Fashion like the British

Image via Fashion Week

Britain's Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is making great strides in transforming the fashion industry from a consumerist society into a sustainable contribution. At the start of the 2009 London fashion week Defra Minister Lord Hunt announced the Sustainable Clothing Roadmap to make fashion more sustainable and less environmentally damaging.

Lord Hunt stated that “Retailers have a big role to play in ensuring fashion is sustainable. We should all be able to walk into a shop and feel that the clothes we buy have been produced without damaging the environment or using poor labour practices, and that we will be able to reuse and recycle them when we no longer want them."

The sustainable roadmap focuses on these four areas:

1. Improving environmental performance across the supply chain, including: sustainable design; fibers and fabrics; maximizing the reuse of products, recycling and managing the end of life for the products; and clothes cleaning.
2. Awareness, media, education and networks for the sustainability of clothes.
3. Promoting markets for sustainable clothing.
4. Improving traceability along the supply chain (environmental, ethical, and trade).

All of this being said, the United States should follow suit on something incredible happening in London. If New York fashion week could have a roadmap, think of the impact we could have on the environment.