Samantha Taylor 7/2/24 Samantha Taylor 7/2/24

Future Fabrics Expo - Why Is Vegan Leather So Prevalent?

I am often astounded when it comes to the sustainability areas of fabric trade shows just how many of them are leather alternatives. And this was something that came up again last week at the Future Fabrics Expo. Maybe it’s because I don’t work in leather, or produce leather products! But the supply chain of leather and how it’s communicated is something that has always fascinated me, so I wanted to dive into it a bit here. It’s also worth noting that the leather industry is absolutely massive. In 2020 it was valued at US$394 billion! And the alternative, or synthetic, leather industry is valued at just US$31.4 billion. So when you look at these figures you can see why 89% of Next Gen material investment goes into alternative leathers.

Brown and white cows grazing in a field of green grass next to some water and under blue skies with white clouds.

When it come real leather, and for the purposes of this article we’re just looking at cow hides, we’re not looking at other animal skins because that is a whole other conversation! The leather industry and its working groups push the leather is a bi-product of the meat industry. My view is that it is a little more complicated than that. Naturally you would want to be able to sell every part of your product. And let’s be honest, smallholders and farmers outside of massive agriculture organisations, are absolutely not paid enough for their products. And in these situations I think it would be wise to consider it a bi-product and certify it accordingly.. One farmer once said to me; “the hides are worthless to us, we do not make any farming decisions based on their hides so therefore it is a waste product.” But her experience as a smaller farmer compared to the massive agricultural organisations you now get, is going to be widely different. At the end of the day, the hides come from a cow that has been slaughtered for its meet in most cases. There are times when calfs are slaughtered for a particularly soft skin, and in that instance the meat is the bi-product to a very expensive skin. Hence why this bi-product argument can be a little confusing. It’s also a side bar to the main conversation, which is that cattle raising is damaging to the environment and we need to reduce the number of cows on our planet. The one thing that leather has over all its competitors is that it is durable, naturally water resistant, easily repairable and biodegradable.

One area where leather alternatives have really exploded is food waste. The EU has lumped food and textile waste together in one strategy which I think is telling in terms of where they want investment to be focussed. But the idea of using food waste has the same problems as saying leather is a bi-product of the food industry. For example grape leather is made from the left over grape skins from the wine industry, for which there is a lot. This waste can be mixed with chemicals and dehydrated to create a skin. What chemicals are often a protected secret so who knows what’s in there. Some alternative leather producers feed food waste to a bacteria to make a cellulose and then mix it with chemicals. For others there is even a question about whether the food waste they use is technically food waste. 1500 mangos a week are discarded in Holland, which is the largest trading area for mangos globally. And they don’t have the climate to grow them! Whole mangos are discarded to be made into a leather. Given the global level of food insecurity and rising wealth inequality driving people into poverty; is using a food to create leather products the best use of that? The other argument is cost. The mangos are given away for free because it is cheaper than having to pay to dispose of them. That isn’t going to create an incentive to reduce the amount of food waste in the first place, which is the first aim of the EU Food and Textile Waste Strategy. Meanwhile it creates a difficult market for farmers to operate in.

Leather tannery in India. A man in a brightly patterned outfit and hat leans against a large clay vat. Leather skins are laid out drying on the ground. They stand in front of a traditional India orange building.

Leather seems to be an all or nothing conversation. And out of every sustainability conversation out there, it’s probably the most contentious. At the end of the day it is still possible to reduce the number of cows globally, reduce the emissions and chemical use through some seriously cool innovations that are coming to market, while still growing the leather industry. And give more money to farmers for the hides. But money isn’t being invested into that space nearly as much as the alternative are. And a lot of these alternatives still use plastics in order to mimic some of the naturally occurring performance of leather, which makes some of the sustainability arguments obsolete.

Regardless of yours, or your customers, personal choice; those working in leather and alternative leather need to have full visibility on the supply chain from the very moment the feedstock becomes tangible. From a social, ecological and regulatory standpoint.

On a personal note I do value leather products, and I don’t think switching out all leather to another alternative will have the environmental impact we think it will. Certainly if we want to see a large reduction in emissions from this industry and increase stability for farmers, then there are better ways to work with the industry on that. Unfortunately I do think that the industry is being hindered by environmental legislation that doesn’t make farming profitable, and that in part is because working groups spend too much time pushing the status quo narrative while blaming the smallest players in the industry. I read a Forbes article awhile back that said the largest tanneries do the best work in making leather more environmentally friendly, while the smaller tanneries in the Global South are the ones with unregulated chemical use and polluting the waterways. Which entirely misses the point of the economics of scale and how the fashion industry works.

Samantha Taylor 4/15/24 Samantha Taylor 4/15/24

Getting Clear On The EU’s Deforestation Legislation

Coming into force for large business in December 2024, with small businesses requiring compliance by June 2025, the EU’s new Deforestation Legislation is effecting businesses involved in the supply chains of coffee, cocoa, wood, cattle, soy, palm oil and rubber. Here is everything you need to know about the up coming legislation. And if you’re still not sure if or how this applies to you, email us to see how we can help.

Why do we have this legislation?

It’s part of the EU Green Deal’s Directives and Regulations to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere and biodiversity loss, while ensuring sustainable business practices and transparent supply chains. Between 1990 and 2008, the EU imported and consumers 1/3 of the globally traded agricultural products associated with deforestation. A study concluded that the 7 products mentioned above are the ones most associated with deforestation. It’s important to note the difference between Regulation and Directive. Regulation means the EU’s text applies to all countries with the EU. Which makes it much easier for businesses. Directives are where the overall aims apply, but it’s down to each member state as to how they action and enforce that.

Who does it apply to?

Every business that sells into the EU will need to be compliant by June 2025 regardless of whether you are B2B or D2C. There is also a special mention of online sales. Even if your business is outside of the EU but you sell your products to customers within the EU, you must comply. The person or business responsible for compliance is the one who places it for sale within the EU. So despite many reports that the people who need to be compliant are the small holders at the bottom of the supply chain. That’s just not true. In fact there are several mentions of small holders within the legislation to ensure they are being supported. And this will be further enforced through the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

What does it cover?

It covers the products and the derivatives of coffee, cocoa, cattle, wood, soy, palm oil and rubber. It does not apply to any recycled products. Lots of products can be derived from these, hopefully some of these examples will help make it a little clearer.

cattle - this applies to beef and leather products. Shoes, accessories and clothing fall under this regulation. However, if you are a brand selling ready made clothing and were to have a leather button on a cotton jacket, you buy that button from a supplier already made and there is no other leather on your garment; you do not need to report on it. But, if you are the button supplier and your customer is in the EU (the person or business placing the PO), you do need to comply with the EUDR for the leather.
wood - this applies to products made directly from wood, such as timber and furniture. And it also applies to wood pulp products such as paper and packaging. It does not apply to products that are derived from wood pulp. For example; it does not apply to viscose which is made from wood pulp. But if the viscose fibre is manufactured in the EU, then the regulation applies to that raw material. And it is the responsibility of person or business selling the wood pulp to the fibre supplier to comply.
rubber - this is natural latex and also applies to vulcanised rubber which is used in footwear. It also applies to any neoprene products using natural rubber.

Something to note for small holders here: If the crop is grown under tree cover, the EU will not recognise that area as forest, instead it described as agricultural land.

How does the reporting work?

Great news is that the EU is going to make it super easy to report on! Countries are going to be divided into 3 groups; low risk, standard and high risk of deforestation. The lower the risk the less reporting required. What will be needed for all though is everything you normally put on import paperwork plus a geolocation for the times and dates the products are being grown / harvested etc. Sadly, you can’t just use Google maps for that! Support for this will come through the EU Observatory who will provide land cover maps in real time and develop an early warning system for observed deforestation. This forms the first part of the Due Diligence Statement you’ll submit through an online portal. You will need to keep all this information for 5 years, including the number you’ll be given upon statement submission.

If you are a trader, this is all the information you need to keep hold of for your customers in the EU. Except where you are a large business, in which case you will be considered an operator and you will need to comply with risk assessment and mitigation. For low risk countries, a standard supply chain risk assessment and mitigation policy will suffice. But for any high risk countries it must be product, country and area specific.

For standard and high risk countries there will be different levels of reporting required for each product, country and even area. These are generally standard risk assessment and mitigation for supply chains. One difference being is that you need to be aware of your supplier’s compliance. And in the case of operators and small holders; it is the operators responsibility to communicate the needs and if the operator has found any non compliance. As well as offering support to bring the small holder into compliance.

If you are a business that operates outside of the EU, but buys EU products and then sells back into the EU. This is quite relevant for chocolate businesses who buy their chocolate from Belgium for example. You only need to keep the a record of the reporting number related to each batch for 5 years.

Penalties for non compliance.

What happens if there are questions around your Due Diligence Statement, or if you are found in violation?

Customs can put your shipment on hold for 3 days while they work with you to resolve it, or 72 hours for perishable goods.
In the first instance correct action plans will be issued, and at worst that will mean either the destruction or donation of goods in line with the EU’s waste management policy.
For repeated or serious violations there will be fines that are proportional to the environmental damage, which will be no more than 4% of the operators total EU turnover for the financial period ending before the final decision, and product confiscation.
For serious repeated infringements the business can be banned from selling goods within the EU for a maximum of 12 months.

Should you wish for more information, or to understand your business readiness, please reach out and we’ll be more than happy to help.

Samantha Taylor 1/22/24 Samantha Taylor 1/22/24

How to Pay Living Wages - A 3rd Party Edition

For many years the discussion has raged on the feasibility of paying living wages within the supply chain. Supply chains are not static entities, they are living and changing organisms. Spreading further and wider than you could possibly comprehend. They are more akin to a mycelium structure than a chain. And to be able to grapple with that concept is the first thing we need to do in order understand how we tackle fair pay for fair labour. But to keep this relatively short, we are just going to focus on the cut and sew aspect of garment production. Otherwise you’ll be here all week!

If you own a part of your own supply chain, or you employ people to sew your products, I highly recommend this report on implementing living wages in your organisation from Marcus Feldthus and Oscar Haumann. Which can be downloaded from their website. This is a great guide for how you can structure your business to ensure financial resiliency, and to scale without losing the transparency. With some great advice on communicating and tracking whether you are paying living wages if you’re working on a piece rate system.

But the biggest challenge comes from working with a 3rd party supplier, where you aren’t the one controlling the wages. Over the last 2 decades trust between supplier and brand has been destroyed as brands compete in a race to the bottom. Once upon a time open costings meant that you could work with a supplier to understand how to adapt a product in order to hit a target price point. Instead it is now used as a bargaining chip, playing suppliers off against each other. Which only results in a supplier taking a reduced margin in order to avoid holes in their capacity. Most recently we’ve seen Boohoo use this same playbook while telling us it ensures transparency for fair pay. The good news is that both the BBC and The Sourcing Journal have worked to uncover exactly how open costings were used to pressure suppliers.

