OU marketing researchers have taken on a tough challenge – making the clothing industry more sustainable.
While food, energy and transport are scrutinised for their green credentials, the environmental and social impacts of clothing rarely get a mention. Now OU researchers Professor Sally Dibb, Dr Fiona Harris, Dr Christine Thomas and Dr Helen Roby are combining their marketing, waste and recyling expertise to promote more sustainable behaviour.
Buy, buy, buy
Our clothing habits are characterised by over-consumption and waste. The average household has a wardrobe stuffed with £4000 worth of clothes – and one third of them haven’t been worn for a year or more.
“The pressure on consumers to buy, buy, buy is growing more relentless,” says Sally Dibb, an expert in consumer behaviour and market segmentation who is leading the research. “Changes in the technology of clothes production means it is possible to refresh the clothes on offer more frequently, and at lower prices.
“While new fashion used to be a seasonal thing, now it is a continual churn. You can see fresh items appearing on the racks in stores every week. It all puts pressure on the fashion-conscious consumer who gets stuck in a cycle of buying which is supported by opinion leaders in the fashion world and the magazines promoting fashion.”
The team is made up of academics in the Institute for Social Marketing, part of the Open University Business School, and the OU's faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology. They are looking into what drives the behaviour of fashion consumers, retailers and other stakeholders, to identify ways of changing it.
But if cleaning up the clothes industry means taking on our deeply ingrained shopping culture and manufacturers’ drive for profits, how can a group of academics hope to succeed? A key aim of their research is to identify drivers for change which can be used by marketing campaigns and lobby groups.
Drivers for change: overproduction and image
One driver that they have identified is a growing dissatisfaction in the industry itself with the dominant ‘pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap’ model. “We are over-producing textiles and that is the biggest problem we have,” one retailer told the OU researchers. “And then one is trying to get rid of it, sell it on at very low prices.”
Sally Dibb says the ‘race to the bottom’ is cutting margins to the bone. “It would make for better economics to produce and sell fewer, better-quality items, and have a decent mark-up on each item.”
There are other drivers for change. Businesses worry about their brand image with consumers, and the possibility of future regulation.
The deaths of more than one thousand Bangladeshi garment workers in a building collapse in April, has thrown the spotlight on the human cost of cheap clothing, and increased the pressure on the industry.
“There is a growing expectation that businesses will behave in a socially responsible way, and increasingly that is being taken up by policymakers,"says Sally Dibb.
“If there is going to be a move in this direction, the companies who are already ahead of the curve will probably do better than those who aren’t.”
More consumer choice
When it comes to changing consumer behaviour, businesses could help by offering attractive sustainable fashion choices, but few do.
The big fashion retailers have fought shy of making sustainability claims for the clothes they sell, partly over fears that their claims won’t stack up, says Sally Dibb.
“The problem is that the fashion industry supply chain is horrendously complicated. Wool produced in Australia may be sent to China to be dyed, then to another country to be knitted. The route clothes can take round the world before they end up on the shelf is incredible.”
But the industry is changing. According to business-focused recycling campaigners WRAP, 22 organisations representing more than a third of UK clothing sales, have now signed up to their Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) to identify and reduce the environmental impacts of their products. And M&S recently launched their ‘schwopping’ campaign to encourage clothes recycling.
Opening the wardobe
To build up a clearer picture of our clothes-buying and ownership habits, the OU Business School and the faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology is carrying out a wardrobe audit.
They will ask participants to count how many pairs of socks and jeans they own and give feedback on how that compares to the norm, both nationally and in the individual's demographic segment. There will be blogs from experts and key stakeholders and the opportunity to take part in the discussion forum.
The event is part of the Economic and Social Research Council's Festival of Social Science this November.
Find out more
- Former Vogue and Sunday Times fashion editor Charty Durrant tells OpenLearn why she left the 'sinister' fashion industry.
- Defra - Public understanding of sustainable clothing report
Care for your clothes
Up to 82% of the energy consumption associated with an item of clothing is down to its post-purchase laundering. You can reduce this by:
• checking the care labels before washing to reduce damage to clothes
• waiting for a full load before washing
• washing at 30°C
• air-drying instead of tumble-drying
• wearing some clothes more than once before putting them in the laundry, notably jeans, trousers, knitwear and fleeces
And why not...?
...consider repairing damaged clothes, and altering clothes when they no longer fit, instead of binning them.
...sell, donate or recycle clothes you no longer wear. And if you want something fresh to wear, consider buying pre-owned clothes.