Sustainable Fabrics, Explained

Sustainability claims on fabric are easy to make and harder to verify. Here is what separates a meaningful claim from a marketing one.

Organic cotton

Grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers, and typically using less irrigation than conventional cotton. Look for GOTS certification rather than the word "organic" alone.

European flax linen

Flax needs little irrigation or pesticide, and the plant is used almost entirely — fibre for textiles, seed for oil, shive for building material.

Closed-loop bamboo viscose

Bamboo itself grows fast with minimal input, but the viscose process is chemically intensive. A closed-loop mill recaptures and reuses those solvents rather than discharging them.