*A photograph of Boohoo’s Thurmaston Lane factory.*

Unfortunately, if there is no trust between you and your supplier you aren’t ever going to be able to know if they are paying living wages. And it does impact your ability to be resilient, which I spoke about last year. While you can work with great organisations such as Fairwear, there are many audit companies who do not hold positions of trust either. Just look at the lawsuit being bought against Tesco and Intertek. It’s no longer a credible risk assessment to bring in external auditing teams and not visit the suppliers yourself.

Before we dive into how you use your product costings to determine whether a living wage is paid, it’s helpful to know what the living wage is. There are many organisations that can help, including the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, Labour Behind the Label and The International Labour Organisation to name but a few. A living wage is determined by how much it costs to live in an area. It covers housing, food, education, healthcare, transportation and a small amount of savings. Minimum wage is a government set minimum that people should be paying and it’s based on a living wage versus what will make a country competitive. In a country the minimum wage can be more than a living wage in some areas of the country, and a lot less than living wage in others. It can be helpful to know what percentage of the living wage a minimum wage is. When you average the data some EU countries have come out with the biggest gap between minimum and living wages compared to Asia.

It’s important to know whether your supplier uses local workers or migrant workers. A living wage should be determined based on where the supplier is based, not where the workers are from. If the factory has a dormitory in order to make themselves more appealing to migrant workers, this should not form part of the living wage calculations, or be deducted from their pay.

Understanding product costings and your factory line set up should be mandatory for anyone negotiating product prices. As an example, I’m going to be using the costings I did for the BBC Panorama documentary. There were several dresses costed for the BBC, and to ensure a fair comparison only minimum wage was used as the wage cost, there was no supplier profit included, and there was no tax applied. In short, it only just met legal obligations and is in no way an indication of ethical prices. The prices I gave came out between 11% and 26% more expensive than Boohoo were paying their Leicester based suppliers. But more importantly they were in line with the prices estimated by Chris, the other supply chain expert consulting on the BBC project, who has worked with major UK retailers on their supply chains.

But if you know the basics, you can use it to work out whether what you are asking for is reasonable.

*A stack of papers with a photo of a woman in a red dress, typed description and written notes.*

When it comes to sewing you need to know how many operations in takes to complete a garment. Take this red dress; there are 3 different machine types most likely split across 4 jobs.

1 - shoulder seams together with 5 thread overlock.

2 - binding around neckline and armholes with binding machine (can be separated into 2 jobs).

3 - Side seams together with 5 thread overlock.

4 - Hem with cover stitch.

Based on a longer stitch length than we would advise, we estimated we could complete 50pcs per hour which would give a garment sewing cost of £0.71 per item. Once you add in cutting cost (based on 2000pcs over 7 different colours), QC and packing, thread, labels, rent, electricity and water, plus back office staff at minimum wage, the total CM cost comes to £3.55 per piece. Which doesn’t include fabric. This dress was sold by Boohoo for £11 at full price. The average fabric consumption for an item like this is around 1.4m per dress. If they were paying the CM cost we estimated, they would have had to pay less than £1/m for fabric.

So if you aren’t able to work with open costings with your suppliers then knowing how long it should take to make your design is a really good starting point. And the best way to know that information is to observe a production in your facility. However this should not be used as a cost reduction exercise, because each facility is different. Some will bunch production units together around sewing threads to reduce the change over times. Some will bulk production together based on certain machines such as bonding / laser etc. Instead this is a guide to understand whether it’s possible your supplier can pay the living wage. Or how far out you are likely to be.

If this is an area you would like more information on, then please do click on the contact button. Or drop us a message on any of our socials.

Samantha Taylor 11/21/23 Samantha Taylor 11/21/23

How Do We Build Supply Chain Resiliency?

The short answer: Trust.

The longer answer is more of the same. But with more words. It would be like me telling you how to have a good relationship with your partner. Do what you say you will. Take your share of responsibility. Apologise.

But often supply chains are long. You won’t have a direct line to the mine providing the silicon for the solar panels that are powering your factory. Or the chemical supplier altering the compounds of salt to ensure water is cleaned from your dye house.

And yet they are still all part of your supply chain.

Which can make us feel a little insignificant.

But we have more power than we know. Take the protests in Bangladesh. It’s wreaking havoc on apparel supply chains. Not that you’d know it much. Garment workers are demanding a minimum wage increase. Wages are being deliberately kept low. It’s estimated a living wage increase would rise garment prices by 5%. The same percentage the British government are impressed they kept inflation at. We could agree to increase prices to the factory. And its completely possible to ring fence those costs for wages.

It’s well known in entrepreneurship that having more money reduces worry and creates space for problem solving. The same thing happens at every level of a company. A Business Fights Poverty study in 2022 demonstrates a direct link between living wages and a resilient supply chain.

It doesn’t matter where you are in a company, you can create trust with those you work with.

For more on building resilient supply chains listen to our podcast on it with Fespa.

Samantha Taylor 8/28/23 Samantha Taylor 8/28/23

5 Things We Learnt About Scaling from Next Gen Material Start Ups.

We spent a week in July visiting a number of textile and apparel trade shows in Paris. There we were able to have conversations with New Fiber Welding, Spiber, Fairbric and Lanzatex on some of the important things they had learnt on their journey. Each of these brands are at various stages of expansion; Spiber and Fairbrics are still in the pilot stage and planning scale up, New Fiber Welding is scaling up to rolled production in Q4 of 2023 which will see them grow into new textile applications, and Lanzatex are on a global expansion drive with plants in Belgium, India and China with more being planned. This news should be confidence boosting to investors on the back of the headlines this week that Bolt Threads are stopping production of mycelium leather, which follows the announcement only a few years ago of them terminating the scale up of their Spider Silk (which is not made from spiders by the way! It’s a fermentation process not too dissimilar to beer brewing), which has opened up the market for Spiber to make strides in their place.

While much discussion has been happening on the failure of Bolt Threads, with many views being given and only some following the official line that inflation and challenging investment environment has contributed to the cancellation; the businesses we spoke to are in agreement as to what it takes to succeed in the next gen materials space.

Number 1 - Go for government funding first.

It’s a less risky form of investment, especially when you’re looking at feasibility studies. While sometimes sluggish and beaucracy heavy they do have resources to tap into a hive mind across many different organisations. Government return on investment is longer term in forms of tax payments than any angel investor is going to be.

Number 2 - Certifications matter.

In Europe the ISCC are the ones that are highly preferred, and according to Lanatex should be the ones to start with. They didn’t start with them incidentally, but if there went back in time it’s the certifications they would go for first according to Babette Pettersen, their VP. Tapping into sustainable textile forums are a good gauge of what tests and certifications are required for your target market.

Number 3 - Always have a scaling plan, even if it changes.

Scaling takes decades not years according to Fairbrics, a sentiment that has been echoed by New Fiber Welding when discussing how long it’s taken to scale their leather alternative from piece production to roll. The more novel the fibre the more detailed the scaling plan is going to need to be because of the challenges you’ll face in getting producer buy in.

Number 4 - Supply chain before brands.

This probably relates more to drop in alternatives such as those provided by Lanatex and Fairbrics rather than entirely new fibre types. It can be difficult to get buy in from spinners and recyclers if the product can’t be produced as part of their normal product production.

Number 5 - Your brand partners have the ability to make or break you.

It’s basically marketing! But this is telling when you compare the companies that have worked with Adidas and those that have worked with Pangaia. A strong indication of success has been seen in the last few years with companies that have worked with Pangaia compared to those who work with Adidas. This could come down to 2 factors; the first being investors want to be associated with Pangaia, but it could also be that Pangaia are an adaptive, young company. A few producers have noted in the past that fitting into Adidas’s BAU has killed businesses that just aren’t at the scale or efficiency they need to be to do that.

Conversations we’ve had with companies who are at pilot stage has given us the general consensus that it’s really difficult to know how to scale, or even plan to scale, in a world that needs radical change within it’s consumption rates and growth metrics. When pushed on price at a panel talk at PV, Babette Pettersen from Lanzatech said that prices should be reflective of LCAs. Which if a carbon tax is levied, as requested by many green campaigners, would make new gen materials much more attractive to price sensitive brands.

Drop us a message if you want to talk about best methods for scaling your start up.

Samantha Taylor 6/4/23 Samantha Taylor 6/4/23

Bamboo is not a sustainable fibre. It’s a viscose.

Bamboo was once heralded as the sustainable fibre to polyester. Firstly, it’s not sustainable. And secondly, it’s a terrible alternative to polyester! It’s not just the feedstock that is questionable, the biggest concern is in the production process.

We think it’s a sustainable fibre because it’s farmed as a mono crop. Without the need for fertilisers or pesticides and with little water. Basically it’s a weed. Which grows super fast. Traditionally feedstocks for viscose have been soft wood trees such as beech and eucalyptus from boreal forests, depending on your manufacturing location. Sources in and around Northern Europe and Canada are typically beech, which take 12 years to saturate before they can be harvested. Bamboo on the other hand matures much faster, typically about 3 years. And requires less land per kilo. So it’s a very lucrative alternative to viscose. It’s also much less regulated in our current environmentally aware climate.

People are slowly becoming more aware that mono agriculture is not great for the soil. Regardless of whether or not it is organic. That said, in areas where wildfires have ravaged forests, bamboo can be a benefit as a it secures the soil in case of heavy rainfall, avoiding mudslides, and it can help rejuvenate the soil when it’s grown with other crops. Bamboo plants are nitrogen and phosphorous rich. But it is still a weed, and can be very invasive at that.

There are reports of bamboo farming contributing to deforestation and biodiversity loss. And you know that’s a problem when Netflix add it to one of their cartoons where the heroes come and rescue the pandas from the heavy machinery. With extra emphasis being placed on this particular episode of Rainbow Rangers for it being a baby panda about to be flattened. While the human driven deforestation has been noted as ‘moderate’ compared to other sectors. This is mainly down to not being able to attribute what is intentional and what bamboo has just taken advantage of. Naturally bamboo does reduce the vigour, diversity and biomass of other trees surrounding it. What with it being a weed and all! It is worth mentioning that there are more than 500 different types of bamboo and pandas only eat 45 of them. And at the stage before maturity. So while it’s unlikely pandas are being killed for bamboo, any sort of industrial farming hurts biodiversity if it isn’t farmed using agroforestry methods.

Which brings us on to sustainable forestry. There is a study completed in 2020 around the impact of bamboo on the Amazon rainforest’s tipping point to a dry savannah. This noted that in areas of widespread bamboo growth which was allowed to reach maturity at around 28 years, seed and die off; the tipping point of a dry savannah was earlier due to the die off creating a highly flammable fuel source. The study noted that no research has been done on the flammability of seedling bamboo, which if it was negative could have a devastating impact on the rainforest’s ability to regenerate. And while it’s tempting to say this points to using bamboo instead of trees, there is also a study that has shown bamboo benefits from human disturbances while surrounding trees suffer.

