The Jeans Lifecycle ... a critical perspective

The Jeans Lifecycle

- a critical perspective -

Johanna Bose

+ Helen Gimber

Material

The stopovers of a pair of jeans - 40,000km around the world

Alternatives

Supply Chain

Fairtrade cotton

GOTS ORGANIC COTTON

www.global-standard.org

• Comes from non genetically modified plants,
• Grown without the use of any synthetic agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers or pesticides.
• independent certification for the whole supply chain
• ca. 1 % of world cotton production

• farmers recieve a guaranteed minimum price for their cotton and a bonus for local, social projects
• not necessarilly organic cotton
• no genetically modified seeds
• reduction of chemicals
• only rain fed
• crop rotation

www.cotton-made-in-africa.com

Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Malawi, Mosambik, Zambia

• conventional cotton grown by small farmers in the subsahara (no genetically modified seeds )
• rain fed cotton
• help people to help themselves, by means of trade
• increase in farmers’ incomes
• establish stable demand in the world market for sustainably grown cotton

Cotton made in Africa

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI)

www.bettercotton.org

• not-for-profit organisation

• stewards global standards for Better Cotton

• helps farmers to grow cotton in a way that reduces stress on the local environment and improves the livelihoods and welfare of farming communities

Brazil, India, Mali, Pakistan, China, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Turkey, Senegal, Kenya

• Material
• Production
• Consume + Use
• Upcycling, Etc

5.Bangladesh / sewing

6.Germany / sale

7.Zambia / disposal as used clothing

1.Netherlands / design

2.Uzbekistan / cotton growing

3.India / spining, weaving

4.China, Indonesia / dyeing

Cotton - the white gold

social problems

• main natural fibre used for clothing today

• cotton and polyester cover 80% of the worlds fibre demand

• 2,5 % of total arable land is used for cotton

• 100 mio. cotton farmers worldwide

• 60% of those people are from developing counties

• toxic ground water
• farmer suicides
• sharecropping
• child - and forced labour

cultivating areas: cotton

www.uzbekgermanforum.org

Uzbekistan

environmental problems

• high water demand/usage (about 9000L of water go into a pair of jeans)
• pesticide ->contamination of soil, water and air
• cotton has high risks of pest infestation
• risk of loss of biodiversity

Genetically Modified Cotton (Bt Cotton)

GM cotton makes up :

• 96% of US cotton crops
• 93% of Indian cotton crops
• 49% of world cotton crops

Production

.... Asia?

Employment is freely chosen.

Xintang

"CLEAN"

Made in ....?

"Jeans Capital of the World"

• Employment is freely chosen.
• There is no discrimination in employment.
• Child labour is not used.
• Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are respected.
• Living wages are paid.
• Hours of work are not excessive.
• Working conditions are decent.
• The employment relationship is established

• 260 million pairs of jeans a year
• 60% of China's total jeans production
• 40% of the jeans sold in the US each year

Sumangali Scheme

factory

Freedom of association

Everyone needs to be involved

Multi Stakeholder Initiative without independent auditing

standards..

Business Associations

Multi Stakeholder Initiative with independent auditing

What is

FAIR?

www.peopletree.co.uk

Generell

SOLUTIONS ??

TRANSFORMING FASHION PRODUCTS

CONSUMER CARE

Kate Fletcher and Lynda Grose

MATERIALS

PROCESS

DISTRIBUTION

DISPOSAL

ADAPTABILITY

TRANSFORMING FASHION SYSTEMS

SPEED

OPTIMIZED LIFETIMES

NEEDS

BIOMIMICRY

LOCAL

LOW-IMPACT USE

ENGAGED

SERVICES & SHARING

TRANSFORMING FASHION DESIGN PRACTICE

communicator-educator

facilitator

entrepreneur

activist

upcycling, etc

www.rohstoff-upcycle.blogspot.de

www.reetaus.com

www.recojeans.com

Consume // Use

consumption

alternatives: conscious consumption

„Consumption is today no longer a question of self-fulfilment, but a question of responsibility.“

-Claudia Banz

consumer facts

• Germans have never before spend as much on private consumption as in 2013: 1,57 billionen Euro.
• the decline in prices can especially be observed in the clothing industry.
• -> we buy more but pay less
• consumption binge mainly by young people/ teens->shopping is a hobby

how many pairs of jeans are bought world wide per second?

• buy less and with an awareness
• pay attention to “Siegel“
• secondhand, clothing swap partys
• store concepts like the „“Kleiderei“ in Hamburg or “Filippa K. Lease“, where you can borrow clothing.

60 pair of jeans

the most important „Siegel“:

GOTS, Fair Wear Foundation, Fairtrade Cotton

how many kilo clothing are bought per person in Germany per year?

about 14kg, which is equivalent to about 23 Jeans per person

how high is the average budget for fashion consumption per year per household in Germany?

according to the Federal Statistical Office in 2011 every german household spend 104€ per month on clothing.That is 1248€ a year. At an average 2,02 people per household that is 624€ per person per year.That would make 27€ per jeans.

how many kilos of clothing end up in the recycling bank per person in Germany every year?

about 9 kg or 15 jeans per person

if we would buy only as much as we really needed then we would have 78€

to spend on a pair of jeans and be able to pay for a social and economicaly

sustainable pair of jeans

Better laundry practices

lifecycle analysis

• with "better" laundry practices the lifecycle energy consumption can be reduced by a factor of 4 according to the data of polyester and a factor af 2 by cotton
• washing 10°C colder will reduce the energy consumption by 10%
• ->this of course does not guarantee big sustainable gains across the board. if we measure the environmental impact of cotton by toxicity rather then energy use, then changing the washing and drying behaviors brings almost no improvement.

• research from the Netherlands shows that the average piece of clothing stays in a Dutch person’s wardrobe for 3 years 5 month, is on the body for 44 days during this time and is worn for 2,4 and 3,1 days between washings.
• a typical garment is only washed and dried around 20 times in its life, most of its eviromental impact comes from laundering and not growing, processing and produceing or disposing of it at the end of its life.
• Washing it half as often reduces the energy consumption by 50%
• this applies only to certain garments, like clothing, workwear and household textiles, where the use phase has the highest enviromental impactBut for carpets for example the energy and enviromental profil is very different, here the focus is on the production and the disposal phase.

Care Labels

• these lifecycle analysis studies have given the businesses the possibility to deflect from there practices and turn the spotlight away from manufactures onto the consumer

• Marks and Spencers „think climate-wash at 30°C“ care label in 70% of there clothing. (recommending washing temperatures from 50°C (pre 2000) to 40°C (2001) and now since 2007 to 30°C.