Screen printers and other apparel decorators know a T-shirt is more than just a bundle of cut-and-sewn cotton. It can be a branding powerhouse, a fundraising heavyweight, an activist’s billboard or a precious keepsake – sometimes all of these things at once. In short, a tee is much more than the sum of its parts.

But what about the parts you can’t see? Like the hundreds of gallons of water it took to grow the cotton and dye the cloth that eventually became that shirt. Or all the energy used to produce and transport the product. And what happens when that tee has outlived its usefulness? Does it end up among the 21 billion pounds of textile waste the U.S. sends to landfills each year?

“The fashion industry is a huge contributor to climate change,” says Anupama Parischa, a professor at St. Catherine University and the executive director of the group Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Practices (ESRAP). “It’s the second-largest polluter. It’s got a huge footprint.”

Podcast

Andrew Graham of Marine Layer talks about the apparel supplier’s T-shirt recycling initiative and how its commitment to creating the softest, most sustainable shirts out there.

Consider these chilling statistics: The global apparel industry generates about 10% of the world’s carbon emissions from its long supply chains and energy-intensive production, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). That’s more energy than consumed by the aviation and shipping industry combined. About 20% of industrial water pollution globally stems from textile treatment and dyeing, according to some estimates. Cotton, which makes up about 33% of all fibers in textiles, is a notoriously thirsty crop, requiring around 715 gallons of water – about two and a half years’ worth of drinking water – to produce just one shirt, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Synthetic fibers, like polyester, also have a giant carbon footprint, since they’re essentially a type of plastic derived from fossil fuels. And it could take as many as two centuries for a polyester shirt to decompose.

These aren’t new problems. Sustainability has been a buzzword for a while now, but interest in the topic has been on the rise with consumers, particularly younger shoppers. For instance, 90% of millennials are more likely to buy from and recommend a brand whose social and environmental practices they trust, according to marketing firm The Shelton Group. Since 2018, online searches for sustainable apparel were way up, with fashion site Lyst reporting a 66% increase in shoppers using terms like “vegan leather” and “organic cotton” in their queries. Plus, the popularity of minimalism and Marie Kondo-inspired purgeshave prompted people to look more critically at their overstuffed closets.

Little wonder, then, that sustainability has become a serious talking point for fashion brands looking to distinguish themselves and garner a following among environmentally conscious millennial and Gen Z shoppers. But what exactly does sustainability mean? How do you separate the truly eco-minded do-gooders from the slick, surface-level marketing, commonly known as “greenwashing”?

“Sustainability is a very wide word, and the more you get into it, the deeper it gets,” says Ryan Moor, CEO of screen-printing supply company Ryonet and co-founder of Allmade Apparel.

“It’s very, very hard to be perfect. We say we’re on a path toward sustainability.” — Ryan Moor, Allmade Apparel

At its core, sustainability is about making better choices so businesses can meet demand without depleting resources and negatively affecting future generations. The term covers everything from social responsibility and worker safety to eco-friendly sourcing and energy efficiency to waste reduction and circular “cradle-to-cradle” manufacturing.

“It’s a journey that’s never done,” says Marci Kinter, vice president of the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) and chair of the Sustainable Green Printing (SGP) technical committee. “There’s always something you can do, some new modification you can make in order to continue down that pathway.”

It’s also something that requires buy-in from all involved. “In the future, we expect all the players in this landscape, including suppliers, manufacturers and consumers, to work better together in synergy and independently toward a higher level of welfare and sustainability,” says Amanda Mitzman, marketing director of Next Level Apparel (asi/73867), which offers two sustainable styles in its arsenal of fashionable basics.

he first thing many people think of when it comes to sustainability in the apparel world is the garment itself and what it’s made of – organic and recycled fabric fibers in particular. The good news for eco-minded distributors and decorators: The number of suppliers offering organic cotton and recycled polyester garments is on the rise. “For us, that’s actually been a great category,” says Denise Taschereau, co-founder and CEO of Fairware (asi/191452), a Vancouver-based distributor focused on ethical and sustainable practices. “It’s been great to see brands rolling out those products. There are more options than before.”