First thing to note about viscose is that it goes through 2 production processes to be made into a viscose yarn. First it’s pulverised and made into paper like sheets which then goes to the fibre producer. It takes quite a lot of heat, water and chemicals to make a tree into a silky fibre. The factory in China I went to had a vat 3 stories tall and you could feel the solvents at the back of your throat. Now this is where we get into the really murky areas of traceability. Firstly, you’ve got to know if and how that water is cleaned before going back into source. If they give an example of 98% of solvents are extracted, I would ask would you drink that water with 2% solvents in? I would not. You can also make bamboo fibres from younger plants and extract individual yarns like peeling a cheese string (IYKYK!), but that still requires a solvent process to make it similar in handfeel like silk.

Some places in Europe and North America will say they are sustainable because they can extract energy from the heated water used in the production process. Technically yes. But it’s also an unintentional benefit of offshoring to Asia as we came up with all sorts of rules and regulations they had to follow, that didn't apply to ourselves. Such as water facilities being located 1 mile away from the production facility, losing the energy as the water is transported. I’m not sure we could say that makes us more sustainable when they followed rules we made in the first place.

Solvents have long been a contentious issue in the viscose industry and there are now many fibres being marketed as more environmentally friendly, such as Lenzing’s EcoVera (eucalyptus feedstock). There are other sources claiming non toxic solvents or food grade solvents. Still not something you would want in your waterways, for which even a 2% leak into reservoir in the UK would shut down production, and therefore water supplies to customers, for several days. (There aren’t any plants process bamboo in the UK, I’m just making a point! However Lenzing do have a plant here which is touted at the most environmentally viscose plant in the world. There are studies, I’m not just making it up!).

Marketing on bamboo is great, especially if you let customers fill in the blanks. Bamboo toothbrushes that have been whittled (for want of a better word) can be composted at home as any wood, if it’s not been painted. Bamboo viscose can not be composted. Technically it’s biodegradable, but everything biodegrades eventually! Currently there aren’t any scalable facilities focussing on the recycling of bamboo, probably because it’s not that well used. But if yarn suppliers are making it, there needs to be options to look at end of life in the same way that Spinnova are, and Lenzing with their Refibra yarns.

Bamboo is also no good as a sportswear fabric as it holds a lot of water, more than cotton. It only has anti bacterial qualities when it’s a bast fibre (the cheese string), the minute it’s gone into a solvent that naturally occurring quality has disappeared. You also can’t market it as a natural fibre because it requires human intervention to make it into one; so it can only be marketed as a man made fibre.

Viscose was invented to be an artificial silk. At the time of it’s creation in World War Two there was a reason of public good for it’s creation. Today, that same metric can’t be applied. It has been reported that the Higg Index has contributed to a dramatically smaller silk market. While the method of extracting silk is quite unpopular, mulberry trees necessary for the production, sequester more CO2 than bamboo. (one for one mulberry trees sequester 16 times more, but obviously a single mulberry tree takes up more space than a single bamboo so who actually knows?).

Those are all the facts. If you’re still keen on using a bamboo, make sure you’re using the bast fibre from a traceable and verified source. Verified means visit it yourselves and make sure your paperwork has your brand name on it. Ensure your contracts with your suppliers, if they’re buying the yarns on your behalf, have stipulations if it transpires they have bought yarns from unverified sources.

Samantha Taylor 2/16/23 Samantha Taylor 2/16/23

Billionaires don’t care if you defend them.

The other week I posted this spicy piece on LinkedIn and it caused A LOT of anger in my comments and DMs (here’s where I need to remind people that if someone tells you to stay out of their DMs, stay out of them. That’s consent 101.).

Two things to know first of all.

Firstly, the brand in this particular instance is irrelevant. There are many of them that all do the same thing, and many that don’t even bother to try this hard. Rather this is a conversation around economic and climate equality when it comes to wealth redistribution.

Secondly, what is the difference between a million and a billion? If we put it into seconds, a million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. So that’s the difference between a person, or baby, whose 12 days old, and a person whose 31 years old.

Now while this is not about individuals, there is a difference when it comes to a family that has $1 billion and those, like this particular family in question, who are worth $225.5 billion. Or 6,959.5 years. Which is 2,000 years older than the pyramids FYI. And again, not all billionaires are created the same. Plenty fund organisations to help combat school shootings and push for gun reform. It’s not about singling out people (even though these folks don’t care whether I do or not), it’s about what our money helps to fund after we’ve parted with it.

Now you may argue that buying a mid priced piece of kit is irrelevant to these investors. And to a large extent it is. Although they probably wouldn’t be continuing to purchase quite so many new products if there wasn’t a demand for it. Part of our fight against climate change is to degrow (spell check kept changing this to regrow which feels a little dystopian, and pushed my computer literacy to the limit). Quick check of this brand’s website and that’s a lot of kit soon to be dropped. This isn’t about an even keel of sales, this is sales growth push. The more we spend, the more they buy. It’s a vicious circle we can’t quite get off until the consumers do first.

The other thing to note is that there are a lot of small and medium sized brands, not funded by billionaires, going into this year with a lot of fear about whether they can survive. Brands that do also offer a repair service (although always look out for the wording, the product’s lifetime doesn’t actually mean while you own it, it means how long it’s designed to last for), who have paid their suppliers but not themselves, and who continually work with people like myself to move away from the 90s idea that if we recycle enough we’ll be able to combat climate change. There are brands who, in addition to all this, voluntarily enter into extended producer responsibilities and provide take back services.

These brands can only continue to offer that, and push for the well funded brands to do the same, if they survive and thrive. The world will only change when we force it to.

So yes, repair services are great. But only when it’s combined with EPR, living wages in supply chains, a reduction in units produced, kit made with recycled, recyclable and renewable materials, with zero waste throughout the supply chain and complete transparency.

It is also who profits from that business. Transparency isn’t just for supply chains.

When you spend your dollar you cast your vote.

We won’t always get it right, we’re human after all.

But the sooner we get into the habit of thinking about how we spend our cash as voting for the world we want to live in, the more democratic our economy.

Samantha Taylor 8/1/22 Samantha Taylor 8/1/22

Does a rise in Western poverty give us permission to produce more?

Last week we heard that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority was investigating Asda, ASOS and Boohoo for misleading customers about their sustainable credentials. The basis for the investigation is the UK’s new Green Claims Code launched last September, which came out of a review that up to 40% of sustainable claims are misleading. Now at this stage it’s worth noting that the companies are only under investigation and does not mean they did anything wrong. Although it would be nice to have some transparency around why these businesses particularly were singled out, I think it would give a lot of people peace of mind, especially as a lot of greenwashing claims are simply unintentional. Ultimately businesses need more support when it comes to understanding new legislation, whether it’s around verifying claims or whether they have a net zero strategy. This can be expensive for small businesses, which is why understanding the touch points between the CMA and Asda, ASOS and Boohoo before the launch of the investigation is important to know.

Anyway, we’ve digressed quickly. Back to the original point.

A friend of mine posted on LinkedIn with the statement that Asda can’t really be calling themselves green when they sell a slogan t’shirt for £2. The comments got lively pretty quickly and we’d leapt from the CMA investigation to how people need to have access to fast fashion, given the current cost of living crisis, in less time than Lewis can get round a lap at Silverstone. Going off tangent slightly again to just pick up whether someone with limited income is really the target demographic for a slogan t’shirt. My experience of designing the cringe worthy Christmas slogan t’shirts for BHS (god rest their souls), that would read things like “Jingle My Bells”, I can assure you that the people being targeted here are not on limited income. Never mind that, even 15 years ago, these t’shirts were a lot more expensive than they are now, while still be manufactured out of the same country. Keep that last point in mind, I’m going to swing back to that later.

Access to clothing is actually part of our human rights, not just for protection but also identity. It tells the world what community we belong to and communicates who we are. It’s a powerful as our free speech. We know a global recession is about to bite, mixed with a war in Europe and climate change bringing the mother of all ass kickings. Life is about to get really tough for so many people across the globe. So does that mean we should be producing more clothes so people continue to have access to cheap clothing and ensuring we don’t decimate the economies of countries who rely on us producing more stuff?

For those of you here who don’t spend their time analysing lay plans and garment costings; for Asda to sell a £2 t’shirt they need to be ordering millions of garments. Most likely the fabric will be utilised across multiple styles to drive the price down and make comparisons a little tricky (ironically part of the Green Claims Code asks brands to be more specific about their claims and ensure they are comparing relevant products when making a claim, which is actually tricky when it comes to something as complicated as clothing). An average t’shirt uses 0.7m of fabric (already this claim is breaching the Green Claims Code because I’m generalising!), if Asda have bought 1million of them and they’ve managed a pretty reasonable consumption of 96%, that will still leave 28,000m of fabric that’s either going to be landfilled or incinerated. That distance is more than a half marathon.

That’s before we’ve even gotten onto what the fabric is made of in order to achieve that price. If it’s cotton then it’s most certainly not organic, it’s not going to be a long staple fibre (they’re more expensive as they give a nicer handle, drape better and last longer), and I would put money that the supply chain after tier 5 is murky at best. We only need to look at last year’s scandal of the Better Cotton Initiative to be pretty certain. Cotton grown under these conditions uses a lot of water and chemicals, mainly in countries with water instability. If it’s not cotton, it’s polyester. This is not the time to talk about the pros and cons of polyester and cotton, and which one is worse. At the end of the day, the only best thing in this scenario is to produce less.

Which then moves us on to a point we all need to consider, which ever side of the fence you are on; whose poverty are you concerned with most? Now you could answer that producing more is good for both those who purchase and those who make. But this is where I want to swing back to the point I made after telling you about those ‘Jingle My Bells’ t’shirts. Even 15 years ago brands were targeting 80% profit margins, the same margins they target now. And Bangladesh was duty free then too (although Cambodia and Myanmar weren’t, trade deals and the like is also a conversation for another time), which is where a lot of this product was made. Offshoring became popular in the 80s as a way to make more money through cheaper labour, which was helped through government trade deals. In theory, this should make everyone richer. The businesses based here in the UK and bring more money to the countries that produced the clothing. Although who profits from access to cheap clothing in the UK is a murkier than the water treatment facility at a dye house. Philip Green didn’t have even close to the wealth he does now when he started Topshop put it that way.

So in theory, people in the countries producing these items should become wealthy. More jobs are created, taxes paid to the state, everything gets better. But when everything gets better, costs rise, and wages have to rise to meet it. Except here’s the kicker, and it bucks the trend we’ve seen over the last 4 decades of offshoring; products made out of Bangladesh are cheaper than they have ever been. The head of the Bangladeshi Apparel Export Group claims its down to the rise in competition and someone always willing to do it cheaper, and brands always willing to move at the drop of a hat, or rather the drop of a few cents. Now this also effects quality, because if you don’t have a stable relationship with a supplier they aren’t going to be investing in improved quality because the business might not be there in a year.

So who are we benefitting, and who are we keeping in poverty here?

