Sustainable fashion is a movement that relays on science and data and aims to make sure that our clothes are manufactured, sold, and used in the most sustainable way possible. Covering all the processes of the supply chain starting from sourcing the materials to producing and selling apparel.
In addition, it doesn’t only concerned about Environment, it also addresses the social issues that concern the workers of the industry, such as low wages and poor working conditions.
What is promising is that the call for sustainable fashion started to come from customers Due to the awareness of consumers of the industry’s problems and the demanding that companies do better and follow along.
With the power turning into the consumer’s side, Retails are realizing they also have to comply with what people are asking for. And some brands actually started and some are just using marketing buzzwords to appease an eco-conscious audience.
For example, in 2019 the UK fashion retailer Boohoo announced they’d stop using wool in a bid to be more environmentally friendly. They reversed the decision a couple of hours later after being heavily criticized by their customers, partly because wool is a relatively sustainable fiber.
Despite the shaky start, Boohoo has since shown that they care about meaningful improvements. Last year, the retailer released its first recycled collection, and they’re now more transparent about their social responsibility initiatives.
In order to understand why we should all work together toward sustainable fashion, it’s important to be aware of the main issues in the world of fashion.
The worldwide revenue of the fashion market is predicted to rise from $481.2 billion in 2018 to $712.9 billion in 2022. That’s good news for shop owners, but it could become a worrying statistic for the environment and for all of us. luckily, fashion consumers have never been more eager to go toward sustainability.
With the pollution produced by manufacturing and selling apparel being the main issue, the need for tackling that increases. In order to understand the extent of the problem, let’s look at the product life cycle for one of the fashion industry’s favorites: the white cotton t-shirt.
Cotton apparel is comfortable, durable, and breathable. Cotton is also relatively cheap to grow and harvest, so it comes as no surprise that it’s the most widespread non-food crop in the world.
Unfortunately, it has some drawbacks. Cotton farmers use pesticides, insecticides, and fertilizers. These mix with the water and drain into the soil, affecting the biodiversity of the land and limiting fresh drinking water.
Growing enough cotton for a single t-shirt takes up to 731 gallons of water (that’s enough for one person to drink for 3.5 years). In comparison, producing enough polyester for a t-shirt requires 4 gallons of water
After the cotton is harvested, it’s sent to a textile mill where it’s manufactured into a rough gray fabric. The fabric is then bleached, dyed, and treated with chemicals to achieve the desired look—a soft, white roll of fabric that’s sent to a sewing facility and turned into t-shirts. All these production steps can lead to environmental damage because of the chemicals and water they require.
Finally, the t-shirts have arrived at your favorite retail store. You buy one and wear it. But what happens to the rest of the t-shirts you saw on the rack? The ones that don’t get sold often end up in landfills or get burned, resulting in more emissions and pollution.
But now that the fashion industry and its customers are aware of these problems, the enthusiasm to change towards the better is at an all-time high.
Everyone is looking for solutions that will turn the industry around so that every cotton t-shirt gets to our closets in a sustainable way.
DUSAN embrace the Print-on-demand (POD) Business Model, this might just be one of the keys to the environmentally friendly fashion industry. Let’s explore how DUSAN’s product, catalog and stock, printing techniques and equipment, and the way we run our facilities help our customers work towards owning sustainable fashion apparel.
This lets us avoid overproduction—excess items that don’t get sold and have to be thrown out or burned, which several retail giants do.
Waste in POD mainly comes from the items that are damaged during printing, and DUSAN’s rate for damaged items is within the industry standard.
DUSAN’S donates returned items to local charities and offers damaged apparel to animal shelters who can use them for their needs.
The products we print on and where we source them also matter. That’s why our team of merchandisers is constantly working on adding new items to our product catalog, and one of their 2020 goals is to diversify toward organic and eco-friendly products.
Sourcing and adding premium products that yield high-quality print results take time. For each item, we test samples from several suppliers to see which works best. After our team is sure which product is the winner, it’s added to our catalog. This involves taking product photos, developing the product page, doing follow-up tests, etc.
Adding sustainable products means finding sustainable suppliers. One of our long-term partners is Bella + Canvas, a clothing manufacturer with care for the environment embedded in their brand identity. Bella + Canvas uses solar energy, limits water use, and recycles waste by-products to make sure their products can sport the eco-friendly tag.
What’s more, we only buy the products we need to fulfill our customer orders. Ordering stock only when we need it goes hand in hand with the idea that products only get printed when an order is placed.
With 92 million tons of textiles going to waste in the fashion industry each year, a business model like this is a game-changer.
The products we print on and where we source them also matter. That’s why our team of merchandisers is constantly working on adding new items to our product catalog, and one of their 2020 goals is to diversify toward organic and eco-friendly products.
Sourcing and adding premium products that yield high-quality print results take time. For each item, we test samples from several suppliers to see which works best. After our team is sure which product is the winner, it’s added to our catalog. This involves taking product photos, developing the product page, doing follow-up tests, etc.
Adding sustainable products means finding sustainable suppliers. One of our long-term partners is Bella + Canvas, a clothing manufacturer with care for the environment embedded in their brand identity. Bella + Canvas uses solar energy, limits water use, and recycles waste by-products to make sure their products can sport the eco-friendly tag.
What’s more, we only buy the products we need to fulfill our customer orders. Ordering stock only when we need it goes hand in hand with the idea that products only get printed when an order is placed.
We’re proud to partner with the specialists of DTG printing Printful, Kornit. Thanks to their commitment to and efforts in sustainability, Kornit printers produce almost zero wastewater and use less energy, lowering our carbon footprint. While Printful takes care of sourcing and logistics.
Direct-to-garment (DTG) printing is more sustainable than older apparel printing methods, such as screen printing. Not only does screen printing use a lot of water and plastisol inks that don’t biodegrade, but it’s also tended towards bulk orders which can lead to overproduction. In comparison, DTG printing is more eco-friendly because items get printed only when there’s already a customer for them.
The biodegradable vegan NeoPigment inks we use are made by Kornit, and they’re water-based, toxin-free, and non-hazardous. We take care to dispose of any left-over ink according to our supplier guidelines, so we’re not harming the environment.
Our facilities in North America and Europe are based close to where our customers are. This means they can ship products faster and cut the shipping distances, resulting in less air and water pollution.
They recycle (paper, cardboard, plastic, and batteries), and use energy-efficient LED lights in our offices and fulfillment centers, and they’re always looking for new ways to save energy. For example, last year they moved our European production facility to a Class A building that’s built using the latest technologies to eliminate any energy waste.
They’re also making our internal process more efficient across all fulfillment centers. Limiting the use of plastic for single item DTG shipments have already allowed us to avoid using 1.55 US tons of plastic, and they look forward to reaching new targets this year. Another goal is to reduce the amount of fabric scrap left when producing our cut & sew products.
While there are still issues to address, print-on-demand is gradually becoming a less wasteful and more sustainable alternative to the traditional bulk manufacturing and selling model. And that’s good news for both brands and consumers.
People need clothes. Fashion is a beloved industry that’s part of our identity and economic growth despite its environmental and social flaws. But in order to treat the environment and people who live here better, the industry has to step up.
As a company that enables fashion lovers to embrace their culture, we’re taking responsibility for the impact our business has on the world and working to help our customers’ become more pro sustainable. And we’re excited to share this journey with you!
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