Major fashion brands and retailers including ASOS, Next, Primark, Marks & Spencer and Boohoo, have signed up to the Textiles 2030 action plan. WRAP, the UK’s leading sustainability charity, is behind the initiative which seeks to slash the impact of fashion and home textiles “through practical interventions” throughout the supply chain.

Taking part are 17 major brand and retailers, 26 reuse and recycle organisations and 20 affiliates, meaning that the agreement is supported by more than half of the UK market. Other major names to take part include John Lewis, Superdry, Sainsbury’s, Ted Baker, JD Sports, Gymshark, Frasers Group, Pep & Co, Asda, Dunelm and Tesco.

The Textiles 2030 Roadmap shows what signatories must do to deliver the targets, with key outcomes by the end of 2022, 2025 and 2030. These actions set out to transform the UK’s make-use-dispose fashion culture into one where products are made sustainably, used longer and then re-used or recycled. The Target-Measure-Act approach will be used so that textiles businesses set tough targets, measure impact and track progress on both an individual business basis, and towards national targets and public reporting.

Textiles 2030 environmental targets are:

• Cut carbon by 50%, sufficient to put the UK textiles sector on a path consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change and achieving Net Zero by 2050 at the latest.
• Reduce the aggregate water footprint of new products sold by 30%.

Roadmap ambitions for circular textiles, which partner signatories will join forces to achieve:

• Design for Circularity: agree good practice principles, including durability, recyclability, use of recycled content and minimising waste, and implement them as appropriate to their business model and customer base, to lower the impact of product placed on market in the UK.
• Implement Circular Business Models: pilot reuse business models as appropriate to their product ranges, share learning, and develop large-scale implementation to extend the lifetime of clothing in the UK – and decouple business growth from the use of virgin resources.
• Close the Loop on Materials: set up partnerships to supply and use recycled fibres for new products, accelerating the commercialisation of fibre-to-fibre recycling in the UK.

WRAP CEO Marcus Gover said: “Textiles 2030 will create a fashion sector fit for the future and lower the environmental impacts of other household textiles. This is just the beginning of a decade long programme and we need more companies to show their commitment to their customers through Textiles 2030. With clothing having the fourth largest impact on the environment after transport, housing and food we simply cannot afford for sustainability not to be the next big thing in fashion.”

For more information please visit wrap.org.uk.