Data also doesn’t support that people with limited income choose fast fashion to clothe them. They are more likely to invest in pieces that can be worn for a long time and are well cared for. In previous recessions brands that claim both well made and sustainable products do well. They don’t see the drop off fast fashion does. In fact, its only in times of boom that fast fashion sees a rise. And we’ve been in boom such a long time, even with covid the western economies did relatively well, that western businesses are so reliant on fast fashion for their own profits.

I discussed the impact on the UK’s economy during the exodus of the garment industry with a new connection after the said LinkedIn post. They mentioned that other industries quickly filled the space. Which they’re right, who would now know the UK used to be the world leader in clothing production? But we’ll always offshore, so those new industries will move in their place. It may end up being that it’ll be cheaper to produce here in a few decades. That’s before we address that Bangladesh is only 2m above sea level with 3 major rivers running through the country. In our lifetimes it may not exist anymore. Then we’ll have millions of migrants to find places in other countries.

Samantha Taylor 6/7/22 Samantha Taylor 6/7/22

Worried another bubble burst is coming? Here’s some actions to try.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed of late with crisis after crisis hitting the headlines. Governments around the world having to deal with immediate fires that are pulling focus from long term issues such as climate change. As we band aid each new problem it can feel as if we’re using plasters over gaping wounds, helpless as we look on to the state of own local and global issues. Firstly I want to impress upon you that no one is ever powerless. And having seen first hand numerous other financial and apparel industry specific calamities, I want to assure you now that balance is always restored. Even if it looks different to what it was before. Which is why I wanted to come here to share with you some things I’ve learnt over the years in the hope it can help any of you struggling to weather this particular storm.

Rest and reassess.

This can feel like a luxury at such times, but I can promise you that when people are given time to reflect and rest, creative solutions to business problems are more likely to percolate. It is so tempting when things get tough, especially financially, to keep your foot on the gas or even try and increase productivity. It’s a lie that in times of financial uncertainty increased productivity will lead to increased financial security. I hope it goes without saying that as part of a reassess you need to be taking a long hard look at your financials, but rest before making any decisions, and ask yourself if these decisions make you feel excited. If they don’t, you’ll run out of energy before you see any financial rewards. Opportunities are bountiful even in the darkest of times.

Shore up your supply chains with deeper relationships.

Another thing that should go without saying, with the current issues facing supply chains, not just in the apparel sector but across all industries, it is extremely tempting to start slinging the mud at the walls in the hope something sticks but moving your production around. If this is you, you are not alone, I know firsthand of some really big brands doing just that. Moving their products on a whim to gain a little bit of margin or a better delivery date. Two things I can guarantee you; you’re going to pay for it somewhere, and they’re not going to hit that delivery date, certainly not with impacting return rates. I think we all know the saying; if you want fast and cheap its not going to be good etc!

Understanding your suppliers pain points will help make businesses decisions that support your goals. Moving from a ‘just in time’ approach to a more consistent flow of goods, from raw materials to finished products, even for small businesses can generate a more stable revenue stream. This will also take a lot of guesswork out of merch planning, potentially reducing the need for sales periods. Periods of discount can be harmful to a business if it’s come to be expected by the customer, especially if you aren’t a brand used to purchasing directly for sale, which in itself is a disingenuous act unless its used to ensure the financial future of a business. Additionally, larger businesses use sale buys as a way to generate increased profit, discounting full priced items is no value to smaller businesses.

Better relationships with suppliers also has benefits for other services that aren’t directly tied to the financial accounts, which we often overlook but are still important. Data is becoming a huge part of economies within the global north and transfers of knowledge will mean you can adapt quicker. If you are on the look out for new suppliers, look for ones who have the ability to adapt quickly or have more to offer in terms of their supply chain. There are ways in which some can add value to your business by more than just producing products.

Fingers in multiple pies.

Did you know the average millionaire has more than one business? Which means you also need more than one offering or reach. Think about the likes of Rapha with their coffee shops, bike clubs and holidays on top of their product ranges! Needless to say they should all be financially healthy in it’s own dept, I have seen first hand with one part of the business funding another, it never ends well. Ever.

If you’re D2C perhaps its time to think about how a wholesale route can support your businesses plans. And as I mentioned in the previous section, sometimes it’s more than a financial transaction. The data your partners are able to provide can take a large amount of risk out of your buying decisions as well as pushing to you a new customer base. They’re also great for trying out new customer bases without having to spend on marketing. When deciding who to approach it isn’t just about what they can do for you, but also what can you do for them? Creating an agreement always has better business outcomes than simply negotiating a trade contract. Another thing I can tell you for a fact; things always come back round in surprising ways.

Do your pillars stand up to earthquakes.

So this may just relate to the UK at the moment, but fires aren’t just started on the balance sheet! It’s currently looking like we’re about to get a legislation overhaul without debate. While it’s unlikely (hopefully) that we’ll veer too far from the EU directive on this, after changes it last week we need to be able to plan for worst case scenarios. If you have a Tory MP I would start writing emails about this now, and regularly, as you’re more likely to get an inside scoop on what’s likely to come up. And they might drop something in conversation at one of their parties (!) that could benefit you, you just never know. Again, this advice does come from first hand experience.

If you don’t have business pillars, now is the time to get some. Pillars are different to foundations; foundations are the right market conditions and the skillset within your business to meet those market requirements alongside the financials to hit said conditions, also known as MVP (minimal viable product!). The pillars form additional supports when it comes to making business decisions and these can be informed by many things, but as I specialise in sustainability this is what I’m going to focus on. Every business should have 4 support pillars. If you’re a larger business you can have 6, but understand that 2 of those are most likely to be financial commitments as it’s very difficult to take 6 into consideration when making decisions. These should also be communicated throughout your business, so every time a decision is made with those pillars in mind (because realistically how often do people really asses business impact when making some decisions around travel, freight etc?). They can help determine future investment within the business by having other trackable data points outside of the sales report and profit and loss accounts. These pillars are also great to communicate to your customers as when they align, their emotions for the brand grows.

I personally really like the UN’s Sustainability Goals as guides to the pillars. Partly because some are so close in subject you can kill two birds with one stone so to speak (grim I know). And they can be quite narrow in their focus in order for you to drill down and make an actual impact outside of creating more stuff. If you’re writing your sustainability strategy then using the Sustainability Goals can help inform your targets or goals for maximum impact.

Positive adaptations.

The good news is I have actually taken my own advice over the last few months, which is why it could seem like The Good Factory fell off a cliff! We stepped back, assessed what we really want to bring to the world and what we can do with all the factors outside of our control and made some pretty bold decisions. In addition to continuing with our commitment to our Asian suppliers and ensuring an after life of each product we create, we have changed up our nearshore offering to limit supply chain shocks while bringing in new business offerings which includes strategy planning for sustainable sourcing and development, which falls in line with the EU directive around marketing claims (and the UK’s once we know what the powers that be are planning).

There will be even more content coming over the next few months across multiple channels as we work to help businesses shockproof their supply chains and shift towards a more sustainable future where they can create maximum impact and filter through the noise.

Samantha Taylor 1/21/22 Samantha Taylor 1/21/22

5 Ways to Make a Sustainable Impact in your Business Today.

I saw a brilliant post on Instagram a few days ago asking for nuanced perspectives into what brands could be considered sustainable and how do we bench mark it in the age of greenwashing. Ultimately it’s really difficult to be sustainable in fashion because we have a crumbling infrastructure that is designed to churn out more product cheaper. Sometimes it can feel like such a minefield you just don’t know where to start. So in the back of this post here are 5 things you can do today that will start you off into becoming a more sustainable product business. And if you still aren’t sure about starting these, please send me an email via the button top right.

1) Ensure you have copies of up to dates audits on all the factories you use. If they’re new to you its good to have the last 3 years (where possible, Covid did play havoc with manufacturers being able to be audited). Cross reference what they’ve improved upon and what they’ve let slip. If they don’t pay living wages yet (and many don’t), you can check how close they are to living wages through either the International Labour Organisations website, or the Clean Clothes Campaign. Understanding the percentage difference will help you build a financial plan to increase the amount you are paying them over a time period to match up to living wages. That plan could help them navigate price rises to the other brands that work with. You can use any preceding audits to ensure the price increases are going to the sewers.

Build a corrective action plan with reasonable timelines. Good CAP’s will have give a score for the level of severity the problem is, actions to be taken immediately; which is used for things like blocked fire escapes, ensuring fuse boxes are locked etc, getting the first aid kit fully stocked etc. Actions to be taken over the next month; which is for having a union representative voted in or engaging employees in other matters, replacing any equipment that may need to be ordered in, for example hand held metal detectors etc. Actions to be taken over the next 3 months; these are most often related to building regulations or any local regulations that need updating. And finally 12 month actions; this is for things like increasing wages to living wages. A good CAP will require evidence from the supplier and will work with them to ensure they’re hitting their goals. Having a strong financial plan and corrective action plan with your supplier helps build long term relationships.

2) Make sure you have visibility on your whole supply chain. And I promise it is not as hard as the larger brands make you think! It may also bring up opportunities to consolidate some of your items which will bring about its own financial rewards. If your supplier doesn’t seem keen to share then Non Disclosure and Buying Agreements will help alleviate any concerns they have that you could cut them out. When it comes to chemical suppliers for dyes and resin suppliers for polymers, there really isn’t that many around the world. And getting to know your supply chain can open up your brand to so many more developments and innovations.

3) Have a plan for your fabrics (or components if you’re non apparel). There really is no reason to be using virgin polyester in this day and age. Polyamides and elastane are slightly trickier as there is a finite number available, compared to polyester anyway. The price difference on products is virtually negligible. And if that price increase does both you, spending time reviewing your patterns, lay plans and markers will most likely reduce your consumption to mitigate those costs.

Start building phase out options over the next 10 years to switch fabrics and trims to ones that are more sustainable. Can you start reducing how many multiple blends you use and opt for mono component garments? How can you offset your carbon? Where can you start reducing waste now and how do you build on that over the next 10 years? Review this every quarter like you would your financial plans.

4) Reduce and change your packaging. There are so many great options out there are the moment, you just have to decide on your direction and start emailing! A lot of the work has already been done for you through FMG.

5) Invest money in something outside of increasing your business profits. Be that charitable causes, in interest free loans for your factories to update their infrastructure to reduce their environmental impact, or in innovations happening within the industry.

These 5 actions can be taken today and they will empower you, those in your organisation and your suppliers. The first step is always the hardest, so if you need that support to take it, you know how to reach me.

Samantha Taylor 1/6/22 Samantha Taylor 1/6/22

A peak into 2022…

Happy New Year, folks. If you celebrated the Christmas holidays I hope you enjoyed yourself and managed to switch off for at least some of it. I did and it was well needed. It also gave me a lot of time to reflect on the last year and the coming year, not just personally or professionally, but across clothing production and retail. Here’s a few thoughts I had based on some conversations over the Christmas period. It’s brief, sort of! And I’ll continue to delve into these topics, and expand on them, over the next few months. I do love hearing your perspective so do send us a message via the ask anything button.

