Fishing Nets, Old Plastic Corn And Other Clothing Shoes Are Really Green Or Waste Fashion?

With the development of social culture and economy, consumers' consumption concept is changing rapidly, and their consumption ability is also rising. This is reflected in the clothing industry.

Fast fashion apparel rises with its low price and fashion style in the apparel industry and gradually changes people's concept of clothing.

The durability of clothing is no longer the pursuit of people, and the service life of clothing is greatly reduced.

However, for many reasons, old clothes are facing difficulties in recycling and reusing.

At the same time, the environmental hazards caused by the production process of textile industry are grim.

In order to change the unfriendly environment of the garment industry, many countries have come up with relevant policies after realizing the seriousness of the problem, urging the clothing companies to shoulder the responsibility of social protection and make changes in sustainable development.

In the face of environmental tests, clothing brands have made strange moves to pform old products, use biodegradable materials, sign environmental agreements, and improve original technologies.

From brand marketing to designer creativity, environmental protection has gradually become a popular trend in the clothing industry. It has been praised in the past 2018.

And the response of the brand to environmental protection is really out of the need to protect the environment or the waste fashion that should be pported to the fashion trend, which deserves our careful taste.

Fast fashion

H&M

In early 2018, in response to the call of Global Fashion Agenda, a Danish non-profit organization, to support the recycling development of the fashion industry, H&M, together with 64 fashion companies including Zara, Reformation, Kai Yun group and Adidas, formulated specific environmental targets, with a view to improving the sustainability of product production in the next two years.

The environmental protection goal of H&M is that as of 2020, the cotton products used in the whole series of products are sustainable, and by 2030, 100% of the materials will be recycled or other sustainable sources. The current proportion is 35%.

In order to express its determination to support the development of fashion industry, H&M joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Foundation's Make Fashion Circular program in mid May last year. At the same time, it also joined Nike, Burberry and Gap brands.

The plan aims to reduce waste in the global fashion industry by recycling raw materials and products. H&M has launched its old clothes recycling program since 2013.

H&M's environmental protection is not confined to planning and shouting slogans. In April 18, 2018, H&M held the H&M environmental conscious action limited series exhibition in Shanghai and released the series at the same time.

In this series of materials, H&M not only uses sustainable materials such as flax, sustainable cotton, real silk, TENCELTM Tencel blend and regenerated polyester fiber, but also introduces two new materials, ECONYL and regenerated silver.

ECONYL is a 100% recycled nylon fiber made from fishing nets and other nylon wastes.

This is not the first time H&M has tried environmental friendly clothing.

As early as 2010, H&M and the World Wide Fund for nature first launched a series of clothing to support the latter's marine work. Since then, the two sides have been working together for a long time.

Last August, the two sides again launched a new series of sustainable children's wear.

Cotton and recycled polyester fibers which are not used chemical insecticides in the production process become the key materials used in this series.

Gap

Like H&M, Gap joined the Make Fashion Circular program launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation foundation in mid May last year.

Last September, Gap launched the autumn new product series on the theme of "GOOD CREATES GOOD creation and beauty".

The highlight of this season's new product is the Soft Wear Denim tannin series using Washwell intelligent washing technology, which continues the pure cowboy lineage of Gap.

It is reported that the technology is Gap's unique environmental water washing technology, which has saved 7 million litres of water since it was put into operation for 2 years.

In terms of water saving, the latest global sustainable development report released by Gap group last December showed that in 2017, the whole supply chain system of Cape group saved 2 billion 400 million litres of water, far exceeding its previously defined 1 billion liter environmental goal of saving water.

From 2014 to 2017 fiscal year, the whole supply chain system of Cape group has achieved 3 billion 300 million litres of water saving.

Fast fashion summary: when it comes to clothing industry, who is the most harmful to environmental pollution, it is not the fast fashion.

The major global fast fashion giants have their own practices and ideas for environmental sustainability. For example, H&M will mainly use renewable materials, while cowboy Gap will reduce pollution on the production chain of materials.

However, due to the difficulty in recycling old clothes, it is a very wise strategy to reclaim and reuse old fashion brands.

Sports brand

Adidas

Environmental protection has long been a marketing gimmick for Adidas.

In 2015, Adidas became the global partner of Parley (Parley for the Oceans, marine environmental protection organization). In the same year, it launched almost all environmental protection concept shoes made of marine plastic garbage as raw materials, and was named "Adidas x Parley".

