Ecotextile Talks

As a formal partnership between the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and International Apparel Federation (IAF) is signed, a key figure involved in the collaborative process speaks to Ecotextile Talks about what the duo hope to achieve.

Andrew Martin, executive vice president of the SAC, sits down with podcast host David Styles to discuss what a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two organisations might mean for the fashion and textile industries at large.

When asked about the purpose of the partnership and how the SAC and IAF will quantify success, Martin stated: "It has to be built on relationships, partnerships, the longer term. So I think the big numbers that will come out of it will be things like: are we starting to see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as one area."

The SAC executive vice president also spoke candidly about a need for meaningful change in relation to climate targets cited by some brands and retailers. "I'll be quite bold and say, unless they actually have very strong purchasing practices, very strong relationships with their suppliers, they won't hit their science based targets. They just won't."

Other topics covered in the episode include audit fatigue, decarbonisation efforts and the value of industry partnerships, as well as the process of attempting to bridge influence gap between manufacturers and the brands and retailers they produce for.

* Episode glossary *

MoU – Memorandum of Understanding

SAC – Sustainable Apparel Coalition

IAF – International Apparel Federation

Higg BRM – Higg Brand & Retail Module

STTI – Sustainable Terms of Trade Initiative

GIZ – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German development agency)

In an extended episode of Ecotextile Talks, the way in which the apparel sector responds to natural disasters is placed under the microscope.

Podcast host David Styles is this week joined by two guests to discuss reports which respectively shine a light on the past, present and potential future of the industry's collective response to crises caused by catastrophes such as earthquakes or extreme weather events.

First, Penelope Kyritsis from the Worker Rights Consortium discusses the findings of a white paper exploring the responses of major apparel brands to the devastating earthquake in Turkey earlier this year.

The report brings together the perspectives of 16 fashion brands and 202 suppliers situated in the affected region, with various trends and contradictions highlighted.

In the second part of the programme, Styles is joined by Jason Judd, executive director of Cornell University's Global Labor Institute, to outline the key strands of a recent study which argues climate breakdown could lead to apparel sector losses of $65 billion without appropriate planning and precautionary measures being taken.

In addition to spotlighting the potential disruption facing the sector – especially in the most 'climate vulnerable' garment producing nations, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and Vietnam – Judd shares his insights on how the sector can best prepare to counteract such risks.

This topic, along with many others, is also the subject of our news videos available via both the Ecotextile Views homepage and @ecotextileviews YouTube channel.

The latest instalment of the Ecotextile Talks podcast series explores the motivations behind a campaign calling on the fashion industry to move away from conventional care and content labels in favour of digital alternatives.

Steve Lamar, president and CEO of the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), who is one of the most prominent industry voices behind the #CutTheTape campaign, sits down with Tom Bithell to share his views on why digital solutions such as QR codes ought to be implemented as soon as possible.

The current "extraordinary" situation cannot be perpetuated, he asserts, with enough label tape being produced annually by the apparel sector to "stretch from here from Earth to the moon and back 12 times".

This, the AAFA boss states, makes labels themselves – regardless of the garment they are affixed to – a "sustainability burden".

While material usage is a key tenet of the campaign's case, during this episode Lamar is also pressed on issues such as who would be responsible for the publication and management of garment care and content data as well as the ethics of leaving some consumers at the mercy of the 'digital divide' – affecting those members of society without the means or knowhow to access information online.

This topic, along with many others, is also the subject of our news videos available via both the Ecotextile Views homepage and @ecotextileviews YouTube channel.

Earlier this summer host Phil Berman sat down with Carolina Ledl, Lenzing's head of product and application management, to discuss the company's ambitious plans to start producing its Ecovero-branded viscose in its manufacturing plant in Indonesia.

Lenzing first launched its 'EcoVero' branded viscose in 2017, in response to growing a demand for more transparent viscose fibres. And with the expansion of its dope-dyed 'Black' version now imminent, Carolina explains what the company's €100m expansion plans in South Asia will mean for sourcing both raw materials and reducing energy consumption in this regional manufacturing facility.