Fabrics and Trims

Following on from my last posting; the future of synthetics, we’re going to be hearing more about fibre to fibre and chemical recycling. Waste is a huge, and immediate, problem so there is going to be increased investment in this sector. As well as it having a smaller environmental footprint than any other sustainable initiatives to date. I will continue to recommend using caution if considering using biodegradable synthetics. While it sort of addresses a problem realistically, due to the leaps we’ve made in F2F recycling in the last couple of years, this is not a sustainable initiative that will age well. Especially not in 5 - 10 years time. Consider the other options available to you, question how long you anticipate a garment’s lifespan to be, and start simple. It’s not a huge leap to think that in a few years we’ll be able to fully recycle a monopolymer garment. While we will continue to see innovation into new fibres, especially new cellulose for sports and health, ageing infrastructure is the biggest hurdles around scaling of new fibre developments. One of the reason’s Bolt Threads was not able to achieve a scalable roll out of their spider silk. Working smart with what we already have available that’s efficiently scalable does make more commercial, and environmental, sense.

Photo from Sweet Lassi by Priya Ahluwalia

Towards the end of the year, as we learn more about the chemical recycling options that are having lab success, conversations around consolidating dye recipes for continuity colours will become more prevalent. Being able to recycle a colour minimises the amount of “slurry” left over after the recycling process, and reduces water and energy consumption used in fabric dyeing processes. We already know that dope dyeing is the most efficient option, and recycling continuity colours at the same time as the fibres will reduce waste and environmental footprint. This will further the need for mono component garments to ensure dye recipes are consistent.

Expect to see more reports towards the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 around recycled non wovens. Especially in the carbon space. We’re seeing this a lot in aeronautics and recycling of wind turbine blades so it won’t be long, as those techniques are refined, until they enter the apparel space.

Manufacturing

It’s unlikely that we will see our supply chain woes disappear this year. In fact I would wager that they’ll get worse before they get better. Compounded by a shortage of raw materials, further Covid outbreaks and an energy shortage; lead times are increasing to estimates we haven’t seen in decades. Cash rich brands are shoring up their supply chain by placing purchase orders up to 2 years in advance and leveraging margins across their ranges to ensure stock availability. This will hit small and medium sized brands the hardest, who will struggle with similar delay problems they’ve faced in the last 12 months. Brands may even be faced with a margin versus availability conundrum. While there is temptation to offer bonuses for on time delivery this needs to be overseen with a healthy amount of scepticism, illegal overtime and non compliance outsourcing is likely to the conclusion. If we don’t see the manufacturing space stabilise by the middle of the year then I predict we’ll see the rise of single sewer households taking rise across Europe if the great resignation continues it’s trajectory. Brands that can adapt to continental distribution through warehousing and logistics will benefit most from this. This is also where we are likely to see the gap widen between smaller brands who can prove they pay the living wage versus larger brands who won’t be able to ensure wages through the supply chain.

Distribution and Trade Deals

The news that Liz Truss (UK Conservative MP) now holds 3 cabinet positions (apparently gone are the days when just being an MP was a full time job, never mind the extra of being a single cabinet minister) don’t expect any of these “oven ready” trade deals to be fully baked any time this year. The trade deal between the UK and Australia was heralded at the end of last year in the press, but when reviewing the overall value; I concluded it would probably cost more in my time reading it than the value it would bring to the UK apparel industry. Instead the deal has raised concerns voiced by the RSPCA around the mulesing of sheep, of which 70% of Australian farmers still perform. While most brands in the UK have checks in place to avoid this, margin losses are likely to make for some difficult conversations in the development process, especially where there are multiple savings. The UK International Trade minister will travel to India this month to begin trade agreement talks (delayed from Jan 2021). This is likely to be the most significant win for the apparel industry, so watch this space.

Do expect a difficult first quarter for importing and exporting goods. In fact I’d wager this quarter will be more problematic that this time last year with increased Covid infections, a continued shortage of HGV drivers and containers, and record high prices for fuel. In the UK we have a new paperwork system to contend with (yes, again.) and the world’s customs system has had it’s first update in 5 years with a streamlined effort to make HS codes simpler coming into effect 1st Jan 2022. Expect teething problems. A lot of them.

There will be improvements as we head into summer in the northern hemisphere, and we’ll see a further drive to eliminate paper instructions and moving to QR codes. Which is not only good for the environment, it will improve ordering efficiency and reduce delays.

Sales Channels

Convenience still reigns as king for the consumer so expect to see sales split even further across multiple channels. A brand to watch here is probably Nike. They’ve made a number of moves over the last 5 years to consolidate margins into their own business and remove 3rd party retailers. How their sales channels are likely to expand will give an inkling into how the next few years plays out. They have the budget, and the team, to assess every sale (to businesses and governments data is king), but they’re a big ship so where they put their money is an indicator of good returns.

The sales channel is the place to embrace technology for 2022. While there is a lot of chatter around technology revolutionising the supply chain, and it will, there is ageing infrastructure to contend with first. Digitalised products rather than physically shot samples will reduce lead times and business costs without impacting sales.

A final note…

While sustainability will continue to be at the forefront of conversations happening in nearly every sector we are likely to see shifts in the language being used, especially in marketing. Sustainability is a big topic and as consumers become savvy in decoding marketing messages that fail to align to a brand’s intent versus impact, a brand’s message will need to adapt to that. One off projects or products; like Adidas Bolt Threads tennis dress, or Napapijri Circular Series jacket, will become a concept of the past towards the end of the year as consumer focus on whole business / range impact.

Wishing you all a prosperous 2022!

Samantha Taylor 12/10/21 Samantha Taylor 12/10/21

The Future of Synthetics

Coming off the back of Performance Days Munich last week I wanted to write down my thoughts around the future of synthetics which dominated many of the discussions and talks that were had. The future and feedstocks of polyamide were well discussed in many talks from supplier to brand to industry expert. And while I agreed with much that was said, there did seem to be an unspoken underlying factor as to some of the conclusions that were drawn. That made me feel somewhat uneasy. Which is something I wanted to address here, in this space. And as you’re here, I thought I’d give a run down of some of the other synthetics as well! It goes without saying by now; there is no perfect solution, only ones that are slightly better. But by pushing for those ‘better’ options, we open up the possibility for continual improvements. Because funding will always go where the money is. Voting with our buying budgets will have the biggest impact on the sustainable fabric space. For the purposes of this article, I won’t be reviewing the virgin aspect of these fibres. I’ll only be looking at recycled or non petroleum feedstocks.

So lets start with rummaging around the world of polyester. It is the most popular fibre by far due to its strength, quick drying, malleability and its cheapness. Polyester, like polyamide, is a fibre made of polymers invented by DuPont during the Second World War. If you want to know the differences between the two fibres, there’s a good chart here. Now we’ve all seen the ‘this t’shirt has saved 9 bottles from going to landfill’ marketing. And who doesn't love to save something from landfill for a new lease of life. But how, at the end of 2021, are we still sending plastic bottles to landfill? There is a well established recycling chain for plastic bottles to, you guessed it, to be made back into plastic bottles. Why do we feel the need to remove a plastic bottle from a closed loop system to make it into something new? It’s worth mentioning now that each time we recycle a polymer chain, the chain gets weaker. Which means it’s not possible to recycle indefinitely without needing new polymers added in to strengthen the chain. Now we have a lot of waste, so surely there is no harm? This is where, in order to be sustainable, we need to review who is benefitting in this supply chain and whose waste problem are we solving. A list of the largest plastic polluters can be found here. These are the same organisations that pledged $5 million to Kenya’s plastic collectors (who were being paid less than minimum wage by the resin suppliers who make the rPET chips) in 2019, and yet a single dollar has not been given to those on the ground. A way round this problem has been a number of branded yarn suppliers, giving brands complete traceability on where the waste comes from. And there are some really impactful ones, but equally there are ones who use a team of volunteers in poorer nations instead of paying people from those communities. So before you get sucked into the idea of anything, it’s always worth reviewing, who benefits.

So now we get the recyclable bit. It is currently not possible to recycle polyester fibres into new polyester fibres at scale. At all. The RiSE institute in Sweden, along with other facilities like it, have managed to create a recycled polyester yarn. A number of their sustainability projects are summarised on their website. But this is only in lab form, and there is currently no way to dispose of the ‘slurry’ (extracted dyes, finishes and other fibre blends) that is left behind. Although some researchers at universities are looking at resolving that problem, which is many years from being able to implement at scale. Polymer recycling is big business, and the resilience of the polyester makes it easier to extract from other yarns and make into a new product. Currently the only chemical recycling facility in the UK is only able to produce LPG gas from polyester. While this will hopefully change in the next 2 years, providing a better product offering for polyester waste. This is where we are now, and where we have to plan for without scalable alternatives.

Moving onto polyamide, which was the yarn of choice in many of the discussions at Performance Days Munich. Unlike polyester, there is a limited amount of sources for recycled polyamide, which makes it more expensive than polyester as well as not being as quick drying and having less stable colour adherence. And just like polyester, there is no fibre to fibre recycling available. Which is compounded in the complexity of its manufacturing process which makes it more difficult to strip out from other additions, mainly elastane. The benefit of this particular chain of polymers, is that it doesn’t weaken in the same way as polyester, so once we have got to grips with recycling, virgin additions will not be required to strengthen the chain. So what options do we have for polyamide, otherwise known as nylon;

the most widely available is described as recycled from post industrial waste, such as fishing nets for example. This is a really good option, especially if the resin supplier is buying the feedstock. In Europe it can cost as much as €150 to dispose of a fishing net through proper channels. Which given the slim margins that industry make, its no wonder so many nets get ‘lost’ at sea. Making waste part of a revenue stream is only a good thing to ensure proper disposal.
Fulgar presented their new polyamide yarn from a new feedstock, tyres. Which will be ready for purchase early 2022. Tyres have been banned from landfill here in the UK since 2002 and we have moved to an almost 100% recycling of tyre waste as part of the government’s commitment to a zero waste economy. What makes tyres so attractive as a feedstock is that they can be recycled through a similar process to rPET with the tyres stripped out into individual components; rubber, oil, steel and carbon. It’s the recycled oil that is used for the creation of the polyamide fibre. This reduces the carbon footprint of the yarn compared to virgin, and it’s a cheaper recycling method compared to fishing nets.
partial or fully bio based polyamide which is generated from castor bean oil.
other investigations are on going to create polyamide from other sources such as food waste, following on from the creation of new fabrics using waste from bananas and pineapples. Whether these would create a suitable PA remains to be seen as its still a new area of research.

It was the expert talks around the last 2 feedstocks that made me a little uncomfortable. The conclusion drawn by European experts was that food waste as a feedstock was preferable to feedstocks from castor bean because it’s a farmed product. And there may be many instances in which that could be right for your brand. But we need to be mindful as to whether those opinions come from a place of privilege in that it was a northern European opinion where farming and food scarcity is much less of an issue than in places where castor beans are grown. To fully understand the impact of climate change on farming I highly recommend this Headway podcast which talks about climate change’s impact on coffee farming. Castor beans are easy to farm, they’re like weeds that don’t strangle other plants, and they require little maintenance. They do well in climates that have been impacted by climate change and can be a great addition to a farmer’s income. The point at which it is more profitable to farm castor beans than food, then our system has failed. My concern around food waste as a PA source stems from the question, who will benefit? Because the probability that it will be general population or local governments is unlikely. Collection of waste for such sources would be required at industrial level. So those that will benefit with waste food sources being part of their revenue stream, are most likely those same brands listed as the biggest plastic polluters.

