Why Traceability is Important for the Supply Chain in Making Recycled Textiles more Acceptable?

As the world moves more and more towards a responsible and sustainable textile value chain, traceability as a tool is acquiring center stage.

It has been a challenge to connect the twin goals of recycling and traceability. The whole of the textile industry is trying to bridge the gap, for large clothing chains to be able to achieve a complete makeover of their supply chain to a sustainable one (as per UNECE Report in 2017).

Fashion and retail brands are chasing traceability along with their sustainability goals to make their textile supply chain cleaner, transparent and reliable, especially when it comes to goods made from recycled materials.

Global supply chain network of textile goods is complex and beyond the control of fashion brands due to lack of transparency.

With the aid of new mapping techniques in traceability, we will be able to track the journey of our product throughout the supply chain for its entire lifecycle from the origin of raw material inputs to the final stage of end uses (as per the UN Global Compact and BSR Study).

With the advent of advanced tools like cloud computing, block chain technology and tracer material scanning we are at the threshold of achieving these goals much faster.

Time is not far when traceability will enable recycled materials as a standard offering by large organized retailers of fast fashion brands.

References

UNECE Report (2017) on Transparency in textile value chains in relation to the environmental, social and human health impacts of parts, components and production processes retrieved from https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trade/Publications/ECE-TRADE-439E-TEXTILE4SDG12.pdf.
T. Kumar, R. Pal (2019). Traceability in Clothing and Textile Supply chain: Classifying Implementation and Information Sets via Delphi Study, Sustainability, 2019,11, 1698.
UNGC and BSR Report (2014) on Transparency in textile value chains in relation to the environmental, social and human health impacts of parts, components and production processes retrieved from https://www.bsr.org/reports/BSR_UNGC_Guide_to_Traceability.pdf
Strähle, J.; Merz, L. Case Study: Total Transparency at Honestby.com. In Green Fashion Retail; Strähle, J., Ed.; Springer Series in Fashion Business; Springer: Singapore, 2017; pp. 269–291, ISBN 978-981-10-2439-9.
Strähle, J.; Merz, L. Case Study: Total Transparency at Honestby.com. In Green Fashion Retail; Strähle, J., Ed.; Springer Series in Fashion Business; Springer: Singapore, 2017; pp. 269–291, ISBN 978-981-10-2439-9.
Richero, R.; Ferrigno, S. A Background Analysis on Transparency and Traceability in the Garment Value Chain; Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development, European Commission: Brussels, Belgium, 2016.
Pal, R.; Harper, S.; Vellesalu, A. Competitive manufacturing for reshoring textile and clothing supply chains to high-cost environment: A Delphi study. Int. J. Logist. Manag. 2018, 29, 1147–1170.