Where we're still struggling

Conventional cotton farming accounts for 2% of the planet's arable land but 10% of pesticide use, with all the risks that entails for biodiversity and the health of those who grow it, in the short and medium term. Given this, switching to organic cotton seems like a no-brainer (we even wrote an article on the subject). Since 2019, all our new products and restocks are made from organic cotton (except for a few productions, where there was a misunderstanding with our factories)

Recycled cotton has one clear advantage: it means we don't have to grow new cotton, which saves the water and energy normally tied to farming it. But beyond that, its environmental impact is the same: it goes through the same industrial process of spinning - dyeing - knitting/weaving - making up. In fact, at the start there's even an extra industrial step to turn the fabric back into cotton yarn. Bottom line: according to the Climate Works 2018 report, if 40% of textile fibres worldwide were recycled (which would already be huge), it would save only 4.4% of water and 5.9% of carbon emissions compared with the current system. Nothing to write home about.

Second major problem: the mechanical process for turning fabric back into fibres damages the cotton fibres by reducing their length, and therefore their strength. So the quality of recycled fibres will never match the quality of the original fibres. Manufacturers therefore often have to blend it with other materials (such as polyester or polyamide) to strengthen it.

For this reason, we only use recycled cotton for fabrics where durability isn't necessary, as is the case for the pouch that comes with our belts.

The subject of recycled wool is not fundamentally different from that of recycled cotton: the environmental benefit is not enormous, and the quality of the fibre is inevitably degraded (it will be less soft, less durable, and often has to be blended with other materials). That said, the subject would be worth digging into, for two reasons:

1- The carbon footprint linked to raising sheep is higher than that linked to growing cotton (to give you an idea, because of methane emissions, sheep farming accounts for almost 50% of New Zealand's greenhouse gases).

2- The insulating properties of wool stay the same, whether it is recycled or not. In short, it can make sense to use recycled wool for certain products, such as blankets (as has been done for centuries) or for insulating garments (as Patagonia does).

Next project: Nothing planned at this stage; recycled wool is not a priority for us. We may consider it for products where the softness of the fibre matters less (e.g. pea coats, jackets...)

Synthetic materials like polyester or polyamide are generally derived from petroleum, and processing them requires a lot of energy (oil extraction, distillation, cracking, polymerisation, etc.). Recycling these materials takes less energy and therefore emits fewer greenhouse gases than using virgin materials. On top of that:

1- There's plenty of plastic waste to recycle: used plastic bottles for polyester, fishing nets for polyamide, etc.

2- The quality of recycled polyester isn't very different from that of regular polyester (it may pill more easily and it's harder to achieve very light colours, but nothing serious)

Even so, is recycling synthetic materials a perfect solution? Far from it.

Recycling isn't an infinite closed loop. First, only a small portion of garments end up in recycling channels, and when they do, they're sometimes very difficult to recycle (they're often made of several textile materials). Then, these materials can't be recycled indefinitely: to maintain a sufficient level of quality, virgin material often has to be added.

But above all, making a garment from recycled synthetic materials does require a tiny bit less energy, but the reduction in consumption is marginal. Indeed, producing textile fibres emits only 15% of the greenhouse gases of manufacturing a garment. The rest of the manufacturing, which emits 85% of the greenhouse gases, stays unchanged: the fibres still have to be shredded, spun, woven, bleached, then the garment made, transported, and so on.

Finally, saying that garments are "recyclable" or "recycled" can keep consumers under the illusion that we can keep consuming without any impact on the environment, and therefore leads us away from the only viable solution: reducing our consumption.

Next projects:

- Making our garments with recycled polyamide or polyester isn't the magic solution to the pollution generated by the textile industry. Nonetheless, in situations where we'd have to choose between virgin synthetic material and recycled synthetic material, we'll choose the recycled material, which reduces the garment's environmental impact a little, provided it doesn't significantly reduce the lifespan of our garments.
- Designing the next Loom swimsuit with recycled polyester (from waste like plastic bottles) or recycled polyamide (from waste like fishing nets, carpets, airbags, etc.).

Update January 2022: We've been using recycled polyester for our swimsuit since summer 2021

Update May 2023: In the end we dug into it and this recycled polyester isn't such a good idea after all. Here's a whole article on the subject.

