WRAP

Climate action NGO WRAP is extending its Durability Accelerator Initiative beyond the UK to test whether clothes sold by major brands truly last under everyday use. Following pilot studies that questioned links between price and longevity, the programme will benchmark garments across North American and European markets, pushing for tougher, evidence-based durability standards in fashion.

The UK is moving closer to building a closed-loop textile recycling system, with a major new report outlining how advanced sorting technology can transform waste into valuable resources. By mapping the steps from collection to high-quality fibre recovery, it highlights the coordinated action needed to cut landfill use and drive circular fashion growth.

A new study has challenged assumptions about fashion pricing and garment quality. Testing 47 t-shirts using industry standards, researchers have found no correlation between price and durability. Budget garments often outperformed designer ones, while synthetic fibre blends proved more durable than pure cotton. The findings support upcoming legislation requiring brands to declare durability metrics.

Nonprofit WRAP has warned that if the UK’s used textiles sector goes under, charities, local authorities and consumers will have to pay the cost of dealing with unwanted used textiles.

Environmental action NGO WRAP has come out with a Design for Recyclability Toolkit for Fashion and Textiles as a practical resource to help businesses integrate recyclability into product development.

A report by global environmental action NGO WRAP has established clear benchmarks for repair and resale using data from six companies and helped to develop a single methodology that can be applied by businesses of all shapes and sizes, to give robust and comparable data on big environmental savings from preloved and repair, showing that introducing a little circular living into our lives reduces the price and the environmental price tag too.

The lack of universal industry standard has prompted global retailer Primark to come up with its own Durability Framework that spells out guidance designed to encourage longer-lasting clothing across the fashion industry.

New numbers released by environmental group WRAP on Tuesday show that the state of post-consumer textiles in the UK does not augur well for circularity, and the situation is compounded by concerns that the recycling and reuse sector is on the verge of collapse.

The Textiles 2030 Annual Progress Report 2021–22 of climate action NGO WRAP sets out the baseline for Textiles 2030, based on the signatories’ combined carbon and water footprints in 2019.

Investors in Europe are increasingly opting for starups that have clear-cut sustainability commitments, with more than half of them having declined a startup investment opportunity in the last 12 months due to concerns about that company’s sustainability credentials.