This is how sustainable clothing consumption works

Before you decide to buy a new piece of clothing, ask yourself how often you will wear it and how many similar items you already own. “This could mean you buy fewer products and have more money to invest in slightly more expensive, high-quality and sustainably produced fashion,” says environmental economist and sustainability expert Dario Grünenfelder (35). Not only are you supporting eco-friendly brands, you are also curbing the demand for so-called fast fashion. The major clothing chains that sell them produce 24 collections a year, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company. They are largely responsible for why the fashion industry is so harmful to the climate and the environment. They account for two to eight percent of global carbon emissions, according to the WWF. Textile dyeing is also one of the main causes of water pollution.

Scroll down to the bottom of the seals of approval

Many products sold in Switzerland now have a sustainability seal of approval. But what lies behind beautiful logos and descriptions isn’t clear to most consumers. For example, if you want to know exactly what “Coop Naturaline Bio Cotton” means, you can find more information on the labelinfo.ch website. The service currently offers information on 135 quality seals and 19 declarations in German and French, making it by far the most comprehensive label database in Switzerland. Dario Grünenfelder says that the most important criterion for evaluating the sustainability of a clothing brand is transparency. This means: How openly does a fashion brand communicate about how and where its fashion is produced? «Without transparency, it is very difficult for a consumer to form an opinion.»

Wash your clothes as cold as possible

one third of the CO₂-According to the WWF, a garment’s footprint is created during the use phase – through washing, drying and ironing. Washing your laundry as cold as possible can reduce its footprint. 30 degrees is usually sufficient for lightly soiled laundry. At this temperature, the machine uses only one-third of the electricity required by a 60 degree wash cycle. Many modern detergents are effective even at 15 degrees. “Airing the laundry is usually sufficient,” says Grünenfelder. “For example, wool can be self-cleaning to a certain extent.” If you air-dry clothes rather than machine-dry them, you’ll reduce the footprint by another ten percent. Also, your clothes will last longer, which means you have to buy less new clothes.

Don’t throw clothes away

If you put clothes in the collection – in a Texaid sack, for example – it should be clean but completely intact. That’s because the companies that collect the clothes decide whether to reuse or – if possible – recycle them. The cotton t-shirt with holes in the armpits can then be a cleaning cloth. Non-recyclable materials are partially decomposed and used, for example, as insulation in the construction industry. Many brands, including Dario Grünenfelder’s, take back and recycle clothes their customers no longer wear from their own collections. “We know exactly what materials it’s made of,” says Grünenfelder. This makes the job of recycling companies easier.