Empowering consumers - Key take aways from PD Panel

The life of a garment does not start when you acquire it in a shop, multiple people have been involved in its making, it has travelled the world, and has had an environmental impact.

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Our sustainability director Karin Simondon has discussed the topic during a panel discussion at Performance Days, together with Marianne Tochtermann, René Bethmann and Charles Ross as moderator.  

The full recording of the discussion can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXxSKut407s

According to McKinsey study Fashion on Climate, Garment consumers account for around 20% (close to 25% if we include end-of-use) of a garment total carbon emissions. On top of that, their purchasing decision has a big influence on the remaining impact, in theory! How can one expect consumers to make the right purchasing decisions to reward brands with lower impact, and change their behavior during usage if they don’t know:

• How garments were made: where, by whom, which different components were assembled, the different steps in the supply chain etc…
• Where impact occured along the supply chain: water consumption, chemical use, energy consumption, transportation type and duration etc…

Our industry needs consumers to get the right information to decide what to buy and how to act with purchased garments.  

• What to buy: impact data with possibility to compare one garment with another
• How to act: care, wash, repair, second life, disposal (product & packaging)

It is not the sole responsibility of the brands to provide this clarity but of all players. Equally, setting requirement for transparency should not only go upstream (brands requiring information to other players), but also downstream (fabric producers and brands manufacturers requiring information about distribution and usage of products).

We have high hopes that the new EU Ecodesign directive for sustainable products, and the associated digital product passport will provide this information to consumers, and drive the change we need to see at scale.