France is planning a fashion revolution with climate-impact labels.

Is buying a new cotton t-shirt or a recycled t-shirt better for the environment?

Well, it depends.

Recycling has obvious advantages, but the process shortens the cotton fibers and often has to be mixed with some oil-based material to keep them from breaking down.

Such trade-offs make it difficult to determine the true level of sustainability of clothing – but brands in Europe will soon have no choice.

Next year, every piece of clothing sold in France will need an accurate climate impact label—a similar law is expected in the rest of the EU by 2026.

That means connecting many different and conflicting data points: Where and how are the raw materials grown? What is used for coloring? How far did he travel? Is the factory powered by solar or coal?

The French Ecological Transition Agency (Adéme) is currently testing 11 proposals on 500 real-life garments to determine how to collect and compare data and what the resulting label might look like to consumers.

“The message of the law is clear – it will be mandatory, so brands must prepare, to monitor their products, to organize automatic data collection,” Erwan Outret, one of the coordinators at Adem, told AFP.

“Some say the models are too simple, some say they’re too complicated, but it’s a sign of the maturity of the debate that no one questions the importance of these calculations anymore.”

‘Clear and informative’

The need for fashion change is urgent.

Statistics are hard to pin down, but the United Nations says it’s responsible for 10 percent of global carbon emissions, as well as significant water consumption and waste.

Labels could be a key part of the solution, say campaigners.

“It forces brands to be more transparent and informed…it forces them to gather information and create long-term relationships with their suppliers – something they’re not used to doing,” said Victor Soto of Good Goods, Fashion and. Sustainability consultant.

She added: “It seems so complicated now. But we have seen it applied in other industries like medical supplies.

The textile industry has been scrambling to come up with technical solutions to see how the wind blows.

A recent presentation at Premier Vision, a Paris-based textile conference, highlighted several new processes, including dyeing non-toxic leather, dyes derived from fruit and waste, and even compostable underwear.

But the key to sustainability is using the right fabric for the right outfit, says Ariane Bigot, vice president of fashion at Premier Vision.

That means synthetic and oil-based fabrics will still have a place, she said: “A very long-lasting, strong synthetic for some applications, such as heavy-duty laundry that needs less.”

Capturing all these transactions with one simple label on clothing is difficult.

“It’s very complicated,” Bigot said. But we need to initialize the machine.

Sustainable options

The French agency will compile the results of the test phase next spring before passing the results on to lawmakers.

While many welcome the labels, activists say it should be just part of a wider attack on the fashion industry.

“Focusing on life-cycle analysis is great, but we need to do more than just labels,” said Valeria Botta of the Environmental Alliance Standards.

“The focus should be on establishing clear regulations on product design to ban substandard products from the market, prohibiting the destruction of returned and unsold items, and setting production limits,” she said.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to struggle to find a sustainable option – that should be the default.”

© 2022 AFP