When will green be the new black for fashion?

Since the New Year the 'Green Wars' between the major food retailers have gathered pace. Marks & Spencer is going carbon neutral, Tesco is showing carbon emissions for thousands of products and Sainsbury's are completing the national roll-out of their recycled content shopping bags.

But what about the clothing sector - the Green Retail Revolution seems to have largely passed them by. True M&S have introduced organic and Fairtrade shirts and Next has a successful scheme to encourage the recycling and re-use of clothes hangers.

But no national clothing retailer is putting the environmental impact of the stores at the forefront of their business - not in the same way that some of the food retailers are attempting to do.

The amount of packaging used would be a good start. A few weeks ago I bought a new shirt from a department store and the amount of packaging was excessive. The packaging with the shirt included:

- A thin plastic film sleeve
- Thicker plastic film inside the collar
- A cardboard insert inside the shirt
- High density plastic clips holding the sleeves to shirt
- High density plastic cuff links to hold the cuffs together
- A thin sheet of paper wrapped around the cardboard insert

Five or possibly six different packaging material types on one product.

As M&S introduce more green initiatives across their product range it will surely put pressure on other clothing retailers to follow suit. It is to be expected that the green programmes at Tesco and Asda will eventually impact on their clothing ranges as well.

If you see a new environmental initiative in the clothing retail sector please let us know by adding a comment to this post.