The present and future sustainability of clothing and textiles in the ...

Location of
clothing and
textiles
production
Most clothing and textiles products
purchased in the UK have made
a journey across the globe before
arriving in retailers’ shops. The UK
clothing industry depends on a global
production system, designed to
minimise costs at each stage of the
supply chain. In this theme we will
investigate the effect of producing
goods closer to the final customer,
including the possibility of using
new production technologies and
recycling materials. Three scenarios are
compared with the base case from the
previous section.
Scenario 1: Changing the
location of existing operations
Decisions on manufacturing location are closely
related to labour requirements: operations that
must be completed by hand are generally located
in countries with cheap labour; more knowledge
intensive processes can be located elsewhere.
Given that existing location decisions have largely
been driven by cost considerations, would there be
an environmental or social benefit from choosing
different locations? As the carpet product is already
largely made in the UK, this scenario considers the
effect of shifting production of the T-shirt and the
blouse into the UK.
Instead of manufacturing the cotton T-shirt in China,
the scenario assumes that it is possible to transport
yarn directly from the USA to the UK, where fabric
can be knitted, bleached, washed, dyed and finished.
The fabric will also be cut and sewn into T-shirts in
the UK. For the viscose blouse, it will be assumed that
the whole blouse can be manufactured in the UK
including the production of viscose fibre and yarn. In
addition viscose yarn can be woven into fabric in the
UK and this will go through the stages of desizing,
dyeing and finishing, prior to being cut and sewn into
a blouse.
Scenario 2: Changed location
with new production technology
Shifting the location of production is likely to lead to a
cost increase, regardless of environmental benefits, as
manual operations will be moved to higher labour cost
countries. This disadvantage would be offset if new
production technology were available to reduce the
labour content of production – as has happened in the
manufacture of carpets. Seamless knitting, stitch-free
seams, 3D weaving and 3D sewing technologies are
examples of recent innovative processes emerging in
the garment industry D1 . These are also called ‘whole
garment technologies’ since an (almost) finished
garment may be produced with one machine from
yarn. For finishing textiles, inkjet printing can be a step
closer to digitalising textile printings D2 .
Potentially such technologies may change the cost
structure of production. They may also offer other
commercial benefits: such technologies would allow
production of smaller batches, including made-toorder
production of individually designed and sized
garments; the cost of stock-holding and the need for
end-of-season price reductions would be reduced if
production was fast and close to the retail outlet – as
there would be no requirement for advance ordering
of large batches; production waste – from cutting
parts out of flat fabric sheets – would be reduced.
30 WELL DRESSED?