Teemill get a second mention as an exemplar of a business that has implemented closed loop at the other end of the consumer lifecycle. Their takeback scheme encourages customers to trade in old clothing (traceable via a QR code on the label), which are then broken down and remilled into new garments in their own factory.
Repair and maintenance are key to reducing consumption: extending the life of clothing by just 9 months can reduce their environmental impact by up to 30%. Yet as a society we’ve fallen out of habit with what was once common practice. Why would we bother patching a hole or sewing on new buttons, when the replacement is so cheap.
However, as well as saving consumers money and reducing the impact of the things we buy, free repair services can also, perhaps counterintuitively, be fantastic for customer retention too.
The added value and ongoing brand relationship through repair store visits and garment care workshops builds share of mind and brand affinity, increasing the likelihood the consumer considers that brand when the time eventually comes to replace the item.
Great products and innovations are only impactful if customers can find and engage with them, and as identified in our recent research, many brands and retailers fall short on digital customer experience. Sustainable information is difficult to find and the options and choices confusing.
Brands that get it right put the customers at the heart of their online experiences. Well designed menus, search filters and product pages help customers easily find and understand their ranges.
Brands like Baukjen, Lucy & Yak and Patagonia for example have created simple filter options that allow customers to easily search by need or attribute, without needing to make sense of complex materials science and branded terms.
