Editorial: Overcoming Obstacles to Environmental Sustainability in the Textile and Apparel Industry

At the end of March 2013, four leading retailers and manufacturers of home textiles announced that they had established an association, called the Sustainable Textiles Coalition, in order to improve the environmental sustainability of the home textile industry. As consumer awareness of environmental issues grows, businesses in all industries need to take practical steps to improve the environmental sustainability of their products and supply chains. Moving towards environmental sustainability, though, is easier said than done. For example, restricted substances lists aimed at reducing the amount of hazardous chemicals in the textile and apparel supply chain are viewed by many textile and apparel companies as containing overly complicated language and too much jargon. Also, there is debate as to whether existing chemicals testing methods produce valid results. Furthermore, textile and apparel companies are concerned that environmental sustainability initiatives place too much focus on the end goal and not enough on the actions that companies need to take in order to reach this goal. Worryingly, some industry experts argue that environmental sustainability goals can only be achieved by making major and unacceptable compromises with regard to product quality. In this report, Robin Anson discusses the industry tools which have been developed to help textile and apparel companies meet environmental sustainability targets and suggests some solutions as to how environmental sustainability targets could be made more achievable.

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