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The Nordic Youth Council drew up the original proposal, which the Nordic Council Committee for a Sustainable Nordic Region then worked on.<\/p>\n
The Nordic Council recently unanimously adopted a recommendation to make the fashion industry greener, calling on national governments to ensure consumers receive better information to combat misleading marketing and greenwashing in the fashion industry and to guarantee good working conditions in the textile industry.
\nThe Nordic Youth Council drew up the original proposal. <\/p>\n
Nordic consumers are major offenders when it comes to clothing, according to a release from The Nordic Cooperation.<\/p>\n
The Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council are the main forums for official Nordic Cooperation, which involves Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Aland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe buy more per capita than the global average, and only a small proportion of what we donate to recycling schemes is actually reused in Nordic countries,\u201d the release noted.<\/p>\n
A McKinsey study also showed that garments are worn an average of seven to eight times before they are thrown out, and less than 1 per cent of what is thrown out is recycled in a circular manner.<\/p>\n
The situation prompted the Nordic Youth Council, the forum that brings together the youth wings of political organisations in the region, to call for action.<\/p>\n
A new European Union (EU) directive comes into force in September, focusing on providing consumers with more information about product sustainability. \u201cIt is an issue that the Nordic Region also needs to address. We may already have the tools and just need to use them properly,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n
In 1989, the Nordic countries set up a voluntary eco-labelling scheme, the Nordic Swan Ecolabel, which 97 per cent of people in the region now know about. The Swan is the official ecolabel of the Nordic countries and one of the strictest forms of environmental certification in the world.<\/p>\n
Textiles with the Nordic Swan Ecolabel are already on the market, yet relatively few Nordic clothing brands have this certification, which is thought-provoking given how many fashion giants are based here.<\/p>\n
Nordic consumers trust the Ecolabel, which appears on a wide range of goods, including paper, cleaning products, and personal care products.<\/p>\n
A survey showed that eight out of 10 Nordic consumers interested in clothes would choose Swan-labelled clothing and textiles if available. More than half would even pay extra for them.<\/p>\n
There is potential to use the label more widely in the fashion sector. The demand is there, and consumers already trust the label, the release added.<\/p>\n
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Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)<\/p>\n
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