We don’t have any perfect options, but we have better options. By knowing your brand’s core values, using a range of fibre types in moderation (although not blended together because that would be a recycling nightmare) and always asking ‘who benefits’ we can start becoming more sustainable. If you have any thoughts on this post I would love to hear them, so please drop me a message on the button above.

Samantha Taylor 11/11/21 Samantha Taylor 11/11/21

Biodegradable Synthetics

Last week I had a message from a friend asking for my thoughts on biodegradable fabrics. You’d be forgiven for thinking they are the next big thing if you’ve attended a fabric trade show in the last couple of months. Even though my eyes are always on Performance Days or Ispo for the main themes of the next few years. Which I suppose makes the first question: is it sustainable? And off the back of reports last week that recycled polyester fraud is now widespread in our supply chains; can we be sure it does what we’re promised?

Firstly, what does biodegradable fabric mean? I don’t know the ins and outs so I am going to refer to my colleague Dr Ashley Holding at Circuvate. “These are conventional synthetic fibres which have an additive added that speeds up anaerobic degradation in landfill conditions”. Anaerobic degradation is the process where bacteria breaks down matter into biogas and water. However, tests have shown that most do not fully degrade and some plastic residue is left. From a physics perspective, you never really fully get to zero. If you follow me on Instagram I use a lot of images of Albert Einstein ballroom dancing to illustrate this point! Dr Holding also points out that these resins “facilitates the release of non-biogenic carbon in the atmosphere, which under anaerobic conditions is mostly methane, a potent greenhouse gas”. Don’t worry, I had to google all that too. And if you’ve been paying attention to COP26 you’ll know that the EU and US have made a pledge to slash methane emissions by 2030. Although how the UK government plan on doing that we haven’t seen actual details. This is relevant and the 3 largest emitters are agriculture, landfill and oil / gas extraction.

In real world terms though it does potentially have a place. As we ramp up recycling efforts there will be instances where health and safety laws mean that there will be instances where we can’t process used textiles. And that gap will need to be filled by compostable and biodegradable fabrics and fibres. Most notably is underwear and uniforms from a healthcare setting which can’t be processed in the same way as a pair of jeans. We also aren’t seeing encouraging results on a more sustainable elastane. Could biodegradable elastane be the temporary solution when recycled is not available? Dr Holding also notes that making biodegradability claims is tricky, especially in countries like the US. Something that’s likely to gain traction within the EU as marketing claims come under increased scrutiny for greenwashing. You’ll be forgiven for having missed the French advertising body finding Adidas guilty of greenwashing. It wasn’t picked up by mainstream press but you can find it here.

When it comes to being presented with a biodegradable fabric at a fair what do we need to look out for? Don’t be dazzled by brand names, effectively they all draw bacteria to it, it’s how they increase the degradation time. What timeline are they giving you and under what tests has that been performed? Resins will degrade differently depending on fabric. Mesh will degrade faster than a 2x1 220gsm twill for example. Have they tested that on any dyes or finishes? Are they recommending a particular dye and have that been verified through labs such as TUV? In sportswear antibacterial finishes are one of the most commonly used, how will that effect the degradation period? Will your customers forgo anti bac finishes for biodegradable? And, finally, what is left at the end? When it comes to fibre to fibre recycling we often refer to the left over chemicals which are made up of dyes and finishes as slurry. How we manage slurry is a post for another time. My point is that nothing truly disappears.

Once you have those answers, how do you decide if it should be part of your product offering? What message is being given to the consumer if you’re saying ‘once you’ve finished with it, put it in landfill’. Given the global effort to increase recycling rates it does seem a little counter intuitive to give the impression that landfill is an acceptable way to dispose of a garment. And in terms of carbon footprint, using recycled resins reduces CO2 emissions by 70% compared to making virgin polyester chips. When you add in emissions from degradation it can be more harmful to the environment to use biodegradable than recycled and recyclable. And brands do need to be part of the solution in terms of garment take back when it comes to encouraging recycling.

All in there are times and places for all the sustainable options coming to market that are able to balance the environmental and economical requirements with the consumer use. To achieve the best results range and product lifecycle strategies are going to need to be incorporated at the same time as the merchandising range plans for a season. If you want to see how product lifecycle strategies can improve the sourcing and development of your products then drop us a message. If nothing else, stay cynical!

Samantha Taylor 11/8/21 Samantha Taylor 11/8/21

Living Wages Only Cost 1%? Not That Cut and Sewn.

There are loads of facts and figures that do the rounds in clothing. How far those stats travel largely depends on the media outlets that pick them up. Forbes, Vox and The Cut picked up this juicy nugget in 2018 and there has been a number of influential articles written since, including by the increasingly popular platform for measuring a brand’s ethical impact; Good On You. Now if you’re not familiar with this stat already, this figure was derived from a couple of studies. One by the International Labour Organisation in 2014. And verified through The Clean Clothes Campaign, who try to demystify the complexity of a garment’s cost structure. Although, as someone who has been employed for many years in a role that is responsible for garment costings, it is a rather oversimplification. Generally great for communicating to consumers with a disposable income. It’s not helpful for those in industry, or those without a disposable income. Largely because of how complex it is in the first place, but they do a great a job where they can.

The report released in 2014 by the ILO is the most comprehensible study of wage calculations ever produced. There were 5 manufacturers involved through 4 sports brands which covers clothing and sports shoes. The result is a comprehensible list of actions a buyer or product developer can take to reduce garment costs without impacting living wages. I myself have used these techniques since I read it in 2015, and honestly, it’s game changing. However, there does need to be a level of trust between brand and supplier which can take a while to build up. And in the early stages those negotiations on product costings can go on for hours. Once that time has been invested and a relationship built up, it is mutually beneficial when you have visibility on each others monetary needs.

The problem arises when stats like the one above are filtered through click bait headlines without considering the what is missing from the report. The largest one is duty. And I can see why, working out duty is complicated and about as exciting as watching the roof being closed on centre court at Wimbledon. No one turns up for that alone. The ILO report was based on production in Cambodia and Vietnam, both of which are duty free countries into the UK. But duty is not calculated based on the country the garment was sewn in. It is based on where 65% of the garments components are produced (this is based on UK duty regulations and does vary depending on country and the type of trade agreements made. If you’re in the UK you’ll know how much the government like to talk about trade agreements in terms of food. I don’t believe I was the only person shaking their head watching Liz Truss get very excited about trading British cheese for Japanese soy sauce). Duty on clothing is between 8-20% of it’s total cost depending on the material, but the average for fabric produced in China is 12%. This is on top of the import costs for the fabric in the first place. So you’ll pay 12% of the fabric cost to get the fabric into the country it’s being produced in, then 12% of the garment cost to import it into the UK. Vietnam and Cambodia are not big fabric producers, and even less so at the time of the report. Meaning fabric was most likely coming from China, Taiwan or Thailand.

Another notable factor in the ILO study, that wasn’t reported in the mainstream, is that Vietnam and Cambodia are high volume production countries. On average the MOQ for sewing facility there is between 3,000 and 5,000 pieces. The more pieces you make, the more efficient the line in economical factors. Factories establish a garment cost by working out the sewing minutes, and changing lines over factors into that cost. The more you have to change the line for styles or colours, the more the sewing minutes increase, and therefore your cost per garment. The brands participating in the study; giving the ILO access to their designs, development, production and pricing hierarchy, were some of the largest sports brands in the world. One brand alone can often use as much as 100% of a factory’s capacity. The more products they make with a factory, the more competitive their prices. It literally pays to produce more. Just like plastic bottle companies who send their products straight to the recycler in what is defined as pre consumer waste, it’s cheaper to keep the lines running than starting and stopping them. Meaning the product costs for these brands were already at the lowest for the apparel category.

When it comes to assessing wages in a factory, in order to make it simple they need to asses the average wage on a line and whether the average achieves living wages. Given that many sewers start life as apprentices it does make sense to start them on minimum wage while the employer spends the money training them up. Sewers are ranked in grades from A for the most skilled sewers who can perform all tasks on the line, to D who are the apprentices and generally perform only one simple task. The make up of the line will determine the average; if you have more A sewers the average wage will rise and the gap between average wage and living wage will be smaller than a line with a higher number of D sewers. In terms of line efficiency, if a style is complicated it is preferable to have a higher number of A sewers who can produce more in a shorter time frame. Each factory has it’s own way of managing sewing lines depending on the type of product they usually produce. If you’re a factory specialising in casual t’shirts, your need for A grade sewers is lower and therefore the average sewers pay is lower than those in factories who specialise in technically complex garments.

So to conclude, the percentage retail cost given in the media is rather misleading. It’s just not that easy. We can hope that at the very least headlines like this will make brands look at the cost they are paying for an item. If it costs less than a cup of coffee as an FOB price then you can bet living wages aren’t being paid. But we need to open up the conversation across the whole apparel industry, to be collaborative and transparent in order to make this industry ethical. Hiding behind Anti Competition laws like H&M just won’t cut it anymore.

Samantha Taylor 10/21/21 Samantha Taylor 10/21/21

Is Radical Transparency Actually Radical?

Radical transparency is a term I’ve seen becoming more frequently used in brand marketing communications. But how radical is it? In 2019, a report indicated that only 85% of brands could trace their supply chains back to their garment producers. With 15% able to trace their supply chains to fabric mills, and only 1% further than that. Traditionally there are 5 tiers to the manufacturing system, 1 - garment producers, 2 - fabric producers and trim suppliers, 3 -yarn producers, 4 - fibre producers, 5 - feedstock producers. Yet this system doesn’t take into account the off shoots from each stage, such as dye houses, chemical suppliers etc. And rarely is the production of trims covered. One of the reasons YKK is so popular, and produces 50% of the world’s zips, is that they produce each component. They make the nylon yarn for the tape, the plastic resins for the teeth, even the cardboard for the packaging. Which makes it one of the only truly transparent companies in the world. It also ensures that all their products are made to the same standard. However that comes with a upcharge, one that many brands are happy with if they feel their customers perceive YKK as value for money. In the continual race to the bottom we’ve seen companies such as SBS take some of their market share. While SBS import all trim components, they are able to compete on price.

