8 Ways To Tell If A Fashion Brand Is Sustainable

Wondering how to tell if a fashion brand is sustainable? We have 8 great tips!

By Chere Di Boscio

With increasing numbers of fashion brands going green and the rise in popularity of the Fashion Revolution in April each year, ‘sustainable fashion’ is a phrase we’re hearing more of all the time. But what exactly does it mean? And how can you tell if a fashion brand is sustainable?

Here at Eluxe, these are questions we are asked a lot, be it from brands who want to know whether they make the grade to be featured on our site, or from fashionistas who are confused by the labyrinth of information (and misinformation) on the internet.

One thing’s for sure: it’s not easy to tell if a fashion brand is sustainable. For example, even a shirt handmade from upcycled organic grass by well paid widows in solar powered factories  loses credibility if a rainforest was cleared to grow that organic grass, and the shirt was flown to a customer halfway across the world by FedEx, right?

The truth is, no fashion purchase is without its sins. So if you really care about the environment, your best bet is to simply stop consuming so much.

But if you’ve already cut down your clothing purchases and want to know how to tell if a fashion brand is sustainable, we’ve thought of eight ways that may make the task a bit easier.

How To Look For Sustainability In Fashion Brands

 

1. First, Check the Materials

Unless they’re made from vintage, upcycled or waste fabrics, the textiles used by sustainable clothing brands should be made from recyclable, renewable materials like linen, hemp, Tencel or silk. Organic cotton is ok, as it biodegrades. And (unlike ‘normal’ cotton) it isn’t GMO. But it does take a lot of water to produce.

Many are now turning to bamboo for clothing. But converting the fibres into thread actually requires a whole lot of nasty chemicals.

Then we need to think about the dyes. Though it’s harder to know the origins of the dyes used,  if a brand says their dyes are natural, that should be a huge selling point. Textile dyes are often very toxic. These not only pollute rivers when they’re rinsed out, but can also damage your health when they’re absorbed by your skin (more on this below).

Wood accessories like watches and sunglasses are having a moment, and that’s great – IF the wood is sustainable, like bamboo or scraps from the furniture industry. If you’re buying endangered species like zebra wood, rosewood, sandalwood, mahogany, teak and other hardwoods, you’re not doing the rainforests any favours, to say the least.

Finally, a lot of clothing brands are claiming they’re sustainable because they use recycled plastic bottles to make their fabric. But as we now know, this is not only not good – it’s very bad! Microparticle pollution from such materials easily enter our oceans with every wash, polluting our waterways, killing marine life, and entering our bodies through the water we drink.

2. Never Leather

And as for leather – unless it’s recycled from old car seats, coats and the like, sorry – it’s just not eco-friendly. Cows themselves need a lot of land, food and water – and in fact, much of the world’s remaining rainforests are being cut down to raise cattle.

Some claim that leather is sustainable because it’s a by-product of the meat industry, but that’s actually rarely the case: fine hides do not come from cattle raised for food – and even if we’re talking about slaughterhouse leather, those cows are emitting loads of greenhouse gases during their lifetime, and are eating feed (usually soy or corn based) that would be put to better use as human food.

No matter where the leather comes from, killing the animals, skinning them and tanning and dyeing their skin takes loads of energy and resources. The same goes for fur. And obviously, using animal products for fashion is not in any way ethical.

But there can be little doubt that vegan fashion is more sustainable and ethical. IF those leather alternatives are made from eco-friendly fabrics! Many are actually made from highly polluting plastics. Or even one of the most dangerously toxic materials around, PVC. But sustainable fashionistas will surely be aware of the best vegan leather alternatives, which include materials made from anything from natural cork and pineapple fibres to waste apple and orange skins.

3. Don’t Be Duped By Hipsters

The hipster trend for ‘handmade, local’ goods is certainly a positive thing. Buying stuff made close to where it’s sold means less CO2 was used in its transport, amongst other good points. But this alone doesn’t necessarily mean something is sustainable, obviously.

For example, locally handcrafted rings made from gold that’s the result of strip mining a former rainforest in Ecuador doesn’t make those rings sustainable or eco-friendly, right? Similarly, most of the top luxury brands make all their goods ‘locally’ (i.e. they’re made in Italy or France) but their materials (toxically dyed and tanned leather or fur, for example) make them far from sustainable – or ethical.

In short, ‘locally made’ is great and definitely saves on CO2 IF you’re also buying it locally (and not ordering it from the other side of the world), but it’s not enough to make a brand ‘sustainable’.

4. Visit the Right Sites

Some not-for-profit websites like Rank a Brand and the Environmental Working Group use a credible criteria to determine whether or not a brand is sustainable, whilst others, like the deceptively named Sustainable Brands are simply greenwashing public relations tools and will release positive information about brands being ‘green’ just because the company has paid them to do so.  

One source we love is the Fashion Transparency Index (FTI) that indicates which brands have shown improvement over the past few years and which still need to up their game. For example, Gucci, YSL, and Balenciaga are ranked high (perhaps because they’re all in the same luxury group, Kering) as do high street  brands like Adidas, and yes, even Zara.

Apparently, these brands have taken initiatives to open up and make their material sources, supply chains, production methods, and environmental impacts known to the public and their consumer base – the FTI is a great source of information for anyone who wants to learn more about which brands to trust.