Sneaker soles are usually made of gum (a blend of natural and synthetic rubber). For our sneakers, we tested a sole made from gum recycled from the factory's material offcuts. This is what's called "pre-consumer" recycling: basically, the factory collects the defective or non-conforming soles from its production line and melts them down to make new ones. Compared to "post-consumer" recycling (i.e. after the sneaker has been assembled and worn), the quality is better because the raw material is far more homogeneous. But when we tested this recycled sole for abrasion resistance, it turned out to be 30% less resistant than a sole made of non-recycled gum. That's no surprise: recycled materials are generally less stable than virgin materials. So if the sneakers last 3 years with a normal sole, they'd only last 2 years with a recycled sole! We therefore chose to stick with a virgin gum sole. Environmentally speaking, what we'd gain with a recycled sole could never make up for that reduction in lifespan. To make this clearer, let's take an example. If we save 1kg CO2 of greenhouse gases thanks to a recycled sole, but a more resistant sole increases the sneaker's lifespan by 30% and producing the sneaker emits 20kg CO2, we ultimately cut greenhouse gases by 30%*20-1 = 5kg CO2.

Dyeing is a highly chemical process, with many compounds that are potentially dangerous to health or to the environment via wastewater (for example: azo dyes, which are potentially carcinogenic, or NPE surfactants, which are harmful to fertility). All of our fabrics are dyed in Europe (where wastewater treatment legislation is strict) and certified OEKO-TEX or GOTS, labels that are even stricter than the REACH regulations in force in the European Union on the use of chemical compounds. No risk of “red rivers,” unlike in certain other parts of the world. Among other things, we make sure there is no:
- alkylphenols (used to dye garments): our dyeing is done at the start of the process (either on the yarn or on the raw material) and our fabrics are certified OEKO-TEX or GOTS all the way through to their manufacture.
- phthalates (used for printing on garments): none of our garments feature any printing

But the dyes we use still involve certain chemical processes that one might be tempted to eliminate entirely by turning to “natural” dyes, for example. The problem: the more you limit the use of chemical components, the more you risk reducing the durability of the dye and therefore the lifespan of the garment. Natural dyes thus hold up far less long than synthetic dyes, unless you add chemical “mordants” to fix the dye...

Next project: dyeing is still an area we know little about, and we need to deepen our knowledge on the subject before committing to any project. We will write an article dedicated to this topic to share our findings and the decisions that came out of them.

Update January 2022:
- We have launched an undyed range

Chemical finishes are used to alter the final appearance of clothing. Along with dyeing, they are the other manufacturing step where the toxicity generated can be significant. Examples: potentially carcinogenic formaldehyde resins to reduce shrinkage or wrinkling (as on some "Easy Iron" garments), or PFCs (perfluorinated compounds), potential endocrine disruptors used to strengthen the waterproofing of clothing. In the past, some Loom garments received chemical finishes, such as our stain-proof shirt or our swim shorts (the main fabric was treated to prevent discolouration from chlorine and salt, and the mesh lining to be water-repellent and quick-drying). We decided to stop using these finishes, in particular PFCs: we are currently working on developing a resin-free swim shorts and we have stopped the production and sale of the stain-proof shirt.

Our wool products are machine-washable: at most brands, wool's non-felting properties are obtained through the use of resins and other chemical finishes that may be endocrine disruptors. We opted for an electrical treatment (plasma treatment), with no risk of toxicity. Today, all the fabrics we use are GOTS certified or at least OEKO-TEX, labels that are even stricter than the REACH regulations in force in the European Union on the use of chemical compounds.

Next project: We no longer use chemical resins to improve the performance of our fabrics; instead we are looking into non-toxic enzymes (as is the case for all our circular-knit products, where reduced pilling is achieved through "bio polishing") or mechanical solutions (as is the case for our wool sweaters, treated electrically so they can be machine-washed). For our more technical garments (such as our swim shorts), we will use only PFC-free textiles.

Update January 2022:
- The fabric of our swim shorts no longer has a "dry speed" treatment

We mention it in our commitments: we use as few synthetic fibres as possible (polyester, polyamide, elastane, acrylic) to minimise the shedding of microfibres into the oceans during washing. That said, we do occasionally use them when we can't find any alternative. Typically, there's no alternative to elastane for giving stretch to chinos, socks or boxers.

But contrary to what you often read, when it comes to microfibre shedding, synthetic materials aren't the only problem: cotton garments shed microfibres too, and if they're dyed, they break down in water just as poorly as plastic fibres. So using synthetic materials is just as problematic as using dyed natural materials. And unless everyone dresses in undyed ecru, we can't give up dyeing entirely.

The only way to limit this microfibre shedding is therefore to make more durable textiles (long fibres, ringspun or compact spinning, plied yarns, dense weaving or knitting, etc.): fortunately, that's our number one obsession.

Next project: developing a range of dye-free garments.

