Asket to highlight environmental costs of their garments

Swedish Menswear brand, Asket is introducing a new kind of receipt, which goes beyond the traditional itemised cash receipt, it will instead use it to break down and share the true environmental impact of a garment’s creation.

The ‘Impact Receipt’ will showcase the impact of every garment in their permanent collection, highlighting CO2 emitted, the amount water required and energy consumed for their garments’ creation.

The initiative is the result of two years work, during which Asket had each item of clothing examined by the Swedish Research Institute (RISE) in a two-year Life Cycle Assessment to determine each garments environmental impact. The move it states is to ask its customers to acknowledge the impact of their purchasing decision and encouraging them to maximise the use of their garments - rather than buying new ones.

“The fashion industry is one of the most resource intensive industries on the planet and right now we don’t put a price on the environment,” said August Bard-Bringéus, Asket co-founder in a statement. “By launching The Impact Receipt we want to show the true cost of a garment’s production and encourage not only ourselves but also our customers, and the industry as a whole, to think about the environmental debt we’re creating.”

Bard-Bringéus added: “We need to understand that we can’t shop our way out of the problem, no matter how enticing a brand’s messaging is - we must acknowledge our impact, shop less and wear our garments longer.”

Asket introduces the ‘Impact Receipt’ highlighting environmental impact of a garment

Asket states that the introduction of more transparency in the environmental impact of its garments is in response to increasing consumer awareness of the “far-reaching effects that fashion has on the environment”. The slow fashion Swedish brand believes that by communicating what it calls the “hard truth” about the garments environmental journey rather than using “consumption-enticing green messaging” is the only way to entice change within the industry.

The launch of the ‘Impact Receipt’ is part of Asket’s continued journey towards full transparency, the brand adds, which started in 2015 when it launched sharing a full price breakdown of every garment. Since then they have introduced full traceability of its garments’ supply chain from raw material to final garment. With the Impact Receipt, the environmental costs are now added giving the consumer an “uncompromising understanding of clothings’ inherent value”.

Bard-Bringéus added: “The Impact Receipt is the final piece of our total balance sheet: Price, Origin, Impact. A real understanding of what goes into making our clothing, is fundamental in being able to appreciate the impact of our choices, buying less and keeping our clothing longer. Without a reducing consumption, no amount of sustainable initiatives will make a dent.”

To mark the launch of the ‘Impact Receipt’, Asket will have CO2, water-use and energy consumption information available for their top selling garments - beginning with The T-shirt, The Oxford Shirt, The Chino and all Merino knitwear. The Swedish brand is targeting getting the whole collection part of the initiative by mid-2021. The information can be found on the individual product pages as well as an educational landing page.

Images: courtesy of Asket