C&A'S Own Fast Fashion Labels And Environmental Projects Hit A Bit Of A Sense Of Violation.

National Geographic Channel, who has produced a series of environmental videos, recently went to India to take the world's largest producer of organic cotton. Behind the sponsorship of the documentary is Germany. fashion Retailer C&A.

In order to make the movie more than 60 minutes long, the producers deliberately invited Alexandra Cousteau, the third generation of the French ocean adventure family Cousteau. She brought us to the cotton fields in central India with the camera to hear the difference between traditional farming and organic planting. In contrast, high and low are present.

Nowadays, the new shelves all over the world are coming up every year. clothing Half of them use cotton as the main raw material, but traditional planting methods are seriously threatening the ecological environment: 24% of the pesticide buyers come from cotton Industry. Organic cotton has an advantage: it seldom uses pesticides in the process of planting, and the demand for water resources is relatively low; if reasonable arrangements are made, the topsoil of farmland can also be repaired.

However, when C&A's fast fashion label and environmental protection project are put together, it is hard to avoid a bit of a sense of violation.

The globalization movement launched in 1980s reduced the cost of the garment industry rapidly, which allowed customers to buy fashionable money at relatively low prices. The further result is that the frequency of clothes renewal is accelerating, and putting them on the shelf for a season has become a common phenomenon. In order to meet the "low cost" and "high production" at the same time, every process that the garment industry starts from the source may cause great environmental pollution.

According to the Business of Fashion, clothing and textile industry is the most seriously polluted industry after oil industry. The production of 1000 grams of cotton cloth can be almost made into a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, which requires more than 20 thousand liters of water. The process of making raw materials into various garments, including a series of dyeing and decorating processes, requires the use of up to 8000 different chemicals.

With sales of Zara and H&M rising year by year, "waste producers" become a topic that enterprises can not avoid. In addition to the two major fluctuations in cotton prices after 2000, clothing retailers heavily dependent on cotton began to seriously consider environmentally-friendly alternatives.

The main cotton producing areas are China, the United States and India. The two El Nino phenomenon in 2002 and 2009 led to a sharp decline in cotton production and the price naturally rose. According to data from the official website of the global organic cotton website, cotton prices reached a peak of 233.5 cents / pound in 2011. After that, though rational, the price of pesticide and fertilizer needed in the production process is still high.

In 2004, C&A turned its attention to organic cotton, replacing organic chemicals with organic chemicals. However, the experimental project was not as successful as expected, causing cotton growers to question whether organic cotton is profitable in the next few years. New Mexico State University scholar Denise McWilliams listed several hurdles on the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in 2007, such as the cost of production and the immature organic cotton trading system.

Until 2009, C&A worked with the Textile Exchange and Shell Foundation to establish CottonConnect to help small farmers spanition to sustainable cotton cultivation, namely, organic cotton cultivation. Textile Over the next few years, CottonConnect's partners have expanded rapidly, including the fast fashion Inditex group, H&M, and Burberry, Hermes, Kai Yun and other luxury groups and brands.

"All the time, luxury brands are playing (Sustainable) responders, but now it needs to change roles and become an innovation leader to solve a series of problems such as the sustainable supply chain." Marie-Claire Daveu said. The sustainable economic expert who worked for the French government joined the open cloud group in 2012 and led the 15 member sustainable development department. Their goals and achievements alone constitute the environmental profit and loss statement of Kai Yun group.

Last March 31st, Kai Yun signed a cooperation agreement with the British new generation company Worn Again and fast fashion H&M, trying to use technology to achieve textile recycling. "We use 65 million tons of polyester and cotton fiber products every year, and the consumption in 2020 is expected to reach 90 million tons." Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and chief executive officer of Kai Yun group, said: "if we can apply this technology to the supply chain of open cloud, the quantity of recycled textiles will be amazing." In addition to the "environmental protection" trademark, textile recycling technology will save a lot of cost for the group.

H&M, a Swedish clothing retailer, also unveiled the "sustainable plan" and vowed that by 2020, all resources used by H&M must be sustainable. According to the 2010 sustainability report released by the group, 15 thousand tons of organic cotton were used in the year's production, an increase of 77% compared with 2009. In August last year, H&M announced that it would produce 1 million euros a year to promote the technological development of clothing recycling.

Last October 21st, an environmental film "Ice & Sky", which was jointly invested by Kai Yun group, was shown in France. The movie tells the story of Claude Lorius, a climologist and ice scientist. He is the key to finding global warming.

In order to create the influence of "environmental fighters", H&M is also full of variety. First, the "old clothes recycling" plan was launched in 49 countries and regions in the world, and then the 2016 H&M Conscious was released to Le Louvre Museum in Paris. These display costumes are made of fabric scrap, plastic sheets and organic fabrics.

Compared with them, C&A seems to be more willing to make an article on the source of materials, namely cotton fields, which demonstrates the brand's efforts in environmental protection with massive farmers' representations and cotton field photographs. The actual figures also confirm its investment in organic cotton. According to the latest report of the American textile trade association, C&A became the world's largest buyer of organic cotton in 2014. According to official data, C&A40% sales last year, 130 million of which were organic cotton.

When asked about the sensitive topic of price, the C&A spokesman said that consumers would not be allowed to pay for "sustainability". "Although the price will be slightly higher than ordinary products, the higher the volume, the closer the price will be." In order to better convey this information, C&A decided to climb the big screen. "Documentaries are more than enough to explain the root and wrong market of organic cotton, and let the audience understand and talk about fashion and environmental protection as much as possible." C&A said.

According to the timeline, the organic cotton documentary will first be broadcast on the international geographic channel in Portugal and Italy, followed by Europe, Asia and Latin America.

This shows that retailers who have been accused of "destroying the environment" have taken a high profile on the road of environmental protection. If they say "attitude decides everything", they naturally hope to avoid this accusation. The question remains whether customers are willing to pay high prices for environmentally friendly products, and whether they can resist the popularity of fast fashion. Because even if the raw materials are environmentally friendly, the global landfill will not be able to afford such a large amount of waste clothes one day.