One of the most relevant points and objectives that circular economy regulations are focusing on is the traceability of the materials and final products. Traceability enhances transparency and helps authorities control an entire product’s lifecycle, which encourages manufacturers and retailers to adopt ethical production and market practices.
Adopting traceability in a company’s strategy is one of the most challenging and profitable objectives for them, to comply with the newest circularity regulations or to promote their sustainable practices. Discover 9 tips to implement traceability in your fashion industry
Under EU law, “traceability” means the ability to track any product or material that will be used for consumption, through all stages of production, processing and distribution.
European Commission, 2007
For the textile industry, traceability means to make the information about how fibres and materials were sourced, processed, and produced through the supply chain available. The main objective of traceability is to enhance transparency and enable more circular decisions in organisations.
There are multiple benefits to promoting traceability on a product's label, both for consumers and companies. Transparency improves the quality of processes, making it easier to identify errors or incorrect procedures, and boosting safer and more efficient procedures, which will also reduce production costs. This product’s information will also increase and facilitate authorities' control of the products, identifying how exactly is a product and which is its environmental impact.
If a company desires to take advantage of traceability, it must see it as a possible competitive advantage and define a correct strategy related to traceability. In the actual context where consumers are more aware and worried about their consumption habits and environmental footprint, so it is important to provide this type of information to them.
The first step in every business strategy is to check the current situation. An internal or external audition to discover how transparent is a company, and to trace its products during their entire lifecycle is the starting point of future traceability new actions.
Transparency is always related to certifications. They are an easy communication tool to ensure transparency for a company's consumers. In the first audition, it would be helpful to identify which are the most popular certifications related to your products and how to get them.
Information is at the core of any traceability action. Reporting information about every stage of the supply chain is fundamental, and it is important to require details about the origin and how a material is managed by our suppliers.
There are many partners to work with to adopt circularity into your business. Sustainability assessors, suppliers, or waste management are examples of how a brand can partner with others to increase its traceability. Recovo, for example, can help a fashion brand to manage its leftover fabrics to reuse them with its internal software CiMS, or the possibility to sell them on its deadstock fabrics marketplace.
If traceability is not communicated to a company’s consumers, there is no sense for it. Labelling and communicating how a product has been made or where its materials come from makes the difference between brands, especially if a brand wants to promote quality.
Labelling will also help our society to educate consumers. If a consumer understands why a certain product got a certification, this one will be more qualified for him.
During the last few years, traceability regulations have been the focus of many authorities. The latest European Digital Product Passport and the EU Ecolabel regulations define how important is traceability for the European Commission, making it very important for companies to be compliant and operate in the European market.
Automatization makes easy repetitive tasks. Assigning repetitive tasks to an automatization software is going to minimize risks and make. Implementing this type of system is going to promote traceability, which can sometimes be difficult for some companies.
Technology has always been one of the better allies for traceability. There are many ways where technology can increase and help a company to increase its traceability For example, Recovo launched an internal deadstock fabrics CiMS software which automatically reports how is your company performing in terms of circularity.
Traceability must be at the core of any company strategy, guaranteeing it increases the transparency of a brand, which must be a priority for it to generate confidence in its consumers. Authorities are also into it: several regulations have been developed during the last few years to increase transparency and product traceability, promoting circular economy practices and reducing the textile industry footprint.
Recovo creates circular solutions for the fashion industry. We cover various aspects of the circular economy for brands:
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