Of course, Earth Month is a great reminder to think about the world around us, but if you want to make a difference, keep reading.
Why Is Sustainable Fashion Important?
Everyone benefits when brands, companies, and institutions make a positive impact on the world around them. From offsetting their carbon footprint to reducing the natural resources used in their end-to-end processes, every step taken in the right direction makes a very real difference.
One of the first steps in shopping ‘better’ when buying new clothes, is to find a sustainable brand as well as one that gives back to the planet.
"Sustainable fashion" is to convey a concept that all sectors of society work together to strive for the coexistence of fashion and environmental protection. In recent years, more and more people in the fashion industry have begun to try to incorporate environmental protection concepts into their designs – Global Times, March 25, 2021
What Makes a Fashion Brand Sustainable?
- Processes – from seed to store, everything that it takes to grow, harvest, manufacture, and sell the clothing product has to be held accountable for its impact on the environment.
- Carbon footprint – How much carbon does it take to produce and deliver the products?
- Carbon off-setting – This is the practice of reducing or cancelling-out the carbon footprint by supporting projects that positively impact the environment. For example, BN3TH’s online sales of Tencel products support renewable energy, forest conservation, and energy efficiency. Read more about our sustainability efforts.
- Slow fashion – purchase products that will last a long time and are ‘wardrobe staples’ like hard-wearing DUER stretch jeans, avoiding quick trends, meme t-shirts, one-time use clothes and costumes as these often end up in the garbage
- Reducing waste – packaging can often be a huge contributor to landfills, so when shopping around, look for brands that use recycled materials as part of their packaging. Generally speaking, the less packaging used, the better!
“From an environmental perspective, the aim should be to minimize any undesirable environmental effect of the product’s life cycle by: (a) ensuring efficient and careful use of natural resources (water, energy, land, soil, animals, plants, biodiversity, ecosystems, etc); (b) selecting renewable energy sources (wind, solar, etc) at every stage, and (c) maximizing repair, remake, reuse, and recycling of the product and its components… In addition, fashion companies should contribute to encourage more sustainable consumption patterns, caring and washing practices, and overall attitudes to fashion.” (Dr. Brismar, Green Strategy)
In addition to buying from sustainability-focused brands, it is important to make your clothes last longer. Here are a few tips to keep your items in top condition.
How To Make Your Clothes Last Longer
- Use a delicates bag. Being pulled around in a washing machine or tumble drier can cause over-stretching or ripping. Put them in a delicates bag to preserve their lifespan.
- Don’t overload your washing machine. Cramming your entire laundry basket into the machine can cause the clothes to not wash properly or pull each other apart.
- Cut the detergent by half. Add ½ a cup of baking soda to use fewer chemicals and keep your clothes from getting dull.
- Hang them out to dry. In addition to being far more power-bill friendly, using a clothesline to dry your clothes will keep the heat of the tumble drier from breaking down the elasticity, causing unwanted stretching and wear.
At BN3TH, we have a growing number of innovations and initiatives to be sustainable and to create Radically Better Underwear while being a force for good. From the Entourage series which are made from 100% post-consumer recycled materials, our recycled packaging, sustainable and bio-degradable mail envelopes, all the way to our TENCEL™ Modal fibers. These are used in over 90% of our products, are manufactured by environmentally responsible production processes. The fibers originate from sustainable wood and pulp sources and are certified as compostable and biodegradable.
We strive to innovate every day, constantly looking for better ways to manufacture our products and ensure we take every possible action towards having a lesser impact on the environment through our use of materials and methods.
Our promise to you is to keep innovating every way we can. We love this planet for its beautiful landscapes that allows us to ride, slide, jump, run and hang in – let’s do our part to make sure we leave this place better than we found it.