Sustainable luxury fashion – is it possible?

Contributor Nicola Jenkin. Article from Sustainable Fashion Forum

Can luxury fashion be sustainable? To answer this question, let’s start by exploring what is meant by sustainability and luxury:



What is striking is the similarity between the two. It would be easy to suggest that sustainability and luxury are harmonious bedfellows. Sadly, this would be somewhat naïve. The planet is suffering as the population grows and an expanding middle class seeks products to illustrate new-found wealth.
If everyone on the planet lived the life of an average European, we’d need 3 planets. Does luxury fashion play a role in this? Most certainly, as luxury products are often considered to have larger environmental footprints than their contemporaries. However, I think this is a misnomer, as there is some commonality between sustainability and luxury.

Charles Leadbeater – a leading authority on innovation and creativity – argues that as our world becomes more complex we’ll seek out and value simplicity and authenticity, which will lead to a ‘less is more’ attitude and desire to experience products that claim to ‘take us back to nature’ and to know where products come from. As a result, consumers want to show that they not only enjoy good quality but that they also care for the environment.

This is picked up by a number of luxury brands who are responding to this demand in a variety of ways, whether through improved ethical practices such as using fairly-mined minerals, reducing the use of endangered and exotic species, reducing water pollution by using dyes listed by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), improving traceability by using Historic Futures’ String platform or measuring environmental impact using a variety of tools such as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index.

However, those who are doing something ‘sustainable’ are in the minority, and very few have adopted a more holistic approach. There appears to be a reluctance to change, and if there is, it often occurs in reaction to being named and shamed by NGOs (e.g. in Greenpeace’s Dirty Laundry reports).

As the luxury fashion industry relies so heavily on natural raw materials for most of its products it would make sense to think beyond one-dimensional issues (as important as they are) and try to become more proactive by building a sound reputation and environmental ethos which is core to the brand. In an interview with Stella McCartney she suggests that you can’t do everything at once and that ‘we do things on an achievable level in order to make it happen’.

So then, where do you start? From our experience working with small to large brands it is important to focus on areas that result in both reduced environmental impact and cost. This can be achieved by identifying where your environmental hotspots (areas of biggest impact) are in your supply chain. This exercise can be done in a cost effective way, and does not require expensive life-cycle assessments. A baseline environmental impact – whether carbon, waste or water – can be developed at various levels of detail to provide an indicator of impact, and therefore area(s) to focus.

Results arising from our work with apparel brands (including luxury) would suggest that the main environmental impacts are:

• Raw materials – cotton, leather, wool, polyester and PVC,
• Manufacturing of finished materials,
• Transport – air, rail and vehicle,
• Operations and retail, and
• Water consumption and pollution (toxicity).

In particular, any measures to reduce the volume or impact of raw materials and the manufacturing of finished materials should have the greatest effect. As a small or medium brand this may not be easy, as you have less control over specifications. However, by improving engagement with vendors this can go a long way to engendering a relationship which can not only provide improved knowledge of your products and their origins, but they are also more likely to work with you to reduce their, and subsequently your environmental impact.

There are some wonderful examples of smaller luxury brands being proactive in reducing their environmental impact, and in many instances ensuring that sustainability is central to the ethos of their business. I’ve highlighted a few brands below as examples of good practice who’ve moved beyond ‘turning off lightbulbs’:

1. Pachacuti are a Panama hat brand who ensure sustainability is integrated throughout the entire product supply chain, by investing in sustainable production processes and sourcing, reducing and preventing pollution, Fair Trade and local communities.

2. Viridus Luxe have recognised the impact associated with the production of cotton and have sort to use a mix of alternative fibres with a lower environmental impact, such as hemp.

3. Etrala London reduces the amount of waste arising in its supply chain by only producing what is required, whilst brands such as From Somewhere use off-cuts from luxury brands to produce clothing and accessories.

4. Thiery Mugler – Whilst not a small brand, I was intrigued by Thierry Mugler’s Womanity fragrance bottles, which are refillable. Certainly a concept which could be adopted by smaller brands to reduce packaging waste.                                      

5. honest by have started to communicate the transport carbon footprint of each garment sold online, with the intention of ultimately calculating and reporting a garment’s total carbon footprint (as has been adopted by the likes of M&S, PPR and other larger brands).

Many of the attributes of luxury align comfortably with the concept of sustainability. The few examples provided of luxury brands who are starting to make inroads into reducing their environmental impact illustrate that luxury clothing can have sustainable convictions and operate commercially. In the long-term, the fashion industry will have to become sustainable in order to remain profitable.

Article from Sustainable Fashion Forum
You can follow Nicola on Twitter @nicolaruby

Levi's makes life-cycle assessment part of its fabric

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools began increasing in popularity a few years ago as sustainability-minded companies sought ways not only to better understand their products and mitigate their impacts, but also to communicate their efforts to consumers. These tools are data management systems that help companies measure and track the impacts of products from the design stage to end-of-life.

Rather than using ready-made LCA software, companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. began building their own proprietary tools to enable them to better measure their unique inputs, outputs and impacts. (In Levi's case, it commissioned PE Americas to conduct the original lifecycle-analysis study -- led by Thomas P. Gloria -- of a Levi’s 501 jean and Dockers Khaki back in 2007. Since then, Levi's has worked with Gloria, now owner of Industrial Ecology Consultants, to develop and evolve the Evaluate tool.) 

Now Levi's is working to take LCA out of the sustainability silo and into the design room. The company's clothing designers are using its Evaluate tool on a daily basis to make decisions about things like fabric choices, washes and dyes.

"As designers, we only know what we know and so often the decisions we make about what we design and the materials we use are made absent of understanding the environmental impacts of those choices," says Paul Dillinger, senior director of global design for Levi's Dockers brand.

Dillinger and his team can use Evaluate to reach down to the material level to assess the impacts of various components. The design group recently went through the process of evaluating "chassis" fabrics -- core fabrics from which a line is made -- and were able to use Evaluate for the first time to help make design decisions.

"Typically we evaluate fabrics with respect to quality, price, and versatility, but do we know that they're sustainably made?" Dillinger explains. "Have they been woven, spun, dyed in ways that are appropriate? Before Evaluate had no insight into that. Now we have 16 core fabrics we'll put through the tool to further hone the assortment -- so all that information will be available to us prior to the design process. Rather than audit our choices later, this gives us a chance to start off with the right fabrics."

Other examples and the rest of the article is available at Green Biz