A guide on sustainable terminology, implementation strategy, and more

Everyone is talking about it.

It’s the hot topic that multibillion-dollar companies and small apparel decorators alike are currently stuck on.

It’s full of buzzwords and all sorts of different initiatives spanning retail, fashion, wholesale, and beyond.

We’re talking about sustainability.

You don’t have to go far into the depths of Google to figure out how wasteful the textile and apparel industry is. A simple search of “textile waste statistics” immediately brings up the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website, chock-full of statistics on the matter. According to the site, “The main source of textiles in municipal solid waste (MSW) is discarded clothing, although other smaller sources include furniture, carpets, tires, footwear, and other nondurable goods such as sheets and towels.”

The EPA states that it measures the generation, recycling, composting, combustion with energy recovery, and landfilling of textile material in MSW. The organization estimates that the generation of textiles in 2018 was 17 million tons.

17 million. That was nearly five years ago.

Today, awareness of this issue has grown significantly. Much of the progress has been spurred by organizations such as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), and others. Many of these drive the need for change through various avenues such as forums, reports, events, and more.

Even the retail/fashion world is getting involved. Big name brands like adidas, Patagonia, and others have already turned words into action. From eco-friendly items to environmental, sustainable, and governance (ESG) practices, brands are walking the walk (or at least trying to) when it comes to change.

The decorated apparel industry is just as influenced by this as the world of consumer retail fashion. You’d be hard pressed to find a decorator who hasn’t at least had one or two conversations about what their shop can do to improve their environmental footprint.

But what does sustainability actually mean? And how is applied and dealt with in the decorated apparel community?

Defining Sustainability

To truly understand sustainability as more than just a buzzword, we need to have an honest conversation with ourselves, with others, and examine its tangible applications.

“For us, sustainability means looking at the full value chain to tackle global environmental and social priorities aimed at improving the lives of people who make our garments, further protecting the environment, and empowering our neighboring communities, all while driving business success over the long-term,” says Peter Iliopoulos, senior vice president of Taxation, Sustainability, and Governmental Affairs at Gildan. “[Far] beyond simply making great quality products, we leverage our vertically integrated manufacturing model, and the expertise and scale we have built over the years to positively influence how apparel is made.”

That is quite a bit to unpack.

Gildan_Biotop_Honduras
Gildan Biotop in Honduras

Let’s start with global environment and social priorities. When most think of sustainability, we think “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” (Thank you, grade school in the ‘90s.) In its simplest form, that euphemism holds true, though it’s much deeper once you dissect what that means. Globally, it’s about where products are being manufactured, what they are made of, how they’re being transported, and where they wind up. All of those affect the entire global apparel supply chain.

“I define sustainability for our industry as being conscious of the waste and consumption of natural resources that go into production,” states Taylor Landesman, vice president of Lawson Screen & Digital Products. “As a manufacturer of equipment and distributor of supplies, I see this issue across the industry in terms of the energy and materials that go into equipment manufacturing and the containers and packaging for supplies.”

Perhaps one of the biggest eye-openers to this issue was the COVID-19 pandemic. The after-effects of the world shutting down made supply chain issues abundantly clear, but in a narrower sense, they also revealed the horrible sustainability problems caused by apparel manufacturing. What also became abundantly clear is we need to do more to change the trajectory.

“I think of [sustainability] as anything we can do that reduces our impacts, and these come in a wide variety of degrees of impact,” says Garry Bell, Chasing Better Consultants Inc. on behalf of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. “Recycling a single-use water bottle has a small positive impact; creating a company movement to recycle all single-use water bottles has a bigger impact; passing regulations that ban use of single-use water bottles has the biggest impact. I don’t see any different definition for our industry … it should be about doing more with less, reducing waste, and reducing inputs.”

That brings us full circle to the point made earlier by Iliopoulos: sustainability is also defined as empowering communities and improving business. “Beyond being the right thing to do, sustainability is fundamental to our business strategy, and a crucial factor in driving our success,” he states. “In our industry, sustainability is often reduced to, and misunderstood as, standalone initiatives, such as using a certain type of fiber, or recycling/upcycling products. We see sustainability as so much more than that. It is about the holistic production of clothes, considering all its stages, and all factors involved at each stage.”

The Flip Side: Greenwashing

In the pursuit of understanding sustainability, many come across the topic of “greenwashing.” According to Merriam-Webster, greenwashing is defined as “the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc., appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is.”

“Greenwashing is merely stating you are undertaking environmental improvements without actually making any changes,” Landesman further explains. “This is dangerous because it is disingenuous and can lead to others discounting the sustainability movement.”

The obvious point here is don’t be the company or person that participates in greenwashing. What may not be so obvious is how to determine whether others are doing so. “There are many different web deliverables on greenwashing that [are] relevant today and [are] a good read,” says Bell. “Regulatory bodies like the FTC and EU are increasingly setting standards and regulatory frameworks against which sustainability claims are evaluated … The best way to think of it is, ‘Don’t say something unless you can prove it is true.’”

