Leveraging the Supply Chain for Sustainability: The UK Clothing and Textiles Sector: a sustainability project

This presentation introduces the UKTEX research project: a study of the sustainability of the clothing and textiles supply chain serving the UK market. The UK clothing and textile sector undoubtedly has global environmental consequences  80% of the clothing sold in the UK is produced mainly in China, requiring a global distribution network. In rough, the current practice for the UK Textile and clothing sector is mass production concentrated in Asia, and mass distribution in Europe. The two main research pillars of the project are a mass balance of the flow of physical materials in the UK and a scenario analysis for the future development of the sector and its social, environmental and economic consequences. The Mass Balance study extends a series of mass balance studies in the UK, funded by the Biffaward Foundation, and in this case is also financially supported and in kind by Marks and Spencer. The second part is based on an expert study, by means of a Delphi study with the stakeholders of the sector, and further comparative scenario analysis based on three type of indicators: environmental, social and economic. The evaluation of the different scenarios will occur in parallel with examination of the technologies of clothing and textiles production and recovery processes. This will help to identify feasible short term changes, and will give specifications of technologies and materials required in future to allow significant reduction in the environmental burden of the sector while retaining competitive profitability. We present a methodology to investigate the sustainability of supply chains, applicable to other sectors. Furthermore, we present the results of the analysis of test-scenarios.