Let’s begin at the start. 

So what is greenwashing you may ask?

Greenwashing is a deceptive form of marketing that wrongly claims a company’s products, policies, and goals are environmentally friendly and therefore do less damage to nature, with an underlying purpose to increase profits- in simple words fake marketing their own brand for being sustainable. 

Why do Companies end up greenwashing?

1. Profits

It helps to gain favour with consumers who choose to support businesses that care about bettering the planet. Over that, many times brands charge false premiums too.

2. Fixing brand image 

Greenwashing takes up valuable space in the fight against environmental issues, like climate change, plastic ocean pollution, air pollution, and global species extinctions. It is easier said than done and hence easier to Greenwash than to actually Green-Make.  

3. Impulsive Trend Jumping – FOMO

It refers to a tendency where people want to be the early torchbearers of sustainability, they want to tell the stories where they are the heroes and thus the rush makes them accept incomplete facts and the feel-good stories. Furthermore, the comfort of getting it quickly and easily aggravates the situation. 

4. The ironical ask of wanting it all too quick

It is like wanting to be healthy and eating fast food daily to co-exist. It is also about wanting to build the perfect product today and ignore the possibilities of structural changes across supply chains for holistic sustainability over a period. It’s easy to buy carbon credits and tough to wait for your manufacturers to equip their facilities with green energy and water treatment plants. 

Well then based on these one can understand that either the brand is oblivious of the fact that they are greenwashing or is engaging in it mindfully but the consumer of their content, often a conscious consumer who likes to talk about sustainability ends up being an unintentional propagator of greenwashing.

Unintentional Greenwashing

1. Unawareness rooted in the fear of science and the rush for the solution

The matter of reducing water, carbon, changing chemicals, and understanding their impact on the environment is a complicated science. It can also be outside the purview of the brand which is further aggravated by the rush leading to spread misinformation while being unaware of the true sustainability footprint. 

2. Long Supply Chains amplifies the misinformation

Products are often made through the Long Supply chain. Many times it takes more than 7 different companies to make one garment reach you. Farmers, fiber processors, yarn spinners, etc. are all different entities. By the time product and story reach brands who sell it to the consumer – the stories are all infested by half-truths that get amplified as they pass on- same as how gossip travels.

3. Lack of Resources

Sometimes innovators and smaller companies lack resources to establish their scientific calculation of environmental impact as compared to other giants who have additional resources to take advantage of systematic benefits and scale. And hence the stories do have a chance to be biased. 

How to fight greenwashing?

Apart from working on the above three things as a society, here’s what you can do to fight the spread of Greenwashing:

1. Learn and practice spotting greenwashing:

The only way to not fall victim and not get involved in propagating greenwashing is to be smart at spotting them. Read our 10 ways to spot it here.

2. Practice pitching your sustainable story objectively:

Storytelling doesn’t mean ignoring the facts. It would rather mean telling them effectively. Do not be gullible towards an emotional narration of sustainability, make it a point to dig deeper. Be effective without being false. Look for the complete truth. Do not end your search at labels and certificates. 

3. Long term over marketing Pop-ups:

True sustainability is progressive rather than one pop-up of amazingness. If you notice one sudden spur of sustainability and not progress in that story from time to time, it is time to check if the story is more of a marketing gimmick or a real execution on the ground. 

4. Know it is worth fighting for:

We think that people don’t put in efforts to fight a problem if they think that the problem is not big enough. Greenwashing causes systematic delays. Here are three examples:

1. It Hinders the real solution. It makes it tough for truly holistic climate action solutions to find their space as they fight the unreal ease and economics of greenwashing. 
2. There is loss of faith in the cause. When the truth is revealed, people lose faith and become skeptical of the good solution. Many will simply despair and say “they are all lying,” 
3. It causes huge collateral damages. Just as it would not be wise to have a medicine that cures a one deadly disease in exchange of causing another, it is not wise to solve a water problem and cause excessive carbon problems in exchange.

Greenwashing is a phenomenon that harms both the consumer and honest companies that hold the environment core to everything they do. It is important to spot the greenwashing, understand why it happens and how we can stop it.

The post Are you an unintentional propagator of fake sustainability? appeared first on AltMat.

Are you aware of the Great Pacific Garbage patch? It is a large floating mass made up of plastic based waste which includes things like fishing gear. This floating mass is almost as big as an Island right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A BBC article explains how this garbage patch keeps building itself as:

“The area in the centre of a gyre tends to be very calm and stable. The circular motion of the gyre draws debris into this stable centre, where it becomes trapped. A plastic water bottle discarded off the coast of California, for instance, takes the California Current south toward Mexico. There, it may catch the North Equatorial Current, which crosses the vast Pacific. Near the coast of Japan, the bottle may travel north on the powerful Kuroshio Current. Finally, the bottle travels eastward on the North Pacific Current. The gently rolling vortexes of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches gradually draw in the bottle.”

But surprisingly, that is not the biggest enemy of our water bodies. Our biggest enemy, unlike this garbage patch, is invisible and extremely small in size – It is micro-plastics.  This non-biodegradable substance is not only the leading cause of marine pollution, but has also made its way to the human body through various food streams. But what exactly are micro-plastics and why should we worry about them?

What are microplastics?

Plastics remain for a long time. They do not dissipate or dissolve over time and only break down into further smaller fragments. When this breaks into micro fragments that can’t be seen by naked eyes, they are called micro-plastic. Owing to their small size, it becomes all the more difficult to track them down and remove them from the system. Particles of micro-plastics have been found in the intestines of fishes, bi-valves, birds and humans. We have found traces of it in the purest form of food -Mother’s milk. Some recent findings also dictate that micro-plastics may be able to travel by air as well making things more complex. 