Greenpeace is another source of excellent information on how to tell if a fashion brand is sustainable. They have a section of their website called The Big Fashion Stitch Up. It goes into detail on the dirty side of the fashion industry, and shames the worst brands into cleaning up their act.

So how can you tell if a site is truly trustworthy? In short, if the site is critical of some big name brands or has a .org at the end of its website, it’s highly unlikely to be greenwashing.

5. Examine the Company’s CSR Policies

Another way to tell if a fashion brand is sustainable is to look at their corporate policies. Almost all large fashion labels practice some form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This can easily be found on their websites. Always take these with a grain of salt. To keep shareholders happy, companies tend to exaggerate the good in their CSR reports and ignore the bad.

For example, if you read that company X complies with all local labour laws, all that really means is they’re not criminals. If company Y is fully dedicated to recycling all the paper waste in their offices, frankly, who cares? Most offices in developed nations do that anyway.

But if they say they’re buying tracts of the Amazon to preserve the rainforest, or are creating their own eco-friendly methods of dyeing clothing, well, that’s going above and beyond the norm.

6. Beware the Cause Marketers

Ever had a boyfriend who acts like a total idiot, then buys you some flowers or something out of guilt? That’s kind of like what polluting companies to when they support a charity.  This isn’t an indication of a sustainable brand – it’s usually just a means of ’cause marketing.’

Sure, this helps non-profit gains better exposure and raises more funds. But the company behind the campaign also gets a load of great public relations too, right?

Companies rarely publish  how much money actually gets donated to their ’cause’, according to one 2009 study, and can legally say they ‘donate a percentage of profits’ to a cause – even if that percentage is .0000001%. Even when they do reveal the full sum that’s been donated, the amount of that which actually goes to those in need (as opposed to a charity’s administrative costs) is opaque.

Greenwashing…and whitewashing, too!

Worst of all, hiding behind cause marketing can be a way for unethical companies to whitewash what they do. For example, you’d think that from their Save the Arctic campaign, which donated the proceeds of a tee shirt to Greenpeace, and their presence at a bunch of sustainable fashion events, Vivienne Westwood would be a pretty sustainable brand. But you’d be wrong.

The designer is reluctant to reveal where her clothes are made. She is also pretty mum about whether or not workers are paid a fair wage. Moreover, most of her materials include viscose and non-organic cotton, which are not eco-friendly or sustainable. And although she doesn’t use fur, neither do most designers these days, including non-eco brands like Prada and Armani.

That being said, several smaller brands have created their whole business model around helping others and making eco-friendlier products. For example, everything created by SeeMe.org is made by victims of domestic abuse. The jewellery they make for the company sustains them. The same goes for Ninety Percent. That’s exactly the amount of their profits that they donate to charities. Brands like that are awesome, and we feature tons of them in Eluxe.

7. Be Wary of Anything Made Far, Far Away

What do labels  like Alexander Wang, Louis Vuitton and Opening Ceremony have in common? They (and many, many more brands!) are all made in China. That’s not bad in itself. But when luxury labels move production to Asia to increase their profit margins by paying workers peanuts, well, that’s just not on. You want to charge me £2000 for a handbag? Fine, but the woman who made it better be pretty darn well paid!

But it’s not just luxury fashion we should be wary of. Fast fashion brands like LaSenza, Primark and Joe Cool can only exist because the slave-like working conditions of their Chinese, Bangladeshi and Cambodian employees. As well as a blind eye turned to environmental regulations to keep prices low, low, low.

A blind eye to toxic dye

It’s said that you can tell which colours will be ‘in’ next year by looking at the colour of some rivers in China. Yep, dyeing clothing actually does this to rivers, and believe me, most clothing dye is highly toxic. To add colour to fabrics, fixatives made from metals like chromium or aluminum are used. These kill off plants exposed to factory wastewater, destroy ecosystems, poison drinking water. They generally end up in our bodies, thanks to water precipitation cycles and food exports.

There are laws against using such toxic dyes without proper disposal and filtration. But that’s only true in most developed countries. Not in developing Asian ones. And even when those laws do exist, the penalties for breaking them are so small, manufacturers have no problem paying the fine.

Of course, completely banning brands made in developing countries with lax regulations is bit complicated. Mainly because many people rely on those companies for their income. Ultimately, it’s actually down to us to realise that any £5 tee shirt reeks of exploitation and environmental degradation, and to demand change. After all, wouldn’t you feel prettier paying £15 for the same shirt, knowing whoever made it was well paid? And the materials used for it won’t end up giving someone (including you) cancer?

8. Look Beyond the Obvious

Textiles, dyes and ethically paid workers are the three main factors to consider when purchasing clothing. But there are other things to think about, too. A company’s daily operations, for example.

Conscious companies may use a green  energy supplier or even have their own  solar panels. They may recycle water from their offices to water plants. Or only use electric vehicles for their deliveries, for example. This page on green initiatives sheds some more light on other issues we rarely think about, like:

• giving out BPA free receipts
• using recyclable, recycled or less packaging
• offsetting carbon emissions
• …and other green practices.

Knowledge is power. Now that you know how to tell if a fashion brand is sustainable, please share this article to spread the word! It’s time to ‘vote with your wallet’ and let non-sustainable brands know what you think of their practices. Sustainability can be the new norm. But it’s up to us, the consumer, to make it so.