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Quickfire Q&A

Bob Gordon, Head of Environment at BRC

SOURCE speaks to Bob Gordon, Head of Environment at the British Retail Consortium, about the most crucial environmental issues facing the UK High Street.

What do you see as the top 3 most important environmental issues for British high street fashion retailers?

Three big challenges and opportunities for the sector are (a) to improve traceability in the supply chain, (b) to reduce water use in cotton production and (c ) to work with customers to better understand how to reduce the impact of the clothes they buy.

What are the challenges related to traceability, water usage and increasing consumer awareness of environmental impacts?

On traceability – due to complexity in the supply chain and the blending of raw materials post-farm gate, it is both difficult and costly to establish clear traceability back to the farm level. Without good traceability, the incentives are not sufficiently strong to encourage retailers to work directly with their supply chain. This presents a significant risk to the fashion industry, as the risk of flooding and drought are increasing and commodity prices are volatile.

Water use is a significant impact of cotton production, particularly in water stressed areas of the world. Without a coherent global strategy to reduce its reliance on water, retailers using cotton are exposed to significant availability and price risks. UK retailers are working together to create a unified voice, but in a global marketplace, they represent a small proportion of the buyers.

According to WRAP, the direct carbon footprint of clothing in the UK is around 5% of the UK’s total direct carbon footprint (i.e. excluding the emissions associated with production overseas). 1.2m tonnes of clothing and textiles is sent to landfill in the UK every year, despite a plethora of collection points and schemes to recover and reuse the material. Work is underway to support the public to get good use out of the clothes they buy, wash at lower temperatures, avoid using dryers where possible and to recycle clothing. Improving customer behaviour presents the fashion industry with an opportunity to reduce its footprint and improve its image.

Can you recommend best-practice examples of fashion retailers addressing the above issues well?

Initiatives involving a range of stakeholders can be an extremely effective way to drive change. The Sustainable Clothing Action Plan seeks to stimulate collective action across the supply chain to reduce environmental impact of clothing. The Better Cotton Initiative encourages the adoption of better management practices in cotton cultivation to achieve measurable reductions in key environmental impacts, while improving social and economic benefits for cotton farmers.

Other initiatives by individual brands and retailers include activity to divert clothing from disposal. For example, M&S have developed a relationship with Oxfam, which supports Oxfam’s work to fight poverty as well as diverting clothing from landfill. A number of others are using recycled polyester, which reduces energy use, raw material extraction and waste to landfill.