Organic cotton is grown without genetically modified seeds, pesticides or toxic fertilizers, which helps prevent water contamination. “Organic cotton isn’t perfect,” notes Kriya Stevens, marketing manager for econscious Apparel (asi/51656). “It’s incredibly water-intensive, but we believe it’s a better way to grow our cotton than conventional farming methods because of the reduced chemical inputs.”

More and more consumers agree. Sales of organic fibers rose 11% in 2017 to $1.6 billion, according to the Organic Trade Association. Millennials and parents of young children tend to have a high interest in organic cotton, according to Owen Zibrak, vice president of product development at Sundog Productions in Fairfax, VA. “You have to realize that your skin is your largest organ,” he adds. “While there’s no direct data, when you’re wearing chemicals, they do leach into your body.”

Other markets often receptive to organic cotton include craft breweries, food co-ops and musicians, says Glen Brumer, of Royal Apparel (asi/83731). Companies and organizations with sustainability initiatives or that have a close involvement with protecting the environment are also good candidates. “The brand that’s really telling a story wants it,” Brumer says.

When it comes to organic cotton, however, it’s important to ask the right questions to make sure you’re getting what you’re expecting. “A lot of the words often used like organic and sustainable aren’t legally binding,” says Beth Esponnette, founder of Denim Unspun, a sustainable fashion brand. “You can throw them around, and they don’t necessarily mean anything.”

Taschereau, for example, once worked with a supplier that was touting its “organic tote bags.” However, when Fairware pushed back, asking to see the certification for the product, the supplier claimed that because it was a “natural fiber,” that meant it was organic. “We dropped that line,” Taschereau says. “He was just using language.”

Though there aren’t any legally binding standards for organic cotton in the U.S., there are organizations like the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) that certify the quality of organic apparel. To be GOTS certified, suppliers must meet certain criteria, pass inspection by the GOTS organization and keep detailed records of how the organic fibers in a facility were handled, according to Zibrak. (Sundog Productions bills itself as the first GOTS certified print shop in the U.S.) “You must track everything from the farm through the finished product,” Zibrak says. “Every supplier must be certified or the chain breaks.”

he other big player in sustainable fabric is polyester made from recycled plastics (think water bottles). With nearly 300 million tons of plastic produced each year, there’s an overabundance of material to work with. Hanes is using about 5% recycled polyester across a broad range of products, keeping more than 60 million plastic bottles out of landfills each year, according to Chris Fox, vice president of corporate social responsibility at Hanesbrands (asi/59528). “We haven’t focused as much on making one small product line that’s all recycled,” he says. “We blend it in across multiple product lines.”

Royal Apparel uses recycled polyester in a number of its products, including blends that are 50% recycled polyester and 50% organic cotton. “That whole shirt is eco-friendly,” Brumer says. The company also has a jersey fabric that’s a blend of recycled cotton scraps and recycled bottles, which Brumer calls “the most sustainable of all.”

Sustainable can most certainly be stylish. Just check out the eco-minded offerings from top industry suppliers (clockwise from top-left): the 100% certified organic cotton tee (EC1000) from econscious (asi/51656); the women’s organic RPET blend tee (95001W) from Royal Apparel (asi/83731); the men’s and ladies tri-blend crewneck T-shirt (A2004T-01-XS and A2008T-01-XS) from Allmade Apparel (asi/34341).

Some activist brands are taking recycled polyester to the next level, working to empty the oceans of the plastic trash harming sea life. (Nonprofit Plastic Oceans International estimates that more than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean each year.) “You can’t go to the beach in any exotic country without seeing plastic and litter all over the place. It’s really destroying our ecosystem,” says Daniel Chabert, the CEO of Rockay, which sells running socks made entirely of recycled plastic.

Half the recycled plastic in Rockay socks is taken directly from the ocean. Chabert says he was only able to find one factory – based in Spain – that could verify its recycled plastic was ocean-harvested.

Last year, Adidas produced more than 5 million pairs of shoes made from upcycled beach waste, thanks to a partnership with Parley for the Oceans. This year, the company expects to make 11 million more. The brand has also vowed to stop using virgin polyester in every product where a recycled alternative exists by 2024.

