Ellen MacArthur launches sustainable jeans guidelines

LONDON – The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has launched new jeans manufacturing guidelines based on circular economy principles. The guidelines set out minimum requirements on garment durability, material health, recyclability and traceability and are aimed at ensuring jeans last longer and can easily be recycled. The Jeans Redesign Guidelines are based on input from more than 40 denim experts from academia, brands, retailers, manufacturers, collectors, sorters and NGOs. Confirmed participants to date include GAP, H&M Group, Lee Jeans, Mud Jeans, Outerknown, Tommy Hilfiger and The Reformation.

The guidelines have also been endorsed by clothing recyclers Circular Systems, HKRITA, Infinited Fiber Company, Recover, Tyton Biosciences LLC, Wolkat, and Worn Again. They have also been endorsed by campaign group Fashion Revolution.

The guidelines build on existing efforts to improve jeans production, including the open source guide created following C&A and Fashion For Good’s joint initiative to develop C2C Gold Certified jeans. The Jeans Redesign will drive others to join the project and produce jeans at scale in line with the guidelines. The first pairs of the redesigned jeans will be on sale in 2020.

Make Fashion Circular lead Francois Souchet said: “The way we produce jeans is causing huge problems with waste and pollution, but it doesn’t have to be this way. By working together, we can create jeans that last longer, that can be remade into new jeans at the end of their use and are made in ways which are better for the environment and the people that make them. This is just the start. Over time we will continue to drive momentum towards a thriving fashion industry, based on the principles of a circular economy.”

The guidelines arrive at a time of major development in the denim space. In the US, Fast Retailing, the Japanese parent company of Uniqlo, recently launched its Southern California denim innovation centre to announce it is very close to eliminating the use of water from its denim-treatment process.

The centre has developed new technologies using nano-bubble and ozone-washing machines, which were used on select styles of Fast Retailing’s 2018 line of jeans which include some J Brand and Uniqlo jeans. It cut water usage by an average of 90 percent and as much as 99 per cent.

Fast Retailing says that by 2020, the technology will be used for all of Fast Retailing’s denim brands, which include Uniqlo, J Brand, Theory, G.U. and Princess Tam-Tam.