it was three or four decades, the cities were filled with the business of repairing things. Constructed as tvs, washing machines, irons, toasters; mending the coats, the shoes, the jackets and the dresses… Today, if you want to repair any of those objects, you say that it’s not worth, buy a new one. It would be simple to say that the circular economy seeks to break with this dynamic and go back to the workshops of repair of footwear. But it is more complex than that. To fix and put back in use is circular economy. However, it is an utopia to think that society is going to return en bloc to those customs. The circular economy also is that if you want to change your old shoes what you can do, but that their components can be used to make another thing.
“This jacket is very difficult to recycle,” says Alfred Vernis, director of Academic Sustainability of Inditex, while the open and shows its interior. “Has this inner lining is blue, and this other black inside a pocket and the fabric is different form the outside of the jacket. It is not meant to be recycled”. Vernis, immediately comes forward to tell that the jacket has already been four years, just after the secretary of State for Environment, Hugo Morán, opened the V Conference of Environmental Journalism organized by the School of Journalism and Communication Publishing Unit in collaboration with Inditex. But the textile industry has changed a lot in those four years. “All the companies we are clear that what is most important in the world of fashion starts with design,” says Vernis.
And it is true. The design is the key to the success of a garment, but also what is the bottom line of a company and of a new element in the equation of the fashion industry, which is sustainability. The society is changing very fast. There are already measures adopted in many countries to limit the pollution of the traffic in the big cities, international agreements to end the emission of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change and policies in Europe to finish with the plastic single-use. In such a scenario, the fashion industry has made it clear that you have to get on that train, that the society already demands. They have to make garments that can be recycled easily and last more time (in her language, recyclability and durability). “In the industry, we have to begin to talk about the durability of the emotional -says Vernis-. I have to fall in love with my jacket for not wanting to change it in a long time.”
And also have to act on the other major front of the battle of the sustainability of fashion. “There are surveys that say that the consumer looks at very little the labels of the clothes, but they are large companies who have to worry about is that these labels are sustainable… and the consumer which consumes quiet”, explains while shows the tag that hangs from the inside of his jacket.
class=”icon-foto_16_g”> round Table of the Days of Environmental Journalism. ANGEL NAVARRETELos challenges of the circular economy in the fashion
fashion is in the background when speaking of the ecological impact of the industry. But still has important challenges to deal with. And that was yesterday to the thread of the V Conference of Environmental Journalism the School of Journalism at unidad Editorial, that this year counted with the support of Inditex. The secretary of State for Environment Ministry for the Ecological Transition, Hugo Morán, was the side of the opening; and there were speakers from the likes of Laura Balmond, of the Foundation Helen McArthur; Víctor Viñuales, director of Ecodes or the deputy of Equo, Juan López de Uralde.
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