Högskolan i Skövde

As the awareness regarding sustainability has increased, so has the expectations on company practice. Today the clothing industry faces great challenges regarding sustainable development, especially within the environmental aspects. The methods used today within the clothing industry require great quantities of water and dangerous chemicals and lead to greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve a sustainable clothing production these issues must be resolved and new methods embraced. The aim of this study is to understand how Swedish clothing retailers attempt to achieve sustainability, regarding water consumption, use of chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is also to examine how Swedish clothing retailers collaborate with different initiatives and certificates, in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as to what extent these retailers use different fibres and how these fibres affect the environmental sustainability of the garment. In order to perform a more thorough examination and achieve a deeper understanding of their attempt to be sustainable, only a few retailers have been chosen. The retailers outsource the manufacturing of the garments they sell, and therefore do not produce anything by themselves. The four retailers that have been chosen were examined at a distance through their sustainability reports, and the material that was obtained is the foundation of the study. Different measurable data that can demonstrate more or less sustainable activities, have been the focus when scavenging the sustainability reports. The chosen retailers cannot be expected to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, regarding water consumption, use of chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions, based on the information used in the study. At first glance, their attempts can seem comprehensive and thorough, despite this, few of them were able to demonstrate substantial improvements regarding their clothing manufacturing. The retailers also turned out to use both sustainable and non-sustainable fibres. Therefore, they cannot be expected to achieve an environmentally sustainable clothing manufacturing, not with the help of their initiatives, nor by the current use of fibres examined in this study.