The WRAP ‘Love Your Clothes’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the value of clothes and encourage people to make the most of the clothes they already have. The campaign has been developed as part of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan.
WRAP
Implemented in
- Europe and Central Asia
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Sectors of activity
Consumer Goods, Education
Type of initiative
Education & Awareness Raising
Type of lead actor
Civil society
Start date
14/05/2019
Submitted on:
14/05/2019Objectives
The WRAP ‘Love Your Clothes’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the value of clothes and encourage people to make the most of the clothes they already have. The campaign has been developed as part of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan. The campaign aims to encourage sustainable consumption of clothing, including through its interactive website which is aimed at householders/ consumers and providing them with easy and practical tips to:
• make their clothes last longer;
• reduce the environmental impact of laundering their clothes;
• deal with unwanted clothes; and
• make the most of their wardrobe.
Love Your Clothes also provides free material e.g. posters and images for local UK authorities to use to promote its campaign moments and overall aims of the campaign. Its overall objective is to encourage UK citizens to reduce the environmental impact of clothing by buying clothes thoughtfully, caring for and repairing clothes in ways that make them last longer, trying refashioning and upcycling of clothing, and dealing with unwanted clothes in a responsible way by selling, swapping, donating or recycling.
Activities
As collected through the One Planet Reporting
Output level
Outreach and communication for SCP
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The Big Closet Clear Out
The Big Closet Clear Out
Regions
Europe and Central Asia
Online activity
Lead organization
WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme)
Objective
Throughout 2019, the Love Your Clothes campaign focused on contributing to the reduction of clothing going in the bin and extending the active life of clothing in the UK, to reduce the impact on our environment. For The Big Closet Clear Out, we encouraged citizens to swap, share, donate and recycle their clothes – keeping all clothes out of the bin – including sharing messaging across social media and ideas and inspiration to organising their own Big Closet Clear Out clothing swaps and events.
Achievements
We reached almost 3.2 million citizens online, including paid and organic social media and via working with 40 Instagram influencers. We achieved almost 55,000 social media engagements during the campaign. This campaign promoted more sustainable consumption of clothes by encouraging citizens to swap and donate clothes they do not wear. This means more clothes are staying in circulation, and hopefully therefore less new clothes are being bought.
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Dirty Laundry Doodles
Dirty Laundry Doodles
Regions
Europe and Central Asia
Online activity
Lead organization
WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme)
Objective
From Jan-March 2019, we ran a campaign called 'Dirty Laundry Doodles', commissioning student illustrators to create funny laundry doodles to highlight the benefits of washing clothes at 30°C to extend their active life. The main message of the campaign was that washing clothes at a lower temperature means they last longer so we can wear them for longer and reduce our impact on the planet. The campaign also highlighted the fact washing at 30°C uses 40% less energy than washing at higher temperatures.
Achievements
Through Dirty Laundry Doodles, we reached over 1.3 million citizens online, with over 5,500 engagements, mainly on Instagram. By creating a video and set of illustrations that highlighted lots of benefits (reducing carbon footprint, saving energy, financial savings) of washing your clothes at a lower temperature, Love Your Clothes has encouraged citizens to prolong the lives of their clothes, meaning they will ultimately need to buy less, being more sustainable in their consumption of this resource-intensive product.
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Donation Generation (Phase One)
Donation Generation (Phase One)
Regions
Europe and Central Asia
Lead organization
WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme)
Objective
Donation Generation is the latest campaign from Love Your Clothes. It is a social movement, a collective, uniting all citizens and calling for them to commit to donating all their unwanted clothing via charity shops, retail take back schemes, textile recycling banks or charity door collections
Achievements
Donation Generation is running across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and on the Love Your Clothes website. For the first stage of Donation Generation, which ran from October to December 2019, we reached 1.9 million across our social media content and achieved 92,000 engagements. The website gives people the option to make a pledge to donate their unwanted clothes and get updates about the campaign, as well as giving information about different donation methods and links to other useful donation websites.
Impact and Results
The Love Your Clothes movement exists to reduce the impact of clothes on the environment. When it began in 2014, an estimated 300,000 tonnes of clothing were thrown away each year in the UK. It has also been found that changes to the way the UK supplies, uses and disposes of clothing could reduce the carbon, water and waste footprints of clothing consumption by 10-20% each.- this shows there is a clear reason for change! Love Your Clothes aims to help consumers make small conscious changes to reduce the impact clothing has, improving its sustainability throughout its lifecycle, particularly by lengthening the active life of the clothes we wear. By increasing the lifecycle of clothes, less will be ending up in landfill, and care tips such as the Dirty Laundry Doodles that encourage consumers to wash clothes at lower temperatures, means lower energy use in clothes maintenance, another way of lessening the impact our clothing has on our planet.
Next steps and how to get involved
To find out more information, visit the Love Your Clothes website, which is full of advice for buying, caring for, upcycling and donating your clothing- https://www.loveyourclothes.org.uk/
You can also go to this link- http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/love-your-clothes-waste-prevention on the WRAP website to find out more about the project and WRAP's wider clothing work.