Update January 2022:
- We've launched a dye-free range

We are an e-commerce company: we deliver clothes to you via delivery vehicles that run on fuel. But contrary to what you might think, shopping online has a much smaller carbon footprint than taking your car to go shopping: with e-commerce, CO2 emissions are actually shared across all the parcels carried by the delivery vehicle. You can have fun with this simulator if you want to compare the two methods. On the other hand, if you do your shopping on foot, by bike, or by public transport, then it's much better to go straight to the shop rather than have it delivered.

Next project : What we're constantly working on is reducing our rate of returns and clothing exchanges. Because a garment that travels a lot isn't good for anyone: not for our finances, not for you who have to send parcels back, and not for the planet :)

Update January 2022: We plan to open a shop in Paris within the next 6 months

Update May 2023: The Paris shop is open! Come and see us at 4 rue Barbette, in the Marais

We use two types of packaging in our production: the packaging used to deliver Loom parcels to your door, and the transparent plastic packaging known as "polybags" to transport garments from the factories to the logistics warehouse.

To reduce the environmental impact of our final packaging, we've chosen kraft envelopes, and we explain why here. For larger orders, we use cardboard boxes, made in the Île-de-France region around Paris, whose wood comes from sustainably managed European forests. And like all cardboard, this packaging is genuinely recyclable: not only does the recycling technology exist, but the system is fairly well established in France. In short, you can put it in the recycling bin and it will be reborn as a small new cardboard box.

As for the polybags: after production, all factories pack the garments into these plastic bags to protect them during transport to the brands' warehouses. But since this bag is a bit ugly, many brands throw it away and then re-wrap the garment in tissue paper before sending it to you. That's what we did at first too. Then we faced the obvious: it isn't very eco-friendly to use two packages rather than one. So we decided to leave our garments in this plastic. It also helps make up for kraft being a little less sturdy than plastic (we refer you to this page for more details): if the shipping packaging tears a little, your white t-shirt is still protected from the rain. Unfortunately, like all soft polyethylene packaging, our polybags can't be recycled from private homes because there's no dedicated system for it. So the best we can do is use polybags made from recycled plastic (that's what we've been doing since 2019). Still, bear in mind that their carbon footprint is relatively small: 200 plastic bags pollute as much as a single cotton t-shirt, for example.

Next projects:
- Ideally we'd remove our polybags altogether, but that's not for right now: first we need to set up special processes with our factories so the garments don't get damaged or dirty during transport.
- On the other hand, we know that the kraft envelopes used to send you parcels tend to tear in cases of excessive moisture (when it rains, basically). We're looking into other, more resistant types of kraft.

Update January 2022:
- After giving the packaging question a lot of thought, we realised it was a bad idea to put our energy into this topic: all our packaging pollutes, but it's really nothing compared to the carbon impact of a garment. That of a cotton t-shirt, for example, is 7000g of CO2 equivalent* - that is to say 350 times more than our kraft envelope. So don't be mistaken: what matters isn't having "eco-friendly" packaging, it's only buying the clothes you really need.

Data centres are among the biggest polluters on the planet: they consume roughly 10% of the world's electricity. At Loom, we have two hosting providers: OVH for our blog and Google Cloud (via Shopify) for our e-commerce site. OVH says it keeps a close eye on the issue and even installs wind turbines. But it's mainly Google Cloud that has done a great job on this front (after all, the boss is called Diane Greene — you couldn't make it up). Since 2017, 100% of their energy has come from renewable sources. Of course, that percentage remains rather theoretical: solar and wind power production varies over time, whereas Google's demand is more or less constant. So some of the energy inevitably comes from non-renewable sources, such as oil or coal.

But on this subject too, our efforts must focus on reducing our consumption. That's why we're working to reduce the weight of our web pages, in particular by refusing to host videos on them (which account for more than 80% of the volume of data exchanged on the internet).

Next project: Making our website more energy-efficient. This involves two things: 1/ having lighter pages so as to consume less data and therefore less electricity at server level 2/ taking a more "low tech" approach in the technologies we use, so as not to contribute to the planned obsolescence of users' computers/smartphones (whose forced replacement consumes a great deal of energy and resources).

Wearing a piece of clothing for one more year reduces its carbon footprint by 24%. That's why we encourage our customers to repair their products. If they have a faulty product, we offer a fixed rate to cover the cost of repairs at a local tailor. If they've got a tear or lost a button, we advise them on the best way to fix it.

Coming up next:
- Claire joined the Loom team in March 2020 and is our go-to person on this topic. One of her missions is to write tips that everyone can follow to easily repair our clothes, and to show that a mended, re-dyed piece of clothing looks really rather lovely.
- We're also looking into the possibility of setting up a "repair e-shop" so you can buy replacement parts for our clothes on our website and extend their lifespan. For now, we don't yet have the size, the profitability, or the resources to handle this repair work ourselves (the way Patagonia does), but we hope to get there one day.
- Finally, we need to make our clothes easier to repair. So we have to build "ease of repair" into the design of our products from the start.

