According to a recent report by the Australian Fashion Council (AFC), around 227,000 tonnes of discarded clothing is sent to landfill in Australia each year with only 7,000 tonnes being recycled. 

As clothing has gotten cheaper with the rise of various fast fashion brands, so has our purchasing - Australians are now some of the biggest shoppers in the world (according to AFC 2018/19 figures), with each person buying an average of 56 items of clothing a year. 

It was exactly this problem - of over-consumption and lack of end-of-life facilities - that the AFC set out to tackle when it announced back in February that it was launching Australia’s first National Clothing Product Stewardship Scheme called “Seamless”.  Funded by the Australian Federal Government, the scheme aims to improve the design, recovery, reuse and recycling of clothing, providing a roadmap to circularity in Australia by 2023.  The AFC is spearheading alongside a consortium of members from Charitable Recycling Australia, Queensland University of Technology, Sustainable Resource Use and WRAP.

The scheme officially launched on 7th June and between then and February, the AFC has revealed that it approached leading industry brands to sign up as founding members.  Of the 30 brands approached, however, only the following six signed up: Big W, David Jones, Lorna Jane, Rip Curl, RM Williams and The Iconic.  Those members have committed to paying a 4 cent per garment levy on their sales, with the money to be put towards initiatives such as sustainable design, the resale of used items, and textile recycling.  The overall objective is for the Australian fashion industry to become a global leader in circular design by transforming outdated business models, driving innovation, changing citizen behaviour and recycling clothing in high value applications.

Some of the home-grown Australian brands who chose not to sign up have explained that their decision was due to them being focused on their own sustainability measures.  But since the very premise of the scheme is that no single organisation can achieve clothing circularity alone, it has been noted with disappointment from many parties that they have chosen not to come together with the broader industry to drive a cohesive scheme to achieve a real, collaborative and measurable environmental improvement.

On 7 June, the Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, delivered a speech at the launch of Seamless in Sydney calling upon the rest of the fashion industry to sign up within the next 12 months or it would face government intervention (in the form of direct regulation).  

What are the implications for companies doing business in Australia?

The launch of the scheme comes shortly after the release of an ACCC report on greenwashing, which reported that a staggering 57% of sustainability-focused claims that it ‘swept’ online were problematic. On the back of its report, the ACCC announced that it would be contacting companies and brands making the problematic claims to prevent any misleading or deceptive conduct.

Seamless is being implemented under the federal product stewardship act, which can see waste-stream management enforced on industries through voluntary, co-regulatory or mandatory schemes. And having just announced a new mandatory packaging scheme, this should not be seen as an empty threat.  Without real action from fashion businesses in Australia, we expect to see further pressure placed on the fashion industry to improve its sustainability credentials in the coming years.

Fashion brands doing business in Australia should consider signing up to and supporting the scheme alongside any current sustainability initiatives as well as performing a health check on their current sustainability-focused advertising claims.  It’s possible that being part of Seamless could provide brands with a genuine, greenwashing-free selling point in a crowded market – we personally would be much more likely to buy from a retailer who has chosen to support Seamless and Australia’s journey to circularity, than one which hasn’t.  It will be interesting to keep an eye on the brands who did sign up as Founding Members to see how, if at all, they incorporate this scheme into their sustainability marketing material.

This post was co-authored by Sophie Edgerton (Foreign Legal Associate) and Jessie Buchan (Partner), DLA Piper Australia.