BUS602: Marketing Management

Clothing can be costly to maintain both from a monetary and environmental perspective; especially as most maintenance practices are strongly influenced by social norms of high level hygiene and cleanliness. Adherence to these social norms, however, often involves an environmental burden of energy, water, and detergent use. Europeans, for example, wash their clothes at an average temperature of 45.8 °C, a practice whose environmental impact is dependent on geographic and demographic context, including specific energy source. When the energy source is renewable, wash temperature has a lower environmental impact, but when the energy comes from fossil fuels, the impact rises significantly. In addition to the associated environmental impact, how often clothing is washed may also have implications for product life because laundering contributes to wear and tear. Among young Swedish consumers, for example, the average number of wearings before washing is two to three times for t-shirts, shirts, and tops but four or more times for trousers and skirts. Although 38% of these young consumers use eco-labeled detergents, reflecting the increasing replacement of harmful chemicals with bio-based, degradable ingredients, consumers typically experience difficulties fully understanding dosing instructions, which may lead to overuse.

The environmental burden increases if laundering includes tumble drying, which consumes 3–4 times more energy than washing at 40 °C but is used after around 20% of washing cycles. Admittedly, such statistics should be interpreted with caution because dryer ownership varies greatly from 16% of all households in Poland to 83.4% in the U.S. Nevertheless, lowering washing temperatures and eliminating tumble drying and ironing would reduce a clothing product's energy consumption by 50%.