UK Clothing Company Begins Carbon Labeling

A clothing company in the United Kingdom has begun selling items labeled with carbon footprint information.

Continental Clothing worked with the Carbon Trust to create a new labeling system that quantifies the entire carbon lifecycle of its products, from raw materials and manufacturing, through to consumer use and disposal.

The project is part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) action plan for sustainable clothing, launched at last month’s London Fashion Week by Sustainability Minister Lord Hunt.

The label will be displayed on a range of printed T-shirt and sweatshirts, and will inform the consumer of the total lifecycle footprint as well as their own contribution through washing, tumble-drying and ironing. It will put a number on the reductions that can be achieved by consumers through changing their washing, drying and ironing routines.

The footprinting study has shown that as much as ½ of the total footprint of clothing can come from consumers’ home laundry activities, a particular hotspot being the tumble-drying, which produces twice the emissions of automatic washing. Avoiding tumble-drying and ironing could reduce the total footprint by as much as one third overall.

Continental Clothing said it reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the manufacturing stages by 90% through the use of renewable energy and a low-carbon production approach.

Philip Charles Gamett, director, Continental Clothing, said: "Fashion is all about timing. We’ve been working to raise awareness on environmental and social issues for the last few seasons but we didn’t feel like the timing was quite right to take a stand on Climate Change itself. Few people were talking about reducing carbon emissions in the fashion industry–they didn’t know it’s possible. But now Continental Clothing have demonstrated irrefutably that it’s possible to achieve up to a 90% carbon reduction in the manufacture of clothing, and that it is possible to do it today, without waiting until 2050."