Latest Trend Keeps clothes Out of Landfills

Europe’s landfills are bursting at the seams with discarded clothing and other textiles. Of the 5.8 million tonnes of textiles that EU consumers discard every year, only a quarter is recycled. According to Friends of the Earth Europe, the remaining 4.3 million tonnes are dumped.

That’s equivalent to 60 garbage truckloads of clothes being burned or buried in landfills every minute. This is a pretty bleak picture, but change is underway.

Circularity and innovative solutions are already making the fashion industry more sustainable. This means producing clothes in an environmentally friendly manner, making them reusable and recyclable wherever possible.

More and … Read the rest

San Francisco’s Answer to Fast Fashion: A Zero Textile Waste Initiative

Fifteen years after the Zero Waste Textile initiative started in San Francisco in 2003, the city has diverted 80 percent of all waste generated in the city away from landfill disposal through source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting programs—the highest rate of any major U.S. city according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Although there is still a lot to go before reaching the goal of zero waste by 2030, there are clothing companies closing the loop between the production and recycling of our clothes.

For those uninitiated on the idea of a circular economy, “closing the gap” … Read the rest

How to be a Conscious Shopper

Impakter Editorial BoardbyImpakter Editorial Board

This article is part of an editorial collaboration with BCorporation. The BCorp Series can be found here. The original publication can be found here.


B Corps Help You Vote With Your Dollars and Live Your Values During the Holidays

If you inhale deeply this time of year, perhaps you’ll smell the sweet scent of evergreen, with a twinge of pumpkin spice from a colleague’s latte. With the sights and smells of the holiday season all around, it’s also impossible to avoid the mental litter of mass consumerism that overtakes your mailbox, inbox and social feed this … Read the rest

Sustainable fashion aims to make green the new black

Employing more than 300 million people and producing 100 billion items every year, the fashion industry has a colossal impact on the environment. Driving this trend is so-called ‘fast-fashion’, an exploitative yet highly profitable business model that turns high-fashion designs into low-cost, mass-produced styles.

In the EU, textile consumption is the fourth highest pressure category in terms of the use of primary raw materials and water (after food, housing and transport). It’s also fifth for greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the pressure and impact are linked to clothing and footwear.

Because these garments are meant to be disposable, fast fashion encourages over-consumption … Read the rest

Adidas and Nike, Two Rivals on Sustainability: Who Wins?

Emilia Sharpes by Emilia Sharpes

In a world saturated with big-name brands,  Adidas and Nike are two sportswear giants that have found success in the apparel sector. Inevitably, they are rivals and it would be hard to find someone who does not own a single item from either brand. But in terms of sustainability, which one is best? The Impakter Index enables us to answer that question. But first, it helps to understand what are the issues they, or for that matter, other brands seeking to become sustainable, are facing in an industry where “fast fashion” has become a key phrase and a … Read the rest