As London Fashion Week starts – Associate Director, Nick Davies takes stock of UK policy on fashion sustainability

For the next seven days London Fashion Week celebrates the creativity of UK designers. Behind the glitz and the glamour of the big runway shows, the environmental price tag of UK fashion consumption continues to look eye-watering.

We discard around a million tonnes of textiles a year. Over three hundred thousand tonnes go straight into black bags destined for landfill or incineration rather than reuse and recycling.[1] Supply chain waste is likely to be even greater.

Responsible UK fashion businesses have begun paying attention to sustainability after scrutiny of their ethical and environmental impact.? Over 60% of the UK clothing market is now signed up to Paris-climate-agreement-aligned emissions targets under the Textiles 2030 voluntary scheme. The British Fashion Council – organisers of LFW - is spearheading a Circular Fashion Innovation Network.

The Government is backing both voluntary initiatives with taxpayer cash and funding from its UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) arm. It has also recently announced a very welcome plan to end the dumping of textiles in landfill. But long-promised policy proposals to consult on an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme and eco-design standards have quietly been unthreaded.

DEFRA’s latest announcement on long-delayed plans for textile waste

Buried in the great avalanche of Government releases when Parliament breaks for summer recess, DEFRA announced news of its long-delayed plans for textile waste.? Its Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste paper proposes a consultation in 2024 to ban textiles waste from landfill, require businesses to separate textiles waste for reuse and recycling, and make clothing retailers provide textiles take-back schemes.[2]

Previous pledges on textiles have ended up in the recycling bin

Way back in 2011 the Coalition published a Government Review of Waste Policy promising to ‘review the case for restrictions on sending other materials to landfill over the course of the Parliament’, including ‘textiles and biodegradable waste.’[3]

No action on textiles was taken.

Under Theresa May, the Government published its 2018 Resources and Waste strategy for England identifying textiles as one of five priority waste streams. Defra said it planned to review and consult on measures for all of these areas by 2025.[4] The consultation on textiles was supposed to consider a possible EPR for textiles and the introduction of requirements for product design, labelling and consumer information, e.g. for durability, recyclability and recycled content.

By 2021 DEFRA’s Waste Prevention Programme for England confirmed that the Department would seek to complete consultations for two of the waste streams by 2022: textiles and fishing gear.

Neither consultation materialised.

Ministers seem to have cooled on the idea of making producers responsible for their environmental costs. In February, Defra Secretary Thérèse Coffey, finally told MPs that the Government did not plan to introduce EPR for textiles. The Government is providing ￡150,000 for an industry-led pilot model for EPR instead. This policy-backpedalling appears to have followed concerns raised by the packaging industry over the design of a similar scheme.

Over 3.6 million tonnes of textile waste have been landfilled or incinerated since the Government first promised action. To put that in perspective, the Empire States Building in New York weighs roughly the same as what we send to landfill annually.

Imagine a towering pile of textile waste 12 times as big.

Given the escalating climate and extinction emergency, it’s clear that ‘business-as-usual’ fashion no longer fits. Responsible businesses and industry groups in the UK are ready to do their bit. The EU is forging ahead with its Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. The Government’s proposed plan to end the landfilling of textiles is positive news. ?But will it deliver on its promise for a consultation on textile waste in the election year of 2024?

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[1] WRAP, Valuing Our Clothes: the cost of UK fashion, July 2017

[2] UK Parliament, Hansard: Clothing Sales: Sustainability, Volume 832: debated on Monday 11 September 2023

[3] Defra Government Review of Waste Policy in England (2011), p.9

[4] Defra, Our Waste, Our Resources: A Strategy for England, December 2018