Of course I have my own experience with brands traceability claims. One of the ways I verify who manufacturers say they produce for, is to check import and export records. In one instance I was able to verify that a particular manufacturer did in fact produce for a well known sportswear brand. Sending several containers a month to the US. Despite the brand’s website saying they are committed to radical transparency by publishing their core list of suppliers, I couldn’t find a mention of this manufacturer there. Quick dig through the import and export records for this brand and I had established that the manufacturer was producing as much as 40% of the brand’s imported apparel, but this brand wasn’t going to be transparent about them. Needless to say I was intrigued, so the next step was to assess their audit report. Was there a reason for them being omitted from the list? While they weren’t a bad supplier, and did not have any unlawful practices, they did receive a pretty poor rating for the amount of overtime seen in the audited time period. And 60% of their workforce were migrants on temporary contracts. Again, while not illegal, we only need to look to some industries in the UK and their use of zero hours contracts to know that exploitation is rife and those on temporary contracts are often not able to refuse overtime. In garment producing countries the International Labour Organisation has found a direct link between the amount of overtime a caregiver does and the amount of time their children spend in education settings. With 85% of the world’s sewers being women, the more overtime they do, the less their children interact with formal education. In the same report the ILO also noted that as many as 45% of those sewers don’t make minimum wage, furthering the need for overtime. While reducing the access to education for their children, furthering the circle of poverty. To date, the manufacturer is still producing for this brand, and the brand still doesn’t have them listed. Yet the Fashion Transparency Index had them ranked as the 7th most transparent brand out of 200 they’ve vetted. Radical, right?

On the flip side we’ve seen a rise in brands trying to make their own voices heard. To communicate radical transparency in their own way. Which makes sense, as according to the sustainability consultancy Futerra; 79% of Gen Z think brands aren’t being honest about their environmental claims. That rises to 84% for working conditions in their supply chains. So you end up with great statements like Ace and Tate who wrote a blog post entitled Look, we f*cked up. And, to be fair to them, I can see why they made some of the decisions they did. Why they thought bamboo was sustainable. Why they thought they could reach net zero by 2030. They weren’t being negligent, they just didn’t understand. And they didn’t understand because each step has become a commercialised product. But the outcome has been some steps that they can implement to make the changes they want to see. There is no perfect switch we can make in terms of sustainability. Even Lyocell, the sustainable alternative to viscose, isn’t perfect. The chemicals used in the production is less toxic than standard viscose, but still toxic none the less. Thankfully with Lyocell being a branded product of Lenzing we know that the chemicals are disposed of carefully. Which is not always the case with viscose manufacturing across Asia. Especially when 99% of brands can’t trace their supply chain back that far.

But how honest are some of these companies who embrace a flawed image in the name of transparency. The idea, after all, is to build trust. So how much should we trust them? Ultimately, the larger the brand the larger their impact on the environment and their supply chain. Could we accept the sort of apology Ace and Tate produced by brands in the wake of Rana Plaza? While the Rana Plaza collapse made headlines for the severity of the catastrophe. There are plenty of instances every year of smaller scale disasters. I can remember an instance of being evacuated from a factory as a fight broke out in the packing room, resulting in the warehouse manager having a metal stake impaled in his head. Personally, the jury is out on the actual transparency here. Especially for larger brands who have a considerable workforce with the sole job to sell more products. I have come to that conclusion because I know first hand how hard sourcing is. And how it takes effort from multiple stakeholders in order to make the kind of impact we expect. But the more money a brand makes, the more they should be doing. The sportswear brand I mentioned above turned over 1.6 billion euros in the 2nd quarter of this year. I wonder how much of that went towards diversion tactics over transparency? Oooh, quick look, pigeon.

Samantha Taylor 8/12/21 Samantha Taylor 8/12/21

Dead Stock - A Dead End Solution?

In a perfect world dead stock would not be a thing. How we manage to continue to increase the amount of fabric and trims we make and still end up with deadstock baffles me. In the wonderful age of social media we have the capabilities to collect data from consumers and draw conclusions about their buying habits to a highly accurate degree. However, we still rely on historical data, plus a bit of wishful thinking in terms of growth percentages, to make our buying decisions. Add in the race to the bottom on price, which often means businesses over buy in order to reduce surcharges and spread the load over sales periods, means that we have an increasing amount of dead stock, or product that will never be sold.

Now not all dead stock is bad, in some instances it does serve a purpose. Small brands are able to keep their cashflow lean, students have access to a wide range of fabrics that increase their education around how fabrics react in 3D form and the best manufacturing techniques. Remnant sellers are able to make a living selling to hobbyists and crafts people, generating income for people who may otherwise not have some. Clothes made from good quality dead stock can often out live what it was designed for before it became dead stock. But ultimately using dead stock can’t be considered a sustainable alternative.

One of the first instances of a UK brand utilising dead stock to create a name for themselves was a company called Shite Shirts, quick look on Google and they do still exist! And despite only using dead stock fabric and trims since their inception in 2003, they have never marketed themselves as sustainable. Yet today a brand only needs to be using dead stock fabric to be listed in one of the many “10 most sustainable…” articles. Another new dead stock trend that’s appeared in the last couple of years is brands taking dead stock apparel and making them into something new. Now I’m all for buying product from a manufacturer where the buyer hasn’t been able to complete their order and reselling it either in the form that it was made, or updating that with a graphic or a print. You aren’t generating anything new, you’re not increasing the amount of waste and you are supporting a business in, most likely, a country with cheaper labour who isn’t able to access support when buyers either cancel the orders or go into administration.

The big problem arises when a brand buys dead stock products and then turns them into something completely new and charges a premium for being sustainable. For example, there is a lingerie brand that buys dead stock t’shirts from a manufacturer and makes them into pants and crop tops through another sampling house (they use a sampling house because their dead stock is sourced in Bangladesh and the minimums there are high). These aren’t recycled products, these are new garments that have never seen an end consumer. Typically a standard t’shirt wastes about 15% of fabric when it’s cut, when you then cut that garment up again to make something new, it creates even more waste. At best it’s doubling the waste, due to something already being cut and sewn you’re limited with how much you can get out of it. Additional waste won’t be taken into consideration either, such as sewing threads and care labels etc, of which they probably won’t know the composition of and therefore will be relegated to the rubbish bin. Even if they claim they are recycling this waste; there is currently no fibre to fibre recycling anywhere in the world (this is terms of keeping the quality the same, there are options for recycling some fibres by turning them into mulch and re-spinning, however the quality isn’t achieved for apparel during this process as yet). Either way the waste is high.

The next problem it brings up is around supply chain transparency. The brand is completely absolved of any illegal labour practices around the manufacture of the dead stock. This in turn increases the likelyhood that supply chain violations will remain unchallenged. If other brands won’t work with a supplier because they violate these laws then it can be cheaper to continue making “dead stock” for other brands to take to “recycle” them, especially if the demand grows. Now I know you must be thinking; ‘what a cynical person!’, and as I’m British I’d say you were quite right! However, we are seeing this exact instance for recycled polyesters. It is an open secret that its sometimes more profitable to keep a plastic bottle company running all year round and selling what they can’t sell to resin / yarn suppliers to turn into recycled polyesters than it is to only make the amount that’s been ordered (this is also known as pre consumer waste). Using dead stocks absolves a brand from having a fully transparent supply chain. In the same way that we only track carbon emissions on the initial product and not any subsequent products. So a recycled polyester will have a lower carbon footprint because they don’t take into account the carbon footprint of the plastic bottle it was in a previous life. Not a problem if it’s been used in the way it’s intended, but when it’s pre consumer then we should be made aware of it’s environmental impact and it shouldn’t absolve brands from not having complete transparency from the initial fibre creation stage.

There will always be instances where dead stock will make a benefit somewhere, but if a brand calls itself sustainable because they use dead stock, it’s time to think critically. Are they solving a problem, or are they profiting off it?

Samantha Taylor 7/19/21 Samantha Taylor 7/19/21

Recycled synthetics are not the answer to our problems.

I see a lot of conversations around recycled polyesters and polyamides (Nylon), the marketing messaging from (mainly) fashion brands is that a switch from virgin to recycled is good for the environment. But, as with everything, it’s not as cut and dry as those marketers would have us believe when it comes to sustainable fabric choices.

There are 4 types of fabric that are derived from oil; polyester, polyamide, elastane and acrylic. The first 3 are the main fibres used in sportswear; both polyester and polyamide come in virgin and recycled content, elastane currently is neither recycled or recyclable, although there are some partial bio based options from Lycra and Dupont. Acrylic is mainly used in fast fashion and is big in knitwear because of it’s handfeel and fine wool-like appearance. Acrylic is neither recycled or recyclable and due to it’s natural properties doesn’t last as long as the other fibres, it pills quickly and sheds longer microfibres during washing, which gives the garment a shorter lifespan. Meaning that it is very often not good enough quality to resell so it ends up in landfill, taking decades to degrade, or incinerated.

The most popular recycled synthetic is, without a doubt, polyester. While some of this can be attributed to the increased volume being sold, it also has a growing feedstock in the amount of plastic waste we create. The first thing to note is that there are 3 categories of feedstocks for recycled polyesters; post industrial, pre consumer and post consumer. Post industrial is the largest recycled feedstocks for polyamide as this makes up things like discarded fishing nets and the like. This can be beneficial as due to the nature of these polymers they can be recycled multiple times and they can’t be recreated into other plastics so clothing fibres is a good option for recycling this waste. The down side is that there is only a finite amount of polyamide in the world, so as the demand goes up the price fluctuates more than polyesters. You won’t see many products marketed as post industrial recycled polyester, whether that means they don’t use post industrial plastics is unknown, rather it’s generally agreed that post industrial only works in marketing form when it relates to ocean waste such as fishing nets.

Pre consumer waste is a rather questionable source; why would you be recycling something before the consumer has even used it? There are many stories that have done the rounds over the last few years of excess plastic bottles from packaging suppliers being sent directly to fibre recycling facilities to be made into recycled fabrics rather than being used. How accurate those stories are, I couldn’t tell you. But I do know that sometimes, when it comes to cheap, silicon sportswear accessories, it’s often cheaper to make the minimum order quantities than it is to make the smaller amount you want, the excess is often then incinerated. So while I couldn’t say for definite that plastic bottles go straight from producer to recycler, I can well believe it.

Which leaves you thinking that post consumer waste must be the better option, right? Well this is where it gets a bit murky. Firstly, the largest producers of plastic waste are Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nestle and Kelloggs. These companies have made countless pledges to deal with the amount of waste and virgin plastic they create. To date, not a single one of their pledges has been met. More needs to be done to hold these companies accountable, and dealing with their waste for them is simply not going to do that. Where justification could be argued for is if these companies met their targets for financial aid to countries that deal with this plastic waste, sorting and collecting it to be sent to recyclers. The US sent more than a billion tonnes of rubbish to Africa in 2020 and yet plastic collectors in Kenya earn less than $0.05 per tonne. If both waste producers and recyclers paid enough to lift people out of poverty then this could be considered more sustainable than it currently is. It is worth mentioning that there are some community based collectors that pay incentives for people to donate their plastic waste, but these are few and far between. Secondly, in it’s clear form plastic PET can be recycled up to 9 times to be made into new packaging. When you take it out of that system to make it into fibres, it can’t be recycled into a new product again, it can only be down cycled into LPG gas if it’s 100% recycled polyester, if it’s an elastane blend then it will be landfilled or incinerated. There are currently no fibre to fibre recycling options available, although there are many currently under going lab testing so this may change in the next few years.

