New R Certificate for recycled textile clothing

30 May '12

3 min read

Asia's leading fashion NGO, Redress, launches their consumer-facing R certificate, which verifies that retailers, brands or designers recycled their own factory fabric waste and/or unused clothing waste into their own brand new, recycled textile clothing items. This method of recycling reduces textile waste and saves the Earth's natural resources.

The R Certificate is a new programme in line with Redress' overarching mission to reduce waste in Asia's fashion industry.

The R Certificate guarantees that a clothing item was:

• Manufactured using a retailer's, brand's or designer's own recycled factory fabric waste and/or recycled unused clothing waste
• Manufactured using a minimum of 20% recycled fibres
• Manufactured in factories that hold a Global Recycle Standard (GRS) certificate
• Manufactured along a fully traceable supply chain

“Although there is much to love about fashion, clothing manufacturing can be wasteful, from water to energy and textile waste. Via the R Certificate, our goal is to recycle quality factory fabric waste and unused clothing waste so as ultimately to save our Earth's diminishing natural resources. The R Certificate encourages retailers, brands and designers to look back down their own supply chains and to reinvent their textile waste. Living in China, the world's garment manufacturing hub, gives us the opportunity to innovate from the inside,” said Redress founder, Christina Dean.

The certification provides third party verification, full supply chain transparency and a visual supply chain animation to give consumers confidence and clarity in their retailers', brands' or designers' claims.

The R Certificate has the support of fashion industry leaders.

“We are pleased to support Redress' R Certificate,” said Anne Gillespie, Director of Industry Integrity for Textile Exchange, the organization that owns the Global Recycle Standard. “The R Certificate translates today's complex global supply chains into a consumer-friendly, visually compelling informative website. This provides a powerful platform to educate consumers about sustainable clothing whilst also enabling retailers to share their transparency with their customers. This is an exciting breakthrough,” she said.

Esprit Holdings, which operates over 1,100 directly managed retail stores worldwide and distributes through more than 11,000 controlled-space wholesale points-of-sale internationally in more than 40 countries, was the first retailer to be issued the R Certificate.

Esprit launched their R Certified 'Recycled Collection by Esprit' in late May 2012 in Hong Kong. This inaugural recycled textile collection includes a range of recycled denim and recycled cotton jersey pieces, which were made by recycling Esprit's own factory fabric waste. The collection has exciting environmental savings, which were calculated by independent carbon management company, Reset Carbon. For example, Esprit's 35% recycled cotton jersey T-Shirts, blended with 65% recycled PET, are estimated to save 74% water, 18% electricity and 53% greenhouses gases per garment.

“Esprit is proud to be the first retailer to use the R Certificate,” said Michel Bourlon, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Sourcing for Esprit. “This third party certification verifies that we recycled our own factory fabric waste into our new sustainable fashion line. It further allows us to communicate our supply chain transparency whilst educating our customers,” he said.

Redress