Environmental Issues: International Issues

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All Documents in International Issues Tagged textiles

Clean By Design: Consumer Care
Clean By Design: Consumer Care
Overview

Conventional dry cleaning is risky to public health and the environment. Consumers should minimize traditional dry cleaning services and wash more clothes at home in cold water and air dry when possible. Designers can help by minimizing the reliance on fabrics that need to be dry-cleaned and by educating their customers about cleaning alternatives.

Clean By Design: Transportation
Transportation
Overview

Today, raw materials, manufacturers and retailers of apparel are routinely located on opposite sides of the globe. Any method to move garments from factory to market will impact the environment in some form, but retailers can make simple transportation choices to significantly reduce their pollution footprint and save money.

Clean By Design
Revolutionizing the Textile Supply Chain with Market-Based Strategies that Reduce Pollution and Improve Efficiency
Overview

The massive amounts of coal burned by Chinese textile plants spread pollution across the globe. NRDC and the Council of Fashion Designers of America are working to reduce pollution by changing the way the textile industry operates and making factories cleaner.

Clean by Design: Revolutionizing the Global Textile Industry
Fact Sheet

Addressing the global health threats posed by the textile industry is a daunting challenge, even with more than 30 years of environmental victories under your belt. Yet this challenge spurred NRDC’s team of health experts to pioneer approaches that will help solve global industrial pollution problems associated with apparel, with a focus first in China, where most textiles are made. NRDC and its partner, The Council of Fashion Designers of America, are spearheading a multi-phased initiative called Clean By Design, which aims to revolutionize the way the apparel industry operates, from fiber and dye selection to fabric sourcing decisions to consumer care. This fact sheet explores the key phases of the initiative already completed and those underway in 2010.

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How Redbud Company Saved Money, Curbed Pollution, and Gained Favor from a Major Buyer
Fact Sheet

NRDC and its partners in Clean by Design, an initiative to green the global textile supply chain, are recommending 10 practical, easy-to-implement best practices for textile mills that will not only improve manufacturing efficiency, but also save money and stem pollution. The Jiangsu Redbud Textile Company—a Chinese-owned mill that dyes cotton woven fabric supplying Wal-Mart among others—put our best practices to the test. And the results were profound. Get document in pdf.

NRDC’s Ten Best Practices for Textile Mills to Save Money and Reduce Pollution
A Practical Guide for Responsible Sourcing
Issue Paper

Textile manufacturing has a huge environmental footprint, polluting as much as 200 tons of water per ton of fabric with a suite of harmful chemicals, and consuming tremendous amounts of energy for steam and hot water. That the industry is now centered in countries with still-developing environmental regulatory systems such as China, India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh only compounds the problem. To address the rapidly increasing global impact of this industry, NRDC and its partners are spearheading the Responsible Sourcing Initiative (RSI) -- a key element of the larger Clean By Design initiative to curb pollution from the fashion industry.