Category Archives: manufacturing

Recyclable? Try Refillable. The Quest For a Greener Cleaner

Today, the pressure to reduce corporate carbon footprints is forcing a second look at all that plastic packaging. “Reuse, for some types of products and packaging,” Mr. Prindiville said, “can put a huge dent in reducing those climate impacts.”

Household cleaners seem particularly primed for a refill revolution. Whereas shampoo and conditioner involve complicated chemical formulas, many cleaners can be easily concentrated and reconstituted with water. In fact, that’s what makes up the bulk of traditional cleaning products, leading Mr. Prindiville to describe the current system this way: “We’re just shipping around water. And that’s dumb.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/headway/spray-bottle-clorox-plastic-refillable-recycle.html

Gen-Z has suprisingly few qualms about others buying fake fashion

In the age of BeReal when authenticity reigns supreme, Gen-Z has surprisingly few qualms about buying fake goods — especially when others are doing it. In a proprietary study of US Gen-Z consumers aged 13-25 fielded by Juv Consulting, BoF Insights found that a majority think it’s acceptable for others to buy counterfeits. Meanwhile, over a third are personally willing to wear dupes. Estimates of the size of the overall counterfeit and pirated goods market vary, ranging from $1.7 trillion and $4.5 trillion a year, making it the largest criminal enterprise in the world.

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/retail/bof-insights-chart-watch-gen-z-counterfeit-luxury-goods-fake/

VW Gets Ready to Reveal a People’s Car for the Electric Age

Volkswagen is about to do what Tesla didn’t during its recent investor day: show off an affordable electric vehicle for the masses.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-15/vw-gets-ready-to-reveal-a-people-s-car-for-the-electric-age

URL To IRL And Back Again: How Digital Fabric Twins Are Defining Fashion’s New Trajectories

For fashion to work, creative design and product development have always required a steady flow of both new ideas and new fabrics to execute them in. So for digital fashion to work, it should come as no surprise that digital ideation, design and development – as practised in popular solutions like CLO3D – will demand a constant source of digital fabrics.

https://www-theinterline-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.theinterline.com/2023/02/28/url-to-irl-and-back-again-how-digital-fabrics-twins-are-defining-fashions-new-trajectories/amp/

Question for “just fashion transition”

The fashion industry is now using the term ‘just fashion transition’. There are claims that fashion companies take steps to transition to a low-carbon system. Nevertheless, our scientific research on just transition across fashion supply chains does not see this happening.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hakan-karaosman-48363629_fashion-sustainability-supplychains-activity-7035259266382897153-n07D?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Pro-Gamers Tackle Virtual Clothing Waste with Vanish ‘ReSkin’ Challenge

Vanish, the Reckitt garment care brand committed to encouraging consumers to re-wear their clothes and raising awareness of clothing waste, has partnered with some of Europe’s biggest gamers and streamers to expand its #ReWear message into the world of gaming – hacking the virtual ‘fast fashion’ trend to drive awareness of the real-life clothing crisis in new and super-engaged audiences.

#ReSkinChallenge sees high-profile gamers including CaptainPuffy, ShivFPS, FreyzPlayz and fifakillvizualz – who combined boast more than 4.4m Twitch subscribers and are known for their frenzied consumption of the latest skins and in-game clothes – uncharacteristically revert to a basic, default skin for a whole week. If this didn’t raise enough questions from their communities – and it did – they also wore the same physical outfit on their streams for the duration of the challenge, starting conversations among their fans.

https://www.lbbonline.com/news/pro-gamers-tackle-virtual-clothing-waste-with-vanish-reskin-challenge

Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market

U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow Inc and the Singapore government said they were transforming old sneakers into playgrounds and running tracks. Reuters put that promise to the test by planting hidden trackers inside 11 pairs of donated shoes. Most got exported instead.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-plastic-dow-shoes/

How Can the Fashion Industry Accelerate Systems Change?

“Fashion weeks don’t need to be focussed on seasonal overproduction. They could be powerful cultural spotlights that supported young talent without driving waste and over-consumption.”

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/sustainability/copenhagen-fashion-week-executive-insights-sustainability-innovation-systems-change/

We still use appliances like it’s 1970. There’s a better way.

“If automobiles were regulated to the same extent as household appliances, the average vehicle would be getting 60 miles per gallon and seat nine people,” says Pamela Klyn, an engineer and sustainability executive at Whirlpool, which manufactures 20 million products every year under brands including Whirlpool, Maytag and KitchenAid. Yet these appliances could be saving us even more water, energy and time — if we used them properly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/24/home-appliance-myths-energy-saving-tips/