HEJSupport’s new website on Sustainable Fashion

Worries about the textile and fashion industries and their impacts on the environment are not new. The issue of sustainable fashion has slowly gained ground since the 1960s. But it was throughout the 1990s and 2000s that discussions on the matter have expanded and accelerated.

With the growing concerns of consumers about the environmental and social impacts of their actions and consumption habits, comes the need of the fashion industry to adapt itself by designing and producing in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible way.  

Sustainable fashion is not only about considering the one-off environmental impact of a textile, or a garment acquired. It refers to a broad range of activities throughout the whole lifecycle of a product, from its design to its disposal. Furthermore, it also considers social and ethical aspects, such as the promotion of human rights and equity.

To cover all these topics, HEJSupport, an international non-profit organization and Multi-stakeholder Advisory Commitee Member of the Consumer Information Programme, is launching a new website on sustainability in the textile and fashion industries as part of the ongoing project “Textiles: Creating a resilience – for consumers and producers”. The website is financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

The platform is not only aimed at individual consumers, but also at many different actors that play an active and important role in the fashion industry, such as manufacturers, retailers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and many others. There, they have access to reliable and extensive information and are equally able to share their own experiences, visions, and ideas on different aspects of sustainability for the textile and fashion industry.

The topics covered include Chemicals, Circularity, Women/Human Rights, Materials, Policy/Standards, Labels/Initiatives and Environment/Health. Besides that, a special attention is brought to the Question & Answer section that helps consumers identify reliable labels and unravel the issue of chemicals in clothing.  

The website is available both in English and German.

To delve deeper into the topic, we also encourage you to read the HEJSupport report “Sustainable Fashion? How Companies Provide Sustainability Information to Consumers”. This report on textiles was published in 2020 and used the UNEP & ITC Guidelines for Providing Product Sustainability Information for the assessment of sustainability information by fashion retailers.

For further information or to share expertise and stories, get in contact with HEJSupport at info@hej-support.org.