WRAP has announced that its Textiles 2030 initiative has welcomed 100 signatories within ten months of operation, with latest signatories including River Island, Oliver Bonas, and eBay.
The initiative launched last year with 63 signatories, with the NGO stating that the brands and retailers signed up to its plan count for nearly two thirds of clothing that is placed on the UK market.
In an announcement, WRAP said that eBay, River Island and Oliver Bonas represent three ‘key parts of the industry’ – home textiles, circular economy innovators and brands, all pledging to reduce carbon and water footprints and accelerate circularity in the UK. Collaboration between these retailers and businesses to scale up circularity efforts will be encouraged by new additions, WRAP says.
The progress of individual businesses is tracked by WRAP through annually submitted data, as well as actions taken against each stage of the product life cycle. The ‘Textiles 2030 Roadmap’ tool outlines scenarios, activities and milestones that demonstrate how the absolute targets can be achieved and shows what signatories must do to deliver the targets, with key outcomes by the end of 2022, 2025 and 2030.
WRAP has announced that the latest version of the tool, launched in March, will allow businesses to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions and water footprint associated with their textiles product ranges. The update aims to the improve data available to inform decision-making, covering the products entire life cycle – from the production of raw materials, to manufacturing processes, wear and washing by consumers while the products are in use, and final waste disposal.
Marcus Gover, CEO of WRAP commented: “WRAP wants to create a world in which climate change is no longer a problem. But, with the global fashion industry being responsible for creating more emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, we won’t achieve this if we don’t tackle the way clothes are produced, used and disposed of.
“Textiles 2030 is a dynamic and fast-paced approach to the problem with the long-term goal of radically changing how we use textiles to a more sustainable model – for all textiles in the home. We are delighted that after less than a year we have 100 signatories from across the textiles sector committed to this goal.”
Last month, a new report from the Changing Markets Foundation argued that fashion certification schemes are ‘acting as a smokescreen’ for the industry’s environmental impact. Textiles 2030 was named amongst the schemes reportedly enabling ‘greenwashing’.
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