TheUnited Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) member states have endorsed a toolkit that simplifies sustainable claim verification. The toolkit is helpful for policy recommendations, implementation guidelines, and standards, making it easier for asserting and verifying sustainability claims in the garment and footwear sector.
From raw components to the point of purchase, the UNECE toolkit delivers solutions for generating an immutable record of provenance and composition for any item of clothing or pair of shoes.
Armed with such information, consumers, regulators, and companies themselves can check claims around sustainability and ethical production.
The UNECE member state endorsement includes a Call to Action or ‘The Sustainability Pledge’ inviting governments, garment, and footwear manufacturers and industry stakeholders to pledge to apply the toolkit of measures and take a positive step towards improving environmental ethics credentials of the sector. The Sustainability Pledge results from the UNECE project ‘Enhancing Transparency and Traceability of Sustainable Value Chains in Garment and Footwear’ that is being implemented with UN/CEFACT, in collaboration with the International Trade Centre (ITC) and with funding from the European Union.
The project aims to establish a mechanism that enables governments, industry partners, consumers, and all other relevant stakeholders to make risk-informed decisions and achieve accountability for sustainability claims.
The Sustainability Pledge meets growing demand from consumers for more information on how clothing, textiles, and shoes are sourced, manufactured, and made.
According to Euratex, the EU textile and clothing industry alone has a turnover of €162 billion.
