Innovations
Sustainable Textiles
"By acknowledging the potential conflict between environmental objectives, business objectives and creative objectives, and by building bridges from each side without compromising basic principles, innovative solutions can be continuously discovered. We simply need to apply ourselves to the task of creative problem-solving. This is the true essence of design."
Grose, 1995.
The global textile industry, like many others is inherently unsustainable, and has a high impact on the environment. The cotton industry alone is a major user of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides; 24% of the world's total pesticide consumption comes from its cultivation, although it uses only 2.2% of the world's cultivated area. Other 'natural' fibres such as wool also impact the environment; sheep farming can contribute to land degradation and wool processing requires the use of solvents and detergents. Synthetic fibres are manufactured from petro-chemicals, contributing to the depletion of rapidly dwindling fossils fuels and the toxic chemicals used for dyeing and finishing all textiles also have high environmental impacts. As a whole, the textile industry consumes large amounts of water and produces large amounts of wastewater, putting pressure on scarce water resources and the environment.
In addition, the clothing industry depends on ephemeral whims and fashion; this design obsolescence creates a paradox for designers striving for true sustainability in their clothes. Consumers also have responsibilities; clothing's most significant energy and environmental impact is during its use, through washing, dry-cleaning and ironing.
Thus textile designers, like other product designers, face many challenges in the shift to sustainability. A holistic, cradle-to-grave, life-cycle approach must be considered in order to minimise the use of resources, energy and environmentally damaging substances.
Vibeke Riisberg has been working for over ten years, on sustainable textile design, on her own products and as an educator at Denmark's Kolding Design School. She takes a holistic view into consideration with her design approach, aiming to include sustainability from the very beginning of the design process and factoring in both material use and aesthetics. Thus, function, user needs, durability, environmental impacts and resource use are incorporated into the design procedure, and recycling and responsible disposal are also considered.
And sustainability in textiles need not compromise creativity; she strongly believes that fashionable designs can be achieved with the proper combination of materials and reactive dyes without heavy metals, thus design creativity is linked to technology, leading to innovation. Then creativity and flair can make sustainability a competitive parameter for the individual company, if the environmental issue is on the consumer's agenda.
Other companies have made sustainability profiling a priority; Patagonia, manufactures equipment and clothing for outdoor sports, and has converted all of its cotton clothing to organically grown cotton. Although this decision had its initial drawbacks (difficulty sourcing suppliers and manufactures willing to spin and knit the material), the end result was positive sales figures, due to a marketing strategy that used “environment” in its definition of quality.
Eco-fleece® is a recycled textile, manufactured from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) soft-drink bottles. Every jumper manufactured from recycled PET keeps around 25 bottles out of landfill, and for every 3,700 bottles recycled, a barrel of oil and half a tonne of toxic emissions are saved.
Sustainable textile design has to be seen in a global and holistic perspective, where designers, manufacturer, consumers, as well political institutions and the decision-makers have to consider the environmental impacts of textiles and clothes. Designers have a key role to play in finding creative solutions to these issues.