What To Do About It

It’s one thing to talk about sustainability. But as proved by greenwashing, it’s an entirely different thing to put it in action. Implementing entirely new business practices — which also includes making physical changes to your brick-and-mortar locations — can be and is daunting, exhausting, and in some cases, expensive. Massive, global-scale companies often have access to more cashflow and resources to make these changes; small decorators? Not so much.

But that shouldn’t be an excuse, experts say.

“There is a concept of materiality that is core to getting things done in the realm of sustainability,” explains Bell. “It essentially boils down to carefully assessing all your impacts and focusing on the biggest ones first.”

For example, he states that as a screen printer, you may determine that energy consumption is your main focus. He suggests swapping a hot air dryer for an infrared dryer to possibly reduce GHG emissions. You can also swap out all your lights to motion-activated LEDs. “One of the keys, though, is finding what is most relevant to your customers because you absolutely want to make sure these efforts become part of the sales pitch you use to stand apart from your competition,” he continues.

For Landesman, it’s also about utilizing the resources you do have access to. “Many utility companies offer different programs aimed at helping businesses reduce their consumption,” he states. “Simply calling your power and water companies is a great place to start. Check with your local chamber of commerce or city building division, as they might have resources specific to your state.”

Gildan_Biomass system
Gildan Biomass System

This also applies on the other side of things when selecting a supplier to work with. “Operating responsibly is a big part of who we are as a company,” Iliopoulos says of Gildan. “When it comes to sustainability, we also know that we need to continue raising the bar and go further as an organization, which is why continuous improvement is something we are committed to.”

Bell also returns to that oh-so-simple concept of reuse, or circularity. “In the consumer retail apparel space, many brands are now starting to build take-back programs that are seeking to use the post-consumer waste as an input to new products,” he says. “One question I have heard asked of our industry is, ‘How can you be a sustainable industry when the majority of your products are given away for promotional purposes and essentially disposable?’ There are several responses to that question but at its core, the industry needs to be aware that some of the regulatory frameworks pushing hard at driving change may not see our responses to that question as acceptable.”

Ready or Not, Change is Coming

That changing mindset, that questioning, is one big reason why those in the decorated apparel space should pay attention, though not the only one.

Another reason is, more and more, it’s the law. According to a recent article from Forbes, some experts feel that the apparel industry isn’t ready for what’s about to hit it despite all of the progress being made:

“In the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere, new laws are in the pipeline or on the books that, for the first time, require leading brands to come clean about pollution and waste … As the ideal of sustainability becomes hard law, kicking the can down the road isn’t work anymore, especially with tough new transparency and reporting requirements like those recently enacted in France. ‘It’s the first time a regulation has required so much disclosure in the entire industry,’ says Baptiste Carriere-Pradal of the Amsterdam-based Sustainable Apparel Coalition. In a recent interview with BusinessofFashion.com, he warned, ‘The industry is not prepared at all.’”

Ready or not, change is coming, so we all must invest. “The decorated apparel industry has flown ‘under the radar’ for quite some time, but the same laws now being introduced to retail apparel may soon be cascaded down upon our industry,” Bell points out.

More importantly, this is about more than following regulations. “Caring about the impact you make on your environment and community is hugely important,” Landesman believes. “At the very least, it helps you be a good neighbor and community member.” When you see your neighbor pick up a piece of cardboard on the street and place it in their recycling bin, you likely don’t think they’re a terrible person because of it.

That might seem like a too-simple example, but the truth is, doing the right thing carries a lot of weight. “When we began our sustainability journey 20 years ago, we made it our priority to implement processes and programs that provide healthy and safe conditions for our workers, while treating them with respect and dignity,” explains Iliopoulos.

Additional Links

You can find additional coverage and insight on the Apparelist website provided by expert sources:

This practice is also applicable to the decorator, both internally and externally. “Decorators (and everyone) need to make informed choices when it comes to adopting sustainable practices,” Bell feels. “It is imperative that they be able to speak to their customers and employees about these practices as a source of pride and a point of differentiation with your competitors. What is not worth the risk, however, is overstating or lying about these practices to your customers. We all know it takes years to build a good relationship with a customer and seconds to destroy that same relationship.”

Positive Progress

But don’t think for a second it’s all doom and gloom right now. In fact, the progress of the last few years is wonderful in so many ways. “We are at an exciting time right now in the industry,” Bell believes. “There are amazing synergies being created between mechanical innovations, software innovations, big data, and AI that are unleashing unparalleled solutions and really cool outcomes.”

What that means is we must keep our foot on the gas. “Raising awareness of the issue is still [a challenge] in our industry,” Landesman says. “In the near term, educating printers that sustainability issues affect more than just the garment should be one goal of the industry. As consciousness grows, we will see people making choices that improve their impact.”