Update January 2022:
- We've tested and documented plenty of ways to care for our clothes. Thanks to this new knowledge, we can better advise our customers and everyone who reads our tips.

Saying that we can recycle or reuse clothes at the end of their life has something intellectually very appealing about it: we get the impression that we can "close the loop", generate almost no impact and therefore consume endlessly. No wonder the players in fast fashion talk so much about this possibility, by installing recycling bins in stores, for example, so that customers can drop off their clothes there.

The reality is far less appealing, for two main reasons:

1/ If we look at what happens to clothes dropped off in recycling bins in France, we are a very long way from "closed-loop recycling":
- Only 6% of donated clothes are resold as they are in second-hand shops in France.
- 55% of clothes are exported to Africa… and end up in gigantic open-air landfills.
- The rest of the clothes are recycled, but not in a closed loop at all. Today, the technologies don't make it possible to generate materials of good enough quality to make other clothes. The vast majority of clothes are therefore "downcycled" today, in other words turned into rags, insulation or padding for car seats, for example.

2/ Claiming that we can recycle clothes endlessly keeps consumers under the illusion that we can always consume just as much… This can create a "rebound effect", sustained by certain fast fashion brands that even give out discount vouchers when customers come to drop off their old clothes in recycling bins.

So the paradox is this: while we see brands everywhere talking about clothes "recycling", we have never destroyed as many of them in the world. Communicating about end-of-life recycling therefore seems rather counterproductive.

This doesn't mean we should stop dropping our clothes in recycling bins or making an effort to produce clothes that are easier to recycle. In fact, at Loom, since 2020, we have been factoring in the notion of "ease of recycling" when designing our products (for example, by replacing metal eyelets with embroidered eyelets whenever possible).

But at Loom, the end of life is not where we chose to put our energy. For us, the first battle is to reduce our gigantic consumption of clothes. For example, if we have to choose between making a garment easier to recycle and making a garment more durable, we will always go for the 2nd option.

Our free shipping threshold is set at €100 - a fairly standard level in the clothing e-commerce world. It keeps us from losing money on small orders and encourages people to combine their purchases with us, thereby reducing the environmental impact of shipping. That said, we're aware that it can also push our customers to add more items to their basket, and so it represents a form of encouragement to consume.

Next project: setting up Mondial Relay deliveries (cheaper than Colissimo) to offer lower shipping fees and reduce the incentive to reach the €100 threshold

To minimise the risk of poor working conditions, we work with suppliers in countries where the law properly protects employees (France, Portugal, Spain, Italy), and where the minimum wage is higher than the living wage. We also work with partners in a relationship built on trust: we visit them on average twice a year, and in the past, we have ended collaborations upon discovering subcontracting or questionable practices. The combination of these two factors (national laws and closeness to our factories) seems to us the best guarantee of decent working conditions. This applies to the factories that make and wash our clothes (tier 1) but also to those that weave, knit and dye our fabrics (with the exception of our chinos, where we only know our finisher, not our weaver) (tier 2). However, we do not have this level of knowledge for all the factories that make and dye our yarns (tier 3) nor for the farms and factories that supply our raw materials (tier 4).

Regarding our raw materials, the main risk comes from cotton. GOTS certification ensures a certain level of ethics in working conditions, but it would be better to also have "fair-trade" certification. For now, we're held back by the complexity and cost of this extra step.

What we're working on next:
- We are studying in more detail what the "fair-trade" label guarantees, whether it is relevant for some of our products and how we might eventually roll it out for some of our products

- We are continuing our efforts to work only with factories in France, Portugal, Italy and Spain, while knowing that this is impossible in some cases. Through these efforts, we not only eliminate the risk of poor working conditions but also encourage the relocation of the textile industry back home.
- The buckles on our belts are made in China. We're trying to find a French or European supplier who could make them, but we've failed so far.
- We try to identify all our tier 3 and tier 4 suppliers. If they are not located in the countries identified above, we try to find an equivalent supplier closer by, capable of giving us equivalent quality, even if it costs us more (which is always the case). These efforts are made difficult by our constraint of sourcing certified GOTS raw materials of good quality: this reduces the number of factories able to supply the products we're looking for.
- To force ourselves to stick to these goals, we mention on all our product pages (in the origin tab) the name, city and country of the factories involved in making it. If we don't know this information, we say so too.

