Dyes of the Future

Anurima Das examines how brands and organisations are championing sustainability in apparel dyeing.

- Anurima Das

Greenpeace started the ‘Detox My Fashion’ campaign a few years back, with a promise to better the entire textile value chain by initiating sustainable manufacturing and production pledges. As per the mission and vision of the campaign, brands were to go toxin-free, eliminating the usage of hazardous chemicals from their production processes—from dyeing to production machinery, everything needed to be chemical-free.

Brands such as Nike and Adidas, among others, wholeheartedly accepted the challenge and have vouched to go toxin-free by 2020. However, accepting the challenge meant undergoing a sea of changes in production; and many companies resisted the idea. For a global company, ensuring a fully transparent supply chain meant that it needed to ban all toxic chemicals at every step of the way, across the production line. This was primarily a hindrance at the dyeing stage as choosing natural, eco-friendly options for dyeing is arduous and incurs heavy expenses too. However, consumers responded to the detox challenge more readily and positively, which further compelled the industry to change its ways of production to sit more in sync with the environment.

HOPEFUL BEGINNINGS