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For many of us Wellness Feed writers and readers, we know a thing or two about how to be eco-friendly. Shop sustainable brands, go plastic-free, reduce, reuse, recycle. And, we know why making these eco-friendly choices are better for the environment than conventional habits. Avoiding plastic waters bottles and traveling with your own can help eliminate the 8 million pieces of plastic pollution that make their way into our oceans every year. Reducing your food waste through donations can help the 10 million children in the U.S who suffer from food insecurity. These are facts many of us know. Yet, when it comes to fashion, how many of us know how much water or CO2 emissions our sustainable dress is saving? The details about how shopping sustainably is minimizing our environmental impact might not be clear to us. Yet, knowing these details could help us learn how to be more eco-friendly.
Eco-calculators are helping consumers learn exactly how their buying decisions are making a difference. Featured next to a brand’s product description or featured through quizzes that focus on your shopping habits, these eco- calculators calculate carbon emissions, water use and even the agricultural impact of a clothing item. By seeing these statistics, it can give us a closer insight into the impact from our shopping habits. It can also spark a few ideas about how to be more eco-friendly with our fashion and everyday lifestyle habits.
Below are a few brands helping to educate customers by getting into the nitty gritty about a piece of clothing’s (or duvet cover’s) environmental impact.
Coyuchi
The eco-friendly linens company offers natural and organic sheets and an expanding line of basics for your bedroom. Scroll through the site’s selection of duvets and you’re likely to come across certifications like GOTS, which ensures that every step along the supply chain has been considerate towards human rights and environmental protection. Fair Trade and Made Safe, a certification that ensures that products are free from toxins, are also found throughout the site.
This Item’s Environmental Impact:
- 1,625 Days of drinking water saved
- 7 Miles of driving emissions avoided
- 156 Sq. ft of land farmed without pesticides
Wolven Threds
For each sale, Wolven removes one pound of waste from the ocean.
Wolven Threads
With a growing fan base that is dedicated towards ‘making sustainability sexy’, Wolven is an athleisurewear brand whose bold prints and crop tops are redefining eco-friendly chic. If you are ever wondering how to be more eco-friendly by purchasing their designs, know that a lot of the materials used are post-consumer recycled plastic and the brand delivers products that are Climate Neutral certified, Global Recycled Standard, and OEKO-TEX standard.
Company’s Environmental Impact:
- 75% Reduction in carbon footprint using recycled materials
- 90% Less water use compared to producing virgin polyester
- 90% Fewer microplastics entering wastewater when washing with the garment bags
Tamga
We’re proud at TAMGA to produce clothing in a way that protects and restores forests. As of June 2018, 1% of every TAMGA purchase is donated to S.O.S and O.I.C’s re-forestation work in Sumatra through 1% For the Planet.
Tamga
This ethical women’s fashionis based in Canada and focuses on combining effortless style with a carbon-neutral lifestyle. Eco-friendly materials like tencel and modal, water-saving dyes and plastic free shipping materials are a few of the ways that the brand has dedicated themselves to helping customers to be more eco-friendly.
This Garment’s Environmental Impact:
- 133.5 Litres of water saved
- 0.6 Kg of CO2 emissions avoided
- 10.7 Kg of carbon offset
ThredUp
What’s most appealing about this retailer is that they’ve added convenience to the resell industry. All items on the site are pre-loved and sold through three categories- worn, like-new, or new with tags. With eleven years of business and thousands of items sold annually, Thred Up has made a big impact on our environment preventing clothing from being tossed into landfills. Shop or request a ‘clean-out bag’ to sell your items instead of throwing them away.
Thred Up offers a calculator that let’s you determine how to be more eco-friendly with a quizz that calculates your environmental impact. Below are my results
Company’s Environmental Impact:
- 82% Lower than the average consumer
- 297 Lbs of CO2 emitted
- 1.9 Flights to San Francisco