WOOL
Whenever possible, we use “mulesing free” wool (mulesing is a painful practice, common in Australia, that involves removing part of the perianal skin of sheep to prevent certain flies from laying larvae there), certified RWS. These are just about the best guarantees for ensuring that the sheep live in good conditions and don't suffer during shearing or transport. To do better, we would need to source French wool and visit the farms regularly.

LEATHER
Leather is a by-product of the industrial farming of cattle raised for their meat, whose animal welfare practices are regularly denounced. We wrote a long article to help understand everything that using this material involves. At present, it is impossible to guarantee farming without animal suffering, but we believe that in the short term, the best strategy in favour of animal welfare is to make industrial farming disappear and to encourage the survival and development of small extensive farms with virtuous practices. To that end, we choose leather produced in Europe and we push for a leather traceability system that would make it possible to choose hides from the most virtuous farms. In concrete terms, this means that: We choose bovine leather. The inside of some shoes is currently made of pig leather, and given today's farming conditions, the odds that the pig didn't suffer are about the same as winning the lottery. We work with trusted tanneries in Portugal and Spain and with European-origin leather, which we know is in principle more respectful of animal welfare and less polluting than others.

Next project: We will trace the leather supply chain back as far as possible so that we can guarantee the hides come from traditional pastoral farms with as little animal suffering as possible. Our economic power is very limited (our turnover is ridiculous compared to that of the big brands), but by writing this kind of article and talking about this subject with our various contacts, we hope to help move the leather industry forward on the question of traceability.

Update January 2022
-Leather : we contacted the various organisations and tanneries claiming to be able to ensure leather traceability, but we never heard back.

Most of our clothes are available from XS to XL. Developing XXL or 3XL sizes is complex because these sizes require a specific pattern (the gradations are no longer linear: we've already tried and failed spectacularly) and because it's difficult to find pattern makers who are skilled in this area. On top of that, they require a high sales volume: these are sizes that sell relatively little and can generate overstock and therefore additional costs, which can threaten our company's profitability. At first, we thought that offering larger sizes wasn't our responsibility, but as we learned more about fatphobia and its consequences, we realised that, as a fashion brand, we simply couldn't ignore the subject.

Next projects:- For the men's collection, we're going to gradually introduce clothes in 2XL and 3XL. For the women's collection, we want to offer these sizes right from the launch. Does this concern you and would you like to lend us a hand? Answer this questionnaire for the larger sizes of our men's collection or the one for the women's collection.
- We'll share what we've learned from this experience so that other brands can also easily offer clothes in larger sizes.

Update January 2022 :
- We've launched the women's collection going up to size 48 and 3XL

We work with several service providers where we do not set the working conditions ourselves: Logtex (France) for storing and shipping our clothes, SMT (France) for the resistance testing of our products, Auditia (France) for our accounting, Colissimo (France) for order delivery. Almost all of them are based in France (which guarantees decent working conditions), except for the agency in charge of our web development, based in Ukraine. We love working with this agency: the work is really well done, the people are lovely, we send each other gifts, photos and jokes… and of course, it costs us at least half as much as it would in France. On top of that, jobs in IT development are well paid in this country. That said, we are aware that social protection there is much weaker than in France, and that exchanging e-mails will never replace a genuine close relationship.

Next project: We will look for an IT development agency in France once we have reached the break-even point (we hope in 2021).

Update October 2022: We now work with a (great) web development agency based in France: Apotech Studio.

Our computers are Macs, our mailboxes are on Gmail, we have Instagram and Facebook accounts and we even order things on Amazon from time to time... Even though open source tools and ethical alternatives exist, we use the tools of the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), which (on our very small scale) reinforces the monopolistic position of these companies. If we use them, it's because their tools are by far the best performing on the market... and we don't really fancy making our working days any longer. The alternative tools we've tested simply aren't up to scratch for now. Unfortunately, you can't fight every battle.

Next project: Nothing planned for now, we're keeping our fingers crossed that Framasoft becomes as high-performing as the Google suite.

Within the Loom team, we are 4 women and 4 men. The company covers co-parental leave so that it lasts as long as the maternity leave provided by the state. Our salary scale is fixed, transparent and consistent across all roles, in order to avoid any pay discrimination. We strive to eliminate from our practices all misogynistic, homophobic, racist, fat-phobic or ableist behaviours or jokes. We continuously train ourselves on these topics and on discrimination in general. We are aware of the relative homogeneity of our team, but we run into a dead end: since positive discrimination is prohibited in France, we cannot make our recruitment conditional on belonging to a minority.

Next project : For our future hires, we are going to review our selection criteria and the places where we post job offers, in order to encourage applications from people more likely to face discrimination in employment.