Since then, Adidas has introduced some running shoes made of marine plastic waste every year.

Last March, Adidas's 2017 fiscal year report showed that in 2017, Adidas sold about 1000000 pairs of sneakers made of marine plastic waste.

Last year, Adidas's goal was to sell 5 million pairs, and this year it would sell 11 million pairs.

Cyrill Gutsch, the founder of Parley, said that the innovative technology developed with Adidas will not stay in footwear. The use of recycled fiber as the material for 3D printing of clothing products and sports equipment will be the main direction of cooperation.

Last July, Adidas CMO Eric Liedtke said in an interview with Financial Times that Adidas plans to replace all the plastics used in the process of making shoes and garments by 2024.

About 50% of the 9 million 200 thousand kinds of products sold by Adidas are polyester, that is, a plastic. Recycled polyester is also plastic, just plastic and plastic waste.

According to Adidas's plan, the utilization rate of recycled polyester will reach 41% in its spring summer clothing series in 2019.

In addition, Adidas said it would stop using new plastics in its offices, retail stores, warehouses and distribution centers.

This will help brands save about 40 tons of plastic every year from 2018.

Nike

Last December, Nike and Danish non-profit organization Global Fashion Agenda reached a strategic cooperation agreement.

Global Fashion Agenda has been committed to promoting the concept of sustainable development in the fashion industry.

In addition to the new Nike, other strategic partners of the organization include H&M, Kai Yun group, Hongkong Lifeng group, Zara and Adidas.

Nike has been recognized as the most recyclable polyester material in the industry in the past four years. In fiscal year 2017, 75% of Nike's footwear and clothing products used recyclable materials.

In September 2017, Nike developed a new type of recycled leather material, Flyleather, which was made from at least 50% recycled natural leather fibers and water. It saved 90% of water consumption and 80% of carbon emissions in the whole production process.

Nike's Nike Grind material is made from recycled materials, and now 71% of Nike's footwear and clothing products are made of this material.

In addition to the development of recycled materials, Nike also introduced Flyknit technology in environmental protection. Compared with the common tailoring, the technology produces less waste. At the same time, all the uppers of the technology series are made of recycled polyester yarn.

In mid May last year, Nike also signed the fashion environmental protection initiative Make Fashion Circular.

Reebok

Reebok launched the "Cotton + Corn (cotton + corn)" sustainable product plan in 2017 to produce sports products with more environmentally friendly natural materials.

The first product of the plan, NPC UK Cotton + Corn sneakers came out in August last year.

The upper and sole of this shoe are made of 100% cotton and corn. The sole material of the shoe comes from castor oil, without any dyestuff and 100% recyclable packaging.

Reebok Future team leader Bill McInnis said Reebok wanted to use plant materials instead of petroleum based materials to produce sports shoes.

In the "Cotton + Corn" plan, Reebok and high performance biological material solutions provider DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products developed Susterra Susterra propylene glycol material, which is made of corn as raw material. It is pure, oil-free and innocuous, and has been certified by USDA (US Department of Agriculture) 100%.

At the same time, this sneaker is the only footwear product that has been identified by USDA for 75% biological materials in the market, but it can not be biodegraded by 100%.

Surprisingly, Reebok did not disclose the next listing time of the series.

Some analysts believe that Reebok is forced to launch this sneaker, because competitors Adidas, Nike and others are seeking other environmentally friendly shoes making programs to attract consumers.

Allbirds

Allbirds was founded in 2016, the founder of the brand is New Zealand Football Player Tim Brown.

This sneaker brand has two main aspects: first, the sports shoes are made of recyclable New Zealand Merino wool, no leather products are needed, environmental friendly and carbon emissions are reduced, and two are sports shoes supporting machine wash.

Last August 1st, Allbirds announced that in addition to the original natural materials, trees and wool, the carbon reduction EVA sole material extracted from sugarcane has been successfully developed. This new material is known as "SweetFoamTM" and is the world's first carbon reduction EVA material.

At the same time, Allbirds also won the investment of Oscar, Leonardo Dicaprio.

After announcing cooperation with Leonardo, Allbirds applied the soles made of SweetFoam materials to the latest limited edition flip flops Sugar Zeffer.

At the same time, Allbirds said that the new material will be applied to all its products in the future.

Sports brand summary: for environmental protection, sports brand is always creative, Adidas uses recycled plastics, Nike develops recycled materials, Reebok tries plant materials, and Allbirds pioneers the use of wool as sports shoes.

