Original content by: Lederpiel
The international leather (Cotance), footwear (CEC), fur (IFF) and wool (IWTO) associations have joined forces to defend natural and durable materials against fast fashion. These four organisations have produced a joint statement addressed to the Technical Secretariat of the Product Environmental Footprint Standards Category (Pefcr) on Clothing and Footwear (A&F). In it they express their disagreement with the current method for calculating the “service life” of clothing and shoes. According to Cotance, CEC, IFF and IWTO, the main concern is the precedent that this calculation method is setting in the broader EU regulatory context. “An immature methodology for calculating the environmental footprint of clothing and footwear products risks having highly damaging effects on the diversity and competitiveness of industries in the ecosystem”, the associations say.
What is wrong with current durability metrics for clothing and footwear? According to these four representative organisations for leather, footwear, fur and wool, they penalise natural and longer-lasting materials, and consumer products made from them.
Joint statement
The main concern lies in the unit of measurement adopted by the Technical Secretariat, which develops the methodology and the representativeness of the default values for the durability of clothing and footwear products taken from Higg.
The signatories of the joint statement oppose the measure being expressed in a number of “uses” rather than in real time in “years”. This approach, taken from the Higg Product Module, “does not reflect the real lifespan of products or the opinion of all stakeholders in the sector”, explain the four associations. In addition, neither the product segmentation nor the default values for service life take into account the unique properties of the different materials. “As a result, the method favours products that are purchased and thrown away after just a few ‘uses’ and penalises those designed to last much longer than the methodology can deliver,” the signatories of the joint statement say.
The organisations representing the views of the footwear, fur, leather and wool industries propose that service life be expressed in years rather than uses and that the durability characteristics that materials confer on products be appropriately integrated into product segmentation or the reference flow. “This change would provide a more accurate and meaningful assessment of a product’s lifespan, helping both consumers and manufacturers make informed decisions,” they say.
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