She also talks about why the Indonesian plant will shortly start producing 'Ecovero Black' and reveals how it uses less water, electricity, and heat than other conventional viscose dyeing processes.

You can subscribe to our podcasts on Apple, Google, Spotify and Amazon Music, and get automatic alerts whenever a new episode is released.

This episode is produced in partnership with the Lenzing Group.

For more news on Lenzing's plans, explore our written content on Ecotextile News:

https://www.ecotextile.com/2023083131112/materials-production-news/lenzing-plots-a-greener-future-for-indonesia-plant.html#jextbox-login-module-0

https://www.lenzing.com/newsroom/press-releases/press-release/lenzing-successfully-completing-the-conversion-and-upgrade-of-its-indonesian-site

In the latest episode of Ecotextile Talks, Jeffrey Thimm from Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) discusses an initiative exploring the potential of combining artificial intelligence and satellite technologies to monitor organic cotton production.

Podcast host David Styles discusses with Thimm how GOTS reached the point at which, with project partners the European Space Agency and tech firm Marple, it is watching over cotton production in India from space.

Despite what may seem like a futuristic endeavour, Thimm is adamant that this type of project is a much-needed breakthrough capable of increasing trust in the cotton sector.

"This is a way to increase the integrity of the organic cotton sector. To increase the integrity of GOTS as well," he asserts.

"And so, not only the brands can be confident that their supply chains are what they believe they are – sustainable according to GOTS standards – but also that consumers can continue to have faith in the benefits of participating in the organic system."

Another topic raised in the episode is the allegation – attributed in the Indian press to 'anonymous sources' – that the project represents a national security threat. This entire debacle, Thimm states, can be attributed to individuals or organisations "engaged in fraud".

The conversation also reveals that once the latest stage of the experimental project shares its initial results, expected to be at the end of 2023, there may well be other applications for the technologies involved – beyond India and the cotton sector.

The latest report from Cotton Campaign insists the time has come for the fashion industry to act conclusively on forced labour in Turkmen cotton fields, with human rights lawyer and researcher Allison Gill telling Ecotextile Talks that legal obligations must now be met.

Speaking on behalf Cotton Campaign, an interdisciplinary coalition of human and labour rights organisations focused on cotton supply chains, Gill sits down with podcast host David Styles to discuss the past, present and potential future of Turkmenistan's use of forced labour and the nation's relationship with the global apparel industry.

After a decade of what she regards as negligible progress in Turkmenistan, the human rights expert is realistic about the monumental challenge facing those who wish to engender real change but admits she hopes kernels of optimism may soon be evident – if the fashion industry collectively acts.

Publicly shunning Turkmen cotton and funding comprehensive supply chain due diligence, the human rights expert asserts, is the minimum required to start the ball rolling on meaningful progress.

"Companies and businesses should absolutely not be using Turkmen cotton goods… They have a legal obligation not to do so," Gill argues, before contextualising the reality in Turkmenistan comparative to other nearby controversial cotton-producing hotspots such as Uzbekistan and China's Xinjiang region.

Despite the latest report describing children as young as eight being compulsorily engaged in physically gruelling work, Gill admits that a key discussion among the Cotton Campaign partner organisations was how to ensure the publication was able to "convey the information so that it grabs people's attention".

She also labels the newest findings "ground-breaking", given that much of the information was sourced by monitors working undercover in the secretive Eurasian nation – risking their freedom or even lives to do so.

As an apparent global push to include extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks in legislation gathers pace, podcast host David Styles catches up with Claire Kneller, managing director of WRAP Asia Pacific, to discuss the Australian Government's approach.

Claire joins the latest episode of Ecotextile Talks as a representative of the consortium behind Seamless, an initiative aiming to convince fashion brands and retailers to voluntarily contribute four cents per garment to fund textile circularity programmes and avoid a mandatory levy being imposed by central government.

"Textiles is on the minister's list. It has been for a while," Kneller explains. "Perhaps unsurprisingly, the industry was not taking enough action. There are things happening in the industry, on an individual brand and retailer level, but by no stretch of the imagination is it enough activity."

It was this perceived stasis that led Australia's environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, to put the nation's fashion companies on notice: they have 12 months to act or risk much harsher measures being imposed legally.

