Circularity

In order to create truly sustainable fashion, we recognize that we must address the full life cycle of our garments, from raw materials to end of life — and back again.

The environmental impact of a product at the end of its life is large — the majority of textiles ultimately end up in landfill or incinerated. We understand that we must close the loop and create a system that uses recycled inputs and reduces waste. To do so, we are building programs to address product end of life and create circular design systems that reduce waste and increase recycling, upcycling and reuse.

We affirmed that durable and well-loved garments, worn time after time, will have lower life cycle impacts.

Product Life Cycle

To understand environmental impacts for the entire process—from design, to sourcing, to manufacturing, all the way to a customer’s closet—we perform life cycle assessments (LCA). We use these to evaluate indicators such as product carbon emissions, chemicals and water usage from cradle to grave. Our LCAs helped us understand where we can engage our supply chain, internal teams and customers to help reduce the environmental impacts of our products at all stages.

Given that denim plays such an important role in each of our brands’ assortments, we measured the environmental impact of a pair of both men’s and women’s jeans, as well as one of our T-shirts. Our findings revealed that, in terms of water, raw materials have the greatest impact, primarily due to the water required in cotton cultivation. Consumer use contributed the second-highest water impact due to laundering garments. Consumer use also contributed the most significant carbon emissions due to the high level of energy required to dry jeans and other clothes.

Using these results, we increased focus our efforts in areas where we have direct influence: raw materials selection, fabric development, garment production and finishing. We also affirmed that durable and well-loved garments, worn time after time, will have lower life cycle impacts, which has strengthened our commitment to classic, well-made designs that our customers love and keep for years.

We are building on our communication with customers for a deeper form of engagement that encourages people who buy our clothing to make sustainable choices, starting with what they purchase and ending with what they do with the clothes that they no longer wear. We communicate our product sustainability efforts through store displays, product descriptions, product labeling, social media and other channels, as well as educational campaigns and media around events like Earth Day and World Water Day.

Industry Collaboration

Textile Exchange

In 2020, we worked together with Textile Exchange, a long-time partner, for the public release of our Preferred Fiber Toolkit. 

Our Toolkit – which we created alongside Textile Exchange and MADE-BY in 2018 – was designed to empower our internal product teams to select the best fibers based on sustainability impacts through expanded trainings that are integrated into our companywide learning and development program. This strategic approach allows us to support progress in a holistic way by making sustainability a core skillset of our employees, and by giving them the resources they need to make decisions and take actions that improve the sustainability of our products. In addition to life-cycle assessment (LCA) data on global-warming potential, water use and eutrophication, we consider a holistic set of indicators while evaluating our preferred fibers strategy, including biodiversity, potential for circularity, chemistry, land-use change and social conditions within production. 

With this partnership, the Toolkit will be developed as a publicly available, industry-wide resource, providing companies with consolidated, validated guidance so that together we can create healthier communities while better protecting the planet.

Gap Inc. is committed to joining partnerships that advance circular business models, create innovative solutions to outstanding issues, engage customers and scale new technologies.

These partnerships are supporting our strategy and setting the stage for large-scale industry-level innovation.

As part of our education efforts, we have continued to incorporate sustainability workshops and educational training into our companywide learning and development program. To date, we’ve reached over 1,800 employees with workshops on a range of topics, including Sustainability 101, Sustainability Claims, Fiber Sustainability, Conscious Design for Circularity, Sustainable Wet Processing and Sustainable Denim. We also publish a monthly newsletter on product sustainability, which provides the latest sustainability developments and best practices to hundreds of employees. In line with our commitment to the GFA commitment to education, we have hosted intensive workshops for many of our designers and other product-focused teams on how to incorporate circular thinking and sustainability into their product-creation process. 

Microfiber Shedding

As we consider the complete life cycle impacts of garments, we are also working to investigate the emerging issue of microfibers on the environment, especially those that come from synthetic textiles. There is still a lot we are seeking to understand about microfiber shedding; what are the primary sources of fibers, what textiles and laundering methods have the highest impact, what is the scope of the issue, and what we can do to reduce and eliminate the impact of shedding from textiles.

Microfibers, alongside other microplastics, can come from a wide variety of sources, and we’re working urgently with the apparel industry and cross-industry groups to better understand what we can do to address this issue. Alongside other brands and the Outdoor Industry Association, we have committed resources to research this issue so we can make informed decisions to address microfiber impacts. We are also working with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and others to investigate fiber and textile innovations – we feel we must work on finding solutions alongside understanding the scope of the issue.

There are some steps research has shown that consumers may take to reduce microfiber shedding from garments: reduce the frequency with which they wash clothes, follow washing directions on the garment tag, reduce use of fabric softeners and look into washing machine filters that can capture fibers.