As with any sustainable product, there are tradeoffs with recycled polyester. Synthetic garments, particularly fleeces, tend to shed when laundered, releasing microfibers into the ocean because they’re too small to be caught in waste water treatment plants. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that there were already 1.4 quadrillion synthetic microfibers polluting the world’s waterways in 2017.

“Micro-shedding is a real issue,” Stevens says. “We work with recycled polyester in our fleece for color and shape retention. Most people believe when compared to virgin polyester, it’s a better option in terms of energy consumption and also in terms of creating a secondary market for refuse. But micro-shedding is one of many reasons I’m saying it’s not perfect.”

Another up-and-comer in the sustainable fabric game is hemp-derived textiles. Hemp cultivation is less water-intensive than other textile crops. Plus, it produces a very strong fiber, translating into longer-lasting apparel and accessories. Industrial production of hemp, a variety of cannabis without the psychoactive component of marijuana, was legalized in the U.S. late last year. “Be ready for the spike in demand that’s going to come,” Stevens advises distributors and decorators. “If you want to be on the crest of something big, that would be the thing I’d be looking out for.”

Companies have also been experimenting with making sustainable textiles out of everything but the kitchen sink: corn, kelp, pineapple leaves and orange peels, to name a few. Last year, students at the University of Delaware prototyped biodegradable sandals made of mushrooms, chicken feathers and textile waste.

hat garments are made of is only part of the problem in the fashion industry. Perhaps the bigger concern is the sheer quantity of apparel produced and sold each year. This is a problem that both fashion brands and consumers have helped create and perpetuate, thanks to the rise of fast fashion and boundless appetite for cheap garments. Clothing sales are projected to rise to $2.1 trillion by 2025, according to the Global Fashion Agenda, an international leadership forum on fashion sustainability. And the average person is buying 60% more articles of clothing and keeping them for about half as long as they did 15 years ago. “In the U.S., our consumption rates are so high,” says Parischa of the sustainability apparel group ESRAP. “The cultural values we’ve grown up with are more about convenience and having more things. We’ve built up this culture of not caring about what we’re buying.”

“We’ve built up this culture of not caring about what we’re buying.” — Anupama Parischa, Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Practices

In 2015, only 15% of textile waste in the U.S. was recycled; 65% ended up in landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Thrift stores are oversaturated, and countries that have traditionally taken our secondhand clothing are opting out. Plus, textile recycling is hard. “You’ve got to remove zippers and hardware to be able to recycle the material,” Stevens says. “And when you have blends, like cotton mixed with poly, you’re not going to be able to recycle that polyester.”

Still, researchers are working on advancing textile recycling technology and activist brands are trying to raise awareness about “slow fashion,” focusing more on quality and durability than quantity and price. Patagonia, for example, has for years run a repair and recycling program for the gear it sells.

Of course, most promotional apparel is in a different category than a $200 down puffer from Patagonia, but that doesn’t mean the industry can’t take cues from the brand. Fairware tries to steer product discussions away from price and toward quality. “Let’s just have a conversation about buying a beautiful shirt and what it costs,” Taschereau says. “If you can’t afford that, don’t get a crap shirt, get a nice something else.”

Instead of giving away low-end T-shirts, try branded bandannas or dye-sublimated scarves, she suggests. “We’re talking to people about different product tactics,” Taschereau says.

There’s no perfect solution when it comes to sustainability. A brand may focus on factory energy reduction while continuing to produce traditional cotton and virgin polyester. Or it could be manufacturing organic and recycled products in a plant powered by fossil fuels. Allmade Apparel makes premium tri-blends using recycled plastic, organic cotton and modal. The shirts are cut and sewn in a factory in Haiti that offers a living wage and benefits. But the factory runs on diesel, not solar – something the company hopes to one day remedy.

“You can come poke holes in our story all day long. You can poke holes in Patagonia’s story,” says Moor, Allmade’s co-founder. “It’s very, very hard to be perfect. We say we’re on a path toward sustainability. You need to be transparent about it and not try to greenwash.

“Any effort is better than not making an effort at all.”

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