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WHAT'S ECO IN A €3 T-SHIRT?

Updated: Apr 30

I've been wanting to write about this for quite some time, to be honest, and after the news published this week about the fine of 500,000 euros to H&M (following a lawsuit for misleadingly selling non-sustainable products by advertising them as such) I think the time has come.

It could be said that the new fashion of this decade is “ecofashion”. Think for a moment about a fashion firm, surely some of their products add the "eco" or "sustainable" But are these garments really ecological or, at least, produced in a sustainable way? I put quotation marks around the word “ecofashion” for several reasons:

The first thing, for a garment to be 100% ecological, it requires a series of quite strict premises to achieve them. A long series of steps, all of them ecological, that go back from the beginning of the production chain. Therefore, for a garment to be 100% ecological, the fabric must be, that fabric was previously a plantation (let's take the case of cotton, which is the most commonly used) which must have been treated ecologically. If we continue things get complicated, the thread must also be ecological, as well as the subject of dyes, labeling and packaging. The workshop where it is carried out must also be eco-friendly and comply with all the permits in order that mark the new ecology laws for the textile industry; and last but not least, that each worker involved in this production chain must have fairly received his salary. Therefore, if these remittances are taken into account and numbers are taken... maybe it doesn't pay as much to produce an ecological garment, right? Are the brands that sell organic clothing, especially fast fashion brands, really offering a correct product or are we being deceived?






If we continue analyzing, creating a garment in a sustainable way is somewhat simpler. Parts of the base that in some part of the process you will not be able to guarantee 100% to the client that it is ecological due to the complexity that this implies, but you can specify to the client if it is a garment made with sustainable materials, manufactured in proximity and trying to be as respectful as possible with the planet. Let's take an example, a garment can be made with Lyocell (a sustainable fabric made with cellulose) but the firm that sells it must guarantee that this fabric is true and not fake and that the garment has been produced nearby by people who have been paid for your work correctly. Maybe the garment is not so cheap, right?


As we can see, many brands have joined this fashion for sustainable garments, most of them fast fashion, to wash their image known as "greenwashing" and thus better connect with a public that is increasingly aware of caring for the environment. and continue earning money under an eco image. Therefore, when you go shopping and see an "ecological" T-shirt at a price of €3... rest assured that it is not very ecological. This is precisely what has happened recently with H&M and Decathlon, which have given in and have promised to "adjust or stop making sustainable statements regarding their product or their website", according to two statements issued by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Consumers. Markets (ACM).

The decision of the two fashion distribution giants comes after the organization accused them of using misleading claims regarding sustainability. H&M has donated €500,000 and Decathlon €4,000,000 to “causes that are committed to sustainability in the fashion industry” to “compensate for their unclear and non-fact-based statements”. The companies have also “promised that they will inform consumers more clearly to avoid the risk of misleading them about sustainability. This news comes just a month after H&M was sued by the federal court in New York, which alleged that the company "introduced misleading information" related to sustainability in its communications and "sold its products as better for the environment when, actually, they are not.” Like them, many more brands that are already being looked at with a magnifying glass, fortunately, thanks to the new global laws on ecology and the environment that are beginning to be applied in the fashion industry, one of the most polluting industries.


Finally, I would like to recall the origin of this concern for sustainable fashion so that it helps us all, as fashion consumers, to know what we consume and how we can do it in a more conscious and responsible way.

Back in 2012, terms such as slow fashion or sustainable fashion began to be heard. Kate Fletcher, activist, writer, nature lover and businesswoman, was the first to introduce the term slow fashion. She began to argue that it is possible to produce clothes and dress responsibly. Although the trigger to show the importance of sustainable production was the tragic event that occurred in 2013 in the Rana Plaza disaster where, after the collapse of an 8-storey building in Bangladesh, 1,135 workers died and 2,500 were injured in the textile sector. Thus began a Fashion Revolution that is commemorated every April 20. If you want to know more about this topic, I leave you here a post that can help you. https://carolhd.wixsite.com/carolhd/post/design-in-a-sustainable-key

Tell me, what do you think about it now?

 
 
 

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