But in the light of current development, environmental protection seems to be a tool for sports brands to seize the right to speak in the sports market, rather than a sports shoe such as Adidas, which sold 11 million pairs of marine plastic garbage in 2019, but this volume accounts for only 3% of its total annual output.

However, sports brand has just started in the field of environmental protection, and it may do better in the future.

Fashion

bestseller

Last May, Heartland, the parent company of Bestseller, the Danish Fashion Group, announced that it had established a joint venture with its Danish Biotech Corp Pond through its investment company BRIGHTFOLK to enhance Pond's R & D capability in the field of bio based textiles.

Founded in July 2015, Pond is a Danish Biotech Corp that produces entirely biodegradable and biodegradable materials.

It seems that in response to the environmental initiatives of the parent company, in July last year, according to FashionUnited, the group of more than 20 fashion brands, Jack & Jones, ONLY, Vero Moda and so on, will launch a new brand Selected People facing the mid end market on the basis of the existing product mix.

This new brand is the main line of sustainable development in the fashion industry, and has undergone some changes in the raw material procurement process.

"Our brand hopes to make some changes in raw material procurement in order to maintain the quality and sustainable development of the brand.

In the production process, we have postponed production several times, so that suppliers can have time to develop better quality regenerated wool, and we are constantly increasing the clothing styles made of sustainable fiber.

Henrik Busk, the design director of Selected People, said.

The development strategy of the new brand represents that it is looking for more possibilities for the group.

Initiatives in environmental protection also show that the company and its parent companies have begun to try to inject environmental concepts into the brand culture of the group, expecting to build up the brand fashion in the future with the help of environmental protection.

Jiangnan cloth

Last June 19th, Jiangnan Buyi announced that the group launched a brand new fashion environmental brand "REVERB" in China to cooperate with the strategy of multi brand extension and to diversify its business through the combination of brand and category.

It is reported that REVERB takes the Circular fashion as the brand philosophy, the brand style, the main movement, the asexual and the sustainable fashion. Li Lin, the founder of Jiangnan cloth dress, invited the German designer Tillman Lauterbach as the creative director of the new brand.

Before the launch of the environmental brand, Jiangnan Buyi has just launched the new clothing brand SAMO.

Compared with other brands of new technology and new materials, the environmental protection advocated by Jiangnan Buyi is more like the need of multi brand matrix, and is also a test for the market.

Of course, in the face of diversified needs of consumers of different ages, gender and occupation, the development route of multi brands is also a good policy.

Summary of fashion: bestseller and Jiangnan cloth, the two big fashion giants at home and abroad, have added a new brand beyond the brand matrix.

This is not difficult to understand because fashion brands have a higher demand for their original cultural stories, positioning and style. Compared with the high plasticity of sports brands, the style of single brand products has been basically stereotyped.

It is helpful for control and development to develop new brands alone, but at the same time, it avoids the temptation of trying to defeat brands.

Sustainable development has always been an important social responsibility of clothing enterprises, and it is also a sharp weapon for brands to attract young consumers.

Internet Market Research and data analysis firms YouGov have found that young consumers are more willing to pay for sustainable environmentally friendly clothing brands than older people in the case of a clear brand position.

In the 2018 edition of "China's new generation of fashion consumption white paper" released by the beautiful bird, the same emphasis is placed on whether the company's commitment to social welfare will affect consumers' purchasing behavior.

Consumers' consumption habits and behaviors urge the clothing industry to pay more attention to environmental protection and sustainable development.

By analyzing the list of online business platform products of over 52 thousand garment brands, data research firm Edited found that sales of clothing products containing environmental related information in the past three years have increased significantly.

Although it shows that businessmen have carried out more publicity on sustainable development clothing, more attention has been paid to environmental protection.

However, environmental protection advocate, British designer Stella McCartney accepted the British edition of Wired, and said: "90% of the environmental problems mentioned in the fashion industry are launched around marketing. They don't really care about and attach importance to environmental protection."

Stella McCartney has been committed to implementing the concept of environmental protection in the fashion industry for many years. She promised that the brand of her own name will make every effort to ensure that she is at the forefront of environmental protection.

At the same time, as environmental protection has become a popular trend in recent years, "waste fashion" has gradually become a popular fashion. Maybe designers use environmental protection materials or wastes to design clothing products when they care about the environment. But once the works are given the value of the business, the starting point of the brand is environmental protection or marketing. Who knows?