What is shocking here is that not only is the discarded plastic bottle of cream but also the residual cream left inside the bottle is a cause of pollution. Some creams and serums contain microbeads which behave in a similar manner and have been banned in several countries. Even  washing your clothes in the machine or the regular wear and tear of your clothes actually contributes to this micro-pollution. 

Microfibers and microplastics:

Over the course of a clothes life cycle, it will shed tiny, small fragments of the material called microfibers. These are usually less than 5 mm and invisible to the naked eye. Depending upon what the  cloth is made of, the microfibre would be made of the same things. Example- If your cloth’s fabric is synthetics like polyester, it will be microplastic itself. 

However, even if the material is natural, the use of dyes and other chemicals during the production process can very much contribute to the pollution. While cotton and wool may degrade over a period of time and the microfibre they are made of is not plastic, the chemical constituents of dyes and finishes can stay for a long time. Example – a cotton cloth coated with non-bio-degradable synthetic finish can release non-biodegradable microparticles too. 

During washing, there is a natural shedding of materials which can lead to microfiber production. Our washing machines are not yet adept to remove microfibers and they eventually end up in the sludge residue or the wastewater. Repeated recycling of the wastewater may reintroduce the microfibers back into the system. Through water it comes back to humans in ways like sea-food, water etc.

How to tackle the issue of microplastics?

Although this area is one which has come under heavy scrutiny by the fashion industry recently, there are still a lot of gaps which need to be thoroughly researched. There is no one-solution-fits-all for this problem, but there are certain steps that we can take up to tackle this issue –

1. Replace the Source – opt for natural materials such as cotton, linen, wool, hemp etc. which will not shed microplastics.
2. Trap it at the Source – There are innovations happening on this with efforts to trapping microplastics in washing machine, stopping it from entering the water systems, treating the yarns and fabrics to reduce shedding etc. However, most of it is at small scale and/ or is has lack of reverse supply chain to collect back the tapped micro-plastics and reuse it. 
3. Have the right washing habit – No, washing all of your clothes after each wear is not worth it. Depending on usage and environmental conditions find the best way to wash your clothes as per the need.  
4. Use it right- Try to reduce the friction by avoiding washing soft and hard materials such as clothes and shoes together. 
5. Contribute to the solution by doing research and finding optimal solutions which can lessen the problem! Innovation will be key and this space is still widely open to find its solutions. 

The post The Great Pacific Garbage Patch—all you need to know about micro-plastics appeared first on AltMat.

What do you pay?

Let us first understand, if not in cash, what exactly do we pay. If you bought a dress made of viscose, you must have paid by giving away trees from the forest and thus in the currency called clean air and biodiversity; If you bought cotton denim, you must have paid in the currency of water, that too in the amounts that you could have survived on for around a decade; If you bought a polyester top, you must have signed up for letting microplastics destroy that poor fish and your health. This is where we need to know that fashion isn’t ever really cheap – instead of dollars, you barter your natural luxuries. To know how you can minimize this barter, Let’s start by breaking up your bill. 

How much do you pay?

Here’s what you might be paying for one pair of jeans:

• The amount of carbon emitted during the entire lifecycle of a pair of Levis 501 jeans is approximately 33.4 kg CO2-e, which is roughly 111 Kms driven by a car or a watching TV for 264 hours on a big plasma screen TV. 
• The water consumed is 3718 Liters which can easily provide the total need for a US household for 3 days. 
• The amount of phosphorus leeched causing eutrophication is 48.9 g PO4 -e which is equivalent to the phosphorus found in 1000 tomatoes.

And much more…

What causes this? 

Levi Straus, a popular jeans manufacturer, has provided an estimate of the breakdown of the overall emissions for their popular 501 jeans after conducting its Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). While 33% of emissions come from fabric production, the cutting, sewing, and finishing of the product take 8%, packaging, transport, and retail is 16% and the rest, which accounts for close to 40% is from customer use.

While there is a lot of science that needs to be studied, one of the most impactful things is – Fibers and materials. Not only do they have their footprints but they also affect the usage footprint and end of life of the final product. Thus, we rely on extensive science and agile execution to pull sustainability, inclusivity, and performance in every inch of the materials that we make by putting to use agriculture waste. Stay tuned with us to decode these different materials in upcoming blogs.

What can you do?

Here are our top three recommendations to keep your real bills down and shop smart:

1. Be wise with what you buy! 

Fashion is an immediate language – it is the way you express yourself and thus it is more of a reason why you should pick wisely. Check labels and pick what is made with more sustainable materials and sustainable processes, preferably biodegradable as the world currently lacks a supply chain and infrastructure to collect back things for worthy recycling. Do not shy away from paying an extra buck in cash than paying in currencies of clean air, water, health, etc. 

2. Usability is definitely all in your hands!

It is not ideal to wash all the clothes after each wear. Depending upon in what conditions you wore it, one can often wear things like denim, jackets for more than once or twice. Have a capsule wardrobe so that you can pair up things differently and increase your number of uses without losing on your style game. Style isn’t only about wearing new clothes, but also about knowing how to pair things differently and maximizing their usage, etc. 

3. Is the end really the end? 

Sometimes all it takes is to repair your clothes, other times depending on the condition you can sell it on a second-hand clothing store, or give it to a thrift store, or donate it. If they are not in shape, you can downcycle them to make them a cleaning cloth as people do in South Asian cultures. If they are compostable, you can use your compost. If it is biodegradable try that – and this is one of the key reasons why you should prefer bio-materials right from the start. See if you can help to put this t-shirt back in the recycling supply chain. 

Would you be wise to harness not only the power of money but also the currencies of water, air, climate, health, biodiversity while choosing your clothes?

The post Are you being fooled by the Price Tag? appeared first on AltMat.