Success for the scheme, Kneller believes, would be 60% of the industry signing up to contribute by June 2024.

"That's actually not that many companies," she notes. "That's probably between 15 and 20 businesses, depending on which ones you get. So it's not a huge number, but the market in Australia is extremely consolidated at the top end."

While WRAP Asia Pacific's managing director is optimistic this level of uptake can be achieved, she issues industry with the cautionary tale that failing to do so may result in a higher contribution than the 4 cents per garment being proposed in this preliminary voluntary phase.

"Industry has the opportunity for it to continue as an industry led scheme. Once it becomes a co-regulatory scheme, it's quite a different setup… What currently is drafted as a four cents per garment levy might be 40 cents per garment under a regulatory scheme. Now I'm not saying it will be, but it could be because it really is out of industry's hands."

In our latest Ecotextile Talks podcast, Philip Berman catches up with John Murphy, Hohenstein's technical director for Europe, for an update on the company's testing and certification process for its new Oeko-Tex organic cotton standard that was launched in April.

The new testing procedure has been created to verify the labelling of organic cotton textiles, but with additional criteria that meets with the stringent Oeko-Tex Standard 100. It claims to ensure that cotton samples contain less than 10% genetically modified material, comply with limits on hazardous chemicals including pesticide residues, and guarantees its organic origin down to farm level.

Asked why he thinks the cotton industry needs a new organic label certification process, Murphy suggests that as the demand for organic has grown rapidly, so has the need to ensure that the labelling is reliable, particularly for consumers.

"We saw a need from the industry for a new independent label for organic cotton," he tells Ecotextile Talks, explaining that Hohenstein took its time to develop the process to make sure of its integrity and that it was trustworthy.

In addition to the qualitative DNA analysis of the sample material (i.e. does a product contain genetically modified cotton, yes or no?), Murphy notes that a second important step involves quantification – determining the proportion of genetically modified cotton in a sample. The aim, he says, is not only to check production, but also to make sure the raw material is traceable throughout the supply chain.

The result is a quantitative method of GMO testing, which, for the first time he says, allows for differentiation between contamination and purposeful addition of conventionally grown cotton.

Pressed on the feasibility of this process, Murphy raises an important point around the delineation between contamination, which maybe is accidental, and that which is purposeful and potentially verging on the fraudulent. Asked how the testing manages to differentiate between those two processes, he clarifies that there is always slight contamination with cross-flying lint in production. "We're not trying to eliminate cross contamination – that's very, very difficult," he says.

"What we are trying to eliminate is suppliers who may dilute the organic cotton with conventional cotton to try to increase volumes and this test will differentiate between accidental contamination and genuine contamination.

"We've set limits of less than 10% for accidental contamination. We'll look at this limit which has been set for now and see how relevant it is over time."

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In a special edition of Ecotextile Talks to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse, host David Styles is joined by a range of expert guests who share their opinions on the disaster's wide-ranging impacts.

The podcast explores how the catastrophe occurred, its lasting legacies for victims and the global apparel sector, as well as looking ahead to what the next decade may hold as the tragedy continues to cast a long shadow.

Expert guests include:

Miran Ali, vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association Mary Creagh, chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative Lavinia Muth, activist and consultant Professor Rashedur Chowdhury, academic behind unparalleled Rana Plaza study Eric Henry, president of TS Designs

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Host Phil Berman sits down with Eva McGeorge, Lenzing's Head of Marketing and Communications, to discuss the company's recent global survey on consumer attitudes to sustainability in fashion.

Lenzing says the aim of its new survey – the key insights of which will be launched exclusively in next month's edition of Ecotextile News – was to find out what drives and motivates consumers when it comes to shopping for textiles and clothing.

Is it price?

Sustainability?

Or something else entirely?

In the podcast Eva highlights how some nationalities are more likely to keep their clothes for longer, and shop less frequently, than others.

And she also discusses four key drivers that can affect a consumer's motivation to act in a more sustainable way.

You can subscribe to our podcasts on Apple, Google, Spotify and Amazon Music, and get automatic alerts whenever a new episode is released.