Images Magazine November 18

KB ECOWEAR www.images-magazine.com 66 images NOVEMBER 2018 operate the production facilities where the garments are made. For brands that merely outsource the production of their apparel, this transparency becomes more difficult to provide. Do you have to use organic fibres to produce sustainable garments? Not necessarily. It’s wrong to assess the sustainability of garments within the vacuum of a single consideration of ‘organic versus conventionally grown cotton’. It would also be a mistake to naturally assume that all organic cottons are sustainable. Each region where cotton is grown presents a different set of variables, not the least of which is water scarcity. Looking at US cotton farms, we know that organic cotton requires more water and more land and, because of lower yields and differentiated growing and harvesting methods, generates more greenhouse gas emissions than conventionally grown cotton. Advocates of organics would argue that these negatives are offset by the chemicals applied in conventional cotton farming. Data shows that precision agricultural practices, including soil monitoring, conservation tillage, alternative pest management systems and variable rate applications, have greatly reduced the environmental footprint of What does it mean when a garment is described as sustainable? That depends on how you define ‘sustainable’. The holistic definition looks at all the environmental and social impacts, positive and negative, of the entire garment’s life cycle, including raw material selection, production processes, consumer use and disposal at the end of the garment’s life. In the past, and possibly because of a lack of transparency, a very narrow view was applied that limited the scope to evaluating the environmental impacts of the fibres used in the product. This inherently led people to assume organic cotton was good and polyester was bad. This may have been easy to understand and simple for brands to market, but this very narrow scope only looked at a small part of the big picture and most certainly did not ensure truly sustainable products. I am encouraged to see that leading companies in the industry are using science-based data, gathered within life-cycle assessments, to really make more sustainable products. While the overall subject matter is complicated, in my view determining the sustainability of a garment can only be done if the brands can provide insights into the full spectrum of impacts. This transparency is obviously most easily delivered by brands that own and Gildan‘s vice president of corporate marketing and communications takes a close look at sustainability and what it means for garment and textile decorators Talking ecowear with Garry Bell conventional cotton farming. Three years ago I spoke with one of the largest cotton farmers in Australia who after several years of drought had converted all his organic cotton acreage back to conventional cotton. When asked why, he explained that given the changing environment he knew that if he continued to farm organic cotton on that land, his son would be inheriting acres of useless and infertile land. How can decorators find out whether a garment is sustainable or not? Access to accurate information is the key. Decorators face a challenge in this process because of the complicated structure of the overall apparel industry, wherein most brands servicing the European decorator market do not actually manufacture what they sell and therefore are challenged to provide complete and transparent insight into the full process. Decorators should demand that the brands they purchase products from provide full transparency into the production processes, as relates to environmental, human and social impacts. They should be able to ask questions and get transparent responses. This transparency is most accessible from brands that own and operate the production facilities where the garments are made as opposed Having direct control over almost every step in the garment-making process allows them to uncover savings, says Garry