Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions the Government has had with the fashion industry to encourage major fashion outlets to take part in voluntary initiatives including (a) the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan and (b) Textiles 2030 over the last two years.

Government worked closely with WRAP on the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) 2020 and to develop and launch the ambitious new voluntary agreement, Textiles 2030

Building on the success of SCAP, Textiles 2030 was launched in April 2021 and we are pleased that within six months 92 signatories have joined, including ASOS, Boohoo, Dunelm, John Lewis, M&S, New Look, Next, Primark, Sainsbury’s, Ted Baker and Tesco. 62% of all clothing put on the UK market is represented by Textiles 2030 members. The new initiative is underpinned by ambitious targets including halving the carbon footprint of new products by 50% and reducing the water footprint by 30%, both by 2030.

Defra ministers have been proactively engaging with industry to drive participation in both SCAP (now closed) and now Textiles 2030. This included chairing a roundtable with industry in February 2021 ahead of the launch of Textiles 2030 and events to mark the 6-month celebration of Textiles 2030 and closing of SCAP in October last year.

We are now working closely with Textiles 2030 to support our policy development.