Circular Economy

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for securing this debate on such a critically important subject and also for her support for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion. I would also like to thank colleagues from Julie’s Bicycle, Hubbub and the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, especially Anna Fitzpatrick and Professor Dilys Williams, for their support and excellent briefings.

After COP 21, we cannot fail to be aware of how much intellectual and practical energy and commitment we need to bring to bear on the huge environmental challenges we face. I want to make three brief points. First, the clothing and textile industries and we, their consumers, have a big problem. Secondly, there are a range of strategies developing to mitigate the environmental impact of the sector, including circular economy solutions. We should note that, on the upside, fashion can make a really positive, creative intervention in debates about action on the environment.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, circular or closed-loop initiatives are just one part of the picture. We need a fundamental rethink of current business models. Two compelling fashion facts from WRAP: approximately £140 million worth of clothing goes into landfill every year in the UK alone; and we send 700,000 tonnes of clothes to be reused or recycled every year. This is not just an issue for high street fast-fashion outlets. More expensive clothes are regularly discarded after little wear and workplace uniforms are another area of great concern.

Four fundamental design models in the circular economy apply to fashion and many other goods. One is designing for longevity, where clothing is designed and made to last and valued for that quality. The second is designing for leasing, where digital platforms enable consumers to lease or rent clothes. The third is designing for reuse in manufacturing, where clothes are returned to the maker for a range of purposes. The fourth is the type of design that recaptures materials, transforming them into newly recycled, raw material. The emphasis is in designing in circularity from the start rather than trying to bolt it on top of existing design paradigms. Initiatives such as the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition have proved useful mechanisms for bringing together some of the significant players in fashion to address these key issues.

On the role of government, whenever we have held APPG meetings on the subject, we hear two main pleas of relevance here. The first is for clarification of existing regulatory frameworks, regarding, for example, landfill taxes and their use, penalties for pollution and so on. The other is a request for government-backed incentives, particularly for fashion SMEs that will invest in and encourage the research and development of more sustainable practices in the clothing sector. We should not be too gloomy, I guess, as there is evidence that progress is being made, some of which has already been mentioned—for example, repair, recycling, leasing and so on.

I finish by reiterating an earlier point on how these issues represent for me just one major aspect of a much broader set of issues that encompass poverty, inequality, social injustice as well as environmental degradation. We cannot expect to be able to buy our way out of the problems we face.