There are, however, some benefits to using recycled polyester or polyamides. They release 70% less green house emissions than virgin and we have a lot of plastic waste to deal with. In fact we could stop oil production entirely and we would not see a plastics shortage for generations.

Ultimately we do need to reduce our reliance on oil, we can’t achieve global goals of halting the temperature rise without addressing the methane being released into the atmosphere which, after agriculture, oil extraction is the largest contributor to. So, if your only choice is between virgin polyester and recycled polyester, then always better to choice recycled. What would really make an impact is asking your favourite brands where they get their recycled fibres from; whether it be post industrial, pre consumer or post consumer waste. And please read my previous post on bio based synthetics to give you an idea of where we should be heading now. Money talks so vote with your wallet where you are able to afford to. If you can’t afford it, it goes without saying this advice is not aimed at you.

Samantha Taylor 7/2/21 Samantha Taylor 7/2/21

Synthetics - Derived from Nature?

I’ve written this article because I have read a number of posts recently on LinkedIn likening bio based synthetics to petroleum based synthetics, with sweeping statements being made about them being one and the same. While there are certainly a number of similarities, there are certainly plenty of differences that make bio based options a stepping stone to more sustainable fabrics.

It’s worth saying at this point that we are far from finding good, environmental and socially sustainable fabrics for sportswear. While it could be argued that wool, typically merino wool, is the original sustainable sports fabric (and that is largely true), there are some considerable drawbacks in terms of it’s performance; it can hold up to twice it’s weight in water, it is more difficult to care for, both price and quality can be inconsistent year on year, and it isn’t always sustainably or ethically farmed. Mulesed wool is still widely available (see here for definition: https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-is-the-rspcas-view-on-mulesing-and-flystrike-prevention-in-sheep/) and the environment in which sheep are reared can be environmentally damaging unless they follow a regenerative farming system (another good article here: https://www.woolmark.com/environment/regenerative-agriculture/).

Petrolum based synthetics, such as nylon, polyester and elastane, have taken over as the sportswear yarn of choice due to a number of factors; price, consistency of quality and the many ways in which it can be mechanically altered to enhance certain qualities, as well as it’s durable nature (its so durable that most polyester fabrics in your wardrobe will outlive your great, great grandchildren). What makes these yarns unsustainable is that they are made from non renewable resources, the threat to biodiversity through oil extraction, the high energy and emissions during the process of turning oil into monofilaments and that they take hundreds of years to degrade.

In 2018 it was estimated that synthetics make up 51% of our fabric production. This has been a dramatic increase in just the last 10 years, and given the exponential rate there are a number of solutions that have been bought to the table, and the one I want to talk about here is bio-based synthetics. There are two types of bio-based synthetics, partially and fully bio based. Personally, I am not a fan of anything that has different fibre compositions within the fabric as these make the end of life particularly tricky as there are currently no ways to separate fibres out.

The fully bio based synthetics I’m referring to are often called polyamide 10,10 or polyamide 11 (the partially bio based ones are called polyamide 6,10) and these are currently the only ones commercially available bio based options. Those of you with a keen eye will notice that they have the same chemical name as nylon, which is often referred to as polyamide 6 or 6,6. And this is where many arguments are made by chemists as to the viability of bio based as a sustainable option. The term ‘plastic’, under which both oil and bio based synthetics sit, refers to how the polymers react under heat and pressure, also known as thermoplastic. It is not, as popular opinion would suggest, and indication of its feedstock.

So what makes bio based a more sustainable option; first it’s often derived from renewable resources, some come from a natural waste product such as sugar molasses, others from castor beans. Castor beans can’t be used as a food for either humans or animals and they are grown in areas of drought, not requiring fertiliser or other farming methods for increasing yields, so they don’t take away land from food sources and they provide people with an income for land where they can’t grow much to generate income. Where we do have to be cautious as businesses is to ensure our demand does not exceed what can be produced without effecting other areas of farming, we also need to ensure farmers are being paid an amount they can live on and if grown under regenerative systems then this can contribute to a reduction of carbon within our atmosphere. In addition to this, because these are farmed rather than extracted from oil fields, the environmental impact is further reduced.

Bio based synthetics also have a reduced carbon footprint compared to petroleum based fibres; partially bio based polyamide 6,10 has a carbon footprint 49% lower than polyamide 6, and polyamide 10,10 having the lowest carbon footprint of all commercially available options of 58% lower than polyamide 6.

The production of bio based monofilaments is similar to it’s petroleum based counterparts which involve a number of chemical transformations. While this doesn’t make for an ideal scenario, it is these production methods that make the bio based fibres more commercially available and financially viable. How this may change as we develop new resins is yet to be seen.

Another aspect for consideration is end of life, while we can alter the resins to make them biodegradable, this is something that can also be done to petroleum based synthetics with an additive at the resin production stage and this is often what is used for Cradle to Cradle synthetics. Unlike branding a fabric or a garment compostable, which is required to have testing standards applied to it, stating a product is biodegradable doesn’t require any lab based testing. It also depends on the additive used in the creation, I have spoken to a number of yarn suppliers who have said their petroleum based products can biodegrade in 5, 10 or 20 years, and even then this is also effected by dyes and any other additives used. And as this is a relatively new category, there are a lot of unknowns for the benefits or potential downsides of biodegradable synthetics, covering both petroleum based and bio based.

The good news is that the monomers and polymers that make up bio based synthetics are similar to petroleum based synthetics, so they should be able to be recycled in the same way. Again, the problem with this is that as a new category this is a relatively unknown, particularly when we look at fibre to fibre recycling (which only makes up a small section of synthetic recycling in the first place). Ultimately recycling centres, whether mechanical or chemical, require a large volume in order to recycle to the maximum efficiency. This is where having a supplier that manages end of life for you is going to be important in the future, where brands can incorporate sustainable decisions as part of their merchandising strategies without having to produce more products in one particular fibre just to achieve end of life recycling.

While there is no doubt that bio based synthetics are not the answer to our problems, neither are virgin or recycled petroleum based synthetics. As we drive up demand for more sustainable options we will see more funding being made available as well as new products coming to market quicker. Only by taking the first step can we continue on our journey to becoming sustainable businesses.

Samantha Taylor 6/24/21 Samantha Taylor 6/24/21

Linear Supply Chains - Linear Thinking.

It’s easy to wonder at the moment; where have all the designers gone? Where are the creative thinkers? We seem to have come out of the pandemic having lost some of our creative thinking, our ability to assess problems and find critically creative solutions. I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot recently (see my previous post about Redesigning Design Systems), and its a thought that keeps getting bigger as we look at the political landscapes both here and abroad.

Around the globe we’re seeing decades old infrastructure and support systems being slimmed down under guises such as ‘austerity’, ‘globalisation’ and ‘competition’. Until ultimately they crumble under a weight they can no longer support. At which point it’s all a bit too late and our leaders have to start looking around for a scape goat. If you’re reading this in the UK you’ll have a lot of reference points for that alone! But even if you’re not, I bet you have plenty of examples from leaders of your own country, or even businesses.

You may well be wondering what this all has to do with the production of apparel, but stay with me if you can. Today we have the most globalised supply chain ever; we have raw feedstocks made in India, which is then shipped to Sweden for processing before going to Italy to be spun in to yarns, then it goes to Sri Lanka to be finished before heading off to be knitted / woven, dyed, finished in Taiwan which is then sent to be made into garments in China. The miles clocked up by the garments in your hands before you’ve even worn them is likely to make a wanderlust traveller green with envy.

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

And while this all sounds very advanced (because somehow we equate globalisation with advancement) we’re still working within a supply chain structure that is more than 3000 years old. How the global textile industry operates is older than Christianity. And ironically, the women who spun yarns by hand back then earned more and had more status within their communities than they do now. Textiles was the first ever currency and through the development of a metal based currency, it lost its own value and, ultimately, so did the people who make it.

And yet demand for textiles is the highest it has ever been, which is not only a problem for a supply / demand based system, but it is also a huge problem for the amount of waste it creates which is being pushed onto a buckling council system who in turn pass it to waste contractors who will sell what they can to other countries, making double on an item of clothing by taking money from the council to dispose of it while selling it in another country and then washing their hands of it afterwards. It’s all very linear, and unsustainable.

This is where The Good Factory comes in, we’re not about this linear thinking, we assess the benefits and negatives from the feedstock stage through the entire creation of a new product, while reviewing the end of life process, making the whole system circular. But as a supplier we’re unique in this, and we really shouldn't be.

Samantha Taylor 1/4/21 Samantha Taylor 1/4/21

Redesigning Design Systems to Reduce the Carbon Footprint.

We’ve all been there, working in an office that requires us to leave our emotions and our personal morals at the front door. Maybe you’ve been told you’re too emotional, or idealistic, or maybe you’ve just been told; “that’s not how we do things”. This point of view not only goes against our basic human needs for personal connections and purpose, it actively harms the environment. So can we redesign our design systems to reduce our carbon footprint?

Our current system of tendering out finalised design packs to suppliers doesn’t benefit anyone in this system. With no relationship being built between teams, no exchange of ideas or information, there is no mutual growth to either the individual or businesses. It was not so long ago that designers could hop in the car to visit Brenda on the cutting room floor, and for the cost of a Bounty chocolate bar and a cuppa she would help you solve the problems you were up against. You would have left a better designer and made your company more money in the process.

Now we live in a world where we don’t know the names of our pattern cutters, in most cases, we don’t even speak the same language. Technology has risen to the challenge to solve many of these issues but brands and retailers are reluctant to take them on, preferring instead to rely on a vast number of product people, turning them over every few years as they burn out or become disillusioned with the process. And to counter the communication barrier we are producing more and more samples to try and achieve the designer’s vision, creating more waste and more disconnection.

Most designs now are made by designers with only a few years industry experience, the view being that they need to prove themselves commercially before they themselves are invested in. But what changes would we see if, instead of sitting behind a computer screen, these designers visited the cotton fields or the dye houses? Would what they see change how they view the products they create? Are we stifling creative vision that would solve many of our problems by performing to the status quo?

For example, we know the damaging effect farmed cotton has on our planet and those who work in the fields. It’s an area rife with human rights abuses, medical conditions linked to the use of chemicals and the extreme poverty that makes it one of the worst professions for suicides globally. How many have visited factories that make the synthetic fibres, feeling that hot, acrid air hit the back of their throat, all the while being told by an enthusiastic account manager that employees aren’t wearing face masks because they are too uncomfortable?

I invite you to imagine a range kick off meeting, instead of a room full of designers, merchandisers and marketers, what if there were representatives of all the stake holders over the whole supply chain. Where quantities could be planned, yarns assessed for consumer and employee benefits, where fabrics are considered, not just for their performance, but for their widths in relation to the type of design, and colours decided on based on how harmful the chemicals used to create them.

With this type of future planning we would use less resources, create less waste, generate a more harmonious supply chain and create a more engaged work force where, literally, bringing everyone together could save lives.