How Fashion Samples Impact The Environment—And What You Can Do About It

When it comes to ecological impact, the fashion industry has a lot to answer for.

Thankfully, the majority of fashion brands are taking steps to minimize their footprint and develop more ethical practices, but - no matter how stylish the shoes - it's a steep hill to climb.

So, where to begin? Though often overlooked, one way fashion brands can become more sustainable is by improving sample management processes. 

In a recent post, we identified the tremendous impact fashion samples have on the environment, highlighting the number one thing you can do to cut your sample losses and make your processes more sustainable.  

Read on for the key takeaways and check out the full post for more detail. 

Why Samples Matter

For a business to become more ethical and sustainable, delving into operational processes is essential. For fashion brands, that means scrutinizing each stage of your supply chain (along with internal processes and policies). 

The benefits of doing so are plentiful. For one, consumers care about the ethics behind the brands they buy from. According to our in-depth report, Making Sense of Sustainability, the Media Impact Value? (MIV?) for sustainability-related content grew by 54% during the first semester of 2022, and fashion accounts for one-third of these sustainable conversations. 

If you want to know which channels and terms generate the most value when it comes to sustainability content, download the full report free here.

While there are many areas you could look at optimizing, we wanted to put samples under the sustainability microscope. After all, a finished garment can require up to 20 samples, each at an environmental cost!

And that environmental cost can be staggering. For example—one cotton product uses the equivalent of 4 years' worth of drinking water for 1 person. Other materials are equally as devastating.

To put it simply, the more samples you produce, the more resources you use—and the greater the impact on the environment. Now, it’s true that samples are a necessary part of running a fashion brand; you can’t simply stop creating them. 

So, in terms of samples, what can you do to become more sustainable?

Planning For The Planet

While you can’t banish samples altogether, you can produce them in the most responsible volume possible. The difference between doing so and overproducing unnecessary samples depends on one single element: your control over them.

The single and most superior solution to minimizing production? Digitizing your sample management system.

How It Works

Hear us out - with dedicated sample management systems, brands can prevent loss by having a real-time view of sample locations. Each item is assigned a unique barcode which is scanned periodically, so its whereabouts are logged in an app. 

Evolved solutions also incorporate RFID technology which allows users to scan everything in their office or showroom at once. This gives you full control over samples, minimizing sample losses and making processes more efficient.

There are multiple benefits to this:

• With fewer samples lost or misplaced, fewer need to be produced to fill the gaps. Fewer samples produced means fewer resources used (and a far lower carbon footprint!).
• Reduced sample loss equates to significant financial savings.
• A digitized system comes with valuable historical data. An end-of-season overview, for example, could highlight which samples have been most used by certain departments, which pieces were most requested by journalists, how many went unused, etc. This valuable data allows you to anticipate future seasons and the sample needs of various departments.

In short, a sample management system like Launchmetrics Samples can help you save money, become more efficient, and, crucially, reduce your impact on the environment.

Want more tips to build out your sustainable samples strategy? Head to our blog: Sustainability 2023: How To Make Ethical Changes to Your Sample Management Process That Make an Impact.

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