Fashion
Trends & insights

What is #SustainableFashion?

Sustainability has been the hot key word when talking about fashion lately. However, like every trending hashtag, it is widely used and a bit overwhelming.

sustainable fashion - gerber

Defining Sustainable Fashion: Measuring Environmental and Social Impact Across the Industry

Sustainable fashion can refer to many different parts of the fashion production and retail processes. But what makes a fashion company sustainable? Is it eco-friendly, ethical practices, waste management, innovative textiles or fast fashion recycling?

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Well, it’s all of it. From the floor to the ceiling, the fashion design and manufacturing process is impacting our world negatively. The fashion industry hasn’t been the kindest, from dumping chemicals in communities’ water sources to unsafe factory practices, and even creating piles of unused fabric waste when producing garments. Even the consumers have created a large impact with reckless purchasing, over consumption, and improperly disposing of garments.

Never fear, the fashion industry is working day and night to help solve this issue. But how can one know if they are truly being sustainable? If a company has to consider how they impact everything, how does one actually measure every single environmental and social impact they have?

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The Higg Index

The Higg Index is separated into three different sections to measure a company’s impact on their environmental and social surroundings. The Higg Index is divided in three sections: Product, Facility, and Brand & Retail Tools. The SAC (Sustainability Apparel Coalition) provides many modules, assessments, and indexes for corporations to measure their environmental and social impacts. Once a company understands where they can improve, they then work with them to help address their negative impact and how to work towards increasing their sustainability. Companies can also look at other supply chain partner’s sustainability ratings to gain a better idea of who to partner with.

Here is a list of a couple of topics that SAC uses to measure a company’s environmental and social impact.

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Learn more about how the Sustainability Apparel Coalition is working to further improve the sustainability of every step along a supply chain. The next time you tweet or share a lengthy LinkedIn post with the #sustainablefashion, you can share responsibly understanding what it means to truly be a sustainable designer, manufacturer, and consumer.

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Stay tuned for more blogs from Gerber Technology about how we can help your company be more sustainable, along with the amazing endeavors our partners have succeeded in creating an environmentally conscious and socially responsible supply chain.

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