100 global businesses sign up to Textiles 2030 agreement

River Island, Oliver Bonas and eBay are some of the new firms to sign up to the Textiles 2030, an initiative which sees firms pledge to reduce carbon and water footprints and accelerate circularity in the UK. Textiles 2030’s ambitions will be further realised later this year as the first in a planned Global Network of agreements to be launched in Denmark.

Environmental NGO WRAP launched the agreement 10 months ago and now has commitment on environmental targets from retailers and brands making up almost two thirds of clothing placed on the UK market, UKFT said in a press release.

Textiles 2030 is an action-oriented initiative based on tackling climate change through circularity, so as more of the sector gets involved, faster progress can be made and with greater impact. UKFT’s CEO Adam Mansell is on the advisory board of the initiative.

“WRAP wants to create a world in which climate change is no longer a problem. But, with the global fashion industry being responsible for creating more emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, we won’t achieve this if we don’t tackle the way clothes are produced, used and disposed of. Textiles 2030 is a dynamic and fast-paced approach to the problem with the long-term goal of radically changing how we use textiles to a more sustainable model – for all textiles in the home. We are delighted that after less than a year we have 100 signatories from across the textiles sector committed to this goal,” Marcus Gover, CEO of WRAP, said.

WRAP and Textiles 2030 will bring these different businesses together to collaborate on key science-based targets. By 2030, signatories aim to reduce the carbon footprint of new products placed on the market by 50 per cent, and the water footprint by 30 per cent.

Progress of these individual businesses is tracked by WRAP through annually submitted data as well as actions taken against each stage of the product lifecycle. The Textiles 2030 Roadmap outlines scenarios, activities and milestones that demonstrate how the absolute targets can be achieved and shows what signatories must do to deliver the targets, with key outcomes by the end of 2022, 2025 and 2030.

The latest updated version of the Textiles 2030 Footprint Tool, which allows businesses to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions and water footprint associated with their textiles product ranges, was launched in March 2022. This tool improves the data available to inform decision-making and covers the whole life cycle of those products, from the production of raw materials, through various manufacturing processes, wear and washing by consumers while the products are in use, and final waste disposal.