The production of denim harms the environment, and given the industry’s size, the negative impact is significant. Therefore, denim must be produced more sustainably. In order to bring about change in the industry, an increase in demand for eco-friendly jeans is necessary to incentivise investments in sustainable production methods. Here, low-cost clothing brands and retailers can play a crucial role. With their substantial share in the denim industry and their connection to consumers, they have the ability to grow demand through effective Sustainability Communication. Unfortunately, their efforts currently overwhelm and confuse consumers, consequently damaging consumers’ green buying intentions. Therefore, this thesis, in collaboration with House of Denim, a non-profit striving for a more sustainable denim industry, investigates how low-cost brands and retailers can adapt their Sustainability Communication to ultimately increase the popularity of sustainable jeans.

To find a solution, this thesis examines the inter-organisational relations in the current system for SC, the brand's and retailers’ experience of the system and future notions by means of interviews and a literature study.

The investigation of the current system uncovered the multifaceted complexity that causes the SC shortcomings of low-budget brands and retailers. The inter-organisational challenges that contribute to this complexity are the indefinite and incomplete means of authorities that fall short in offering the industry constructive guidance. In addition, internal challenges from brands and retailers contribute to the complexity as their commercial strategy is in conflict with sustainability efforts; they operate individually and end up discouraged. On top of that, the competitive nature of the fashion industry, driven by seasonality, and fast-changing trends on low price points makes it challenging for low-cost brands and retailers to prioritise sustainable efforts.
Nevertheless, upcoming European legislation and showcasing eco-efforts to consumers are the predominant motivators for these businesses to invest in sustainable practices.

To overcome the complexity, brands and retailers must collaborate to level the playing field for SC towards consumers. Therefore, the final design is a proposal for a Dutch Denim Coalition. It presents the vision in a storytelling poster, suggests a strategy to build the coalition and offers dialogue starters. The coalition unites brands and retailers and connects them with knowledge and experts. The goal is to encourage managers from brands and retailers to adopt the same principles for sustainable denim and collectively work on improving the current system for SC.

This thesis highlights the fundamental issues that hinder the change of these low-cost clothing brands and retailers. It emphasises the significance of involving non-sustainable brands and retailers in sustainability discussions, as they represent a large part of the denim market and cannot be ignored. Hence, the design suggests a new direction for House of Denim which revives and enlarges the impact of their resources with a more inclusive view of the denim industry. Ultimately, it brings them one step closer to their vision; a Brighter Blue.

This thesis aims to find a new collection method for post-consumer denim garments that fits the future context and the needs of ecosystem stakeholders. The thesis is aimed at all who want to work on a circular fashion industry from a business- or ecosystem perspective. The design solution is aimed at brands and retailers.

In a circular economy, denim is recycled at the end-of-life. To scale up recycling, collecting needs scaling up. Now municipalities grant the right to collect garments to collectors. They use textiles containers. The profitability of this business model is decreasing and many garments still end up in the trash.

Stakeholders in the denim industry were interviewed about the barriers, drivers and ideal situation for collecting or working with post-consumer (recycled) denim. The most critical barriers stakeholders mentioned are: clothing is treated as a waste stream; the company’s scale is too small for impact; (fast) fashion is counteractive to circularity; financial barriers; a lack of transparency in the ecosystem; needing to convince consumers to hand in clothes; and uncertainties around legislation. The most important drivers they mentioned are: legislation (the Extended Producer Responsibility) leads to action; financial incentives (from legislation); more attention for sustainability; and growing consumer enthusiasm for sustainability. Consumers often value attributes like a comfortable fit over sustainability when buying garments. There is a need to educate the consumer on topics like handing in clothes. For an ideal situation, industry stakeholders mentioned: collaboration between stakeholders; sustainability is profitable; brands and retailers take care of different steps in the value chain; more transparency. They also asked: should the future be local or global; and should we create closed loops within a brand or the industry? Trends that impact the ecosystem are trends in logistics and legislation.

Brands and retailers will be impacted by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and will bear responsibility for collecting garments at the end-of-life. Therefore, the design challenge is to facilitate the collection of worn denim for brands and retailers. The thesis studied the case of De Rode Winkel to learn more about jeans collection in stores. This gave insight into the volume composition of the collected jeans. The retailer kept some of the jeans, which led to a decrease in revenue for the sorter. A different approach to the business model was needed. Therefore, the design challenge was redefined to develop the business case of collection as a service.

In the final design, Textiles2Textiles offers collection as a service (CaaS) to denim brands and retailers. The consumer hands in their garment at a store and receives a discount. The service, called the Collecting Collective, takes care of educating the consumer; providing retailers and brands with the means to collect; and sorting the garments and sending them to the right step in the value chain. The service can exist in a system without and with the EPR. At first, the service will be only for denim garments, but will later extend to the collection of all garments.

The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world, mostly due to the many ways fashion is polluting the environment (Fischer, 2015). First of all by the CO2 emission produced in manufacturing and logistics, second the massive amounts of water used in dyeing processes and production of natural resources, third the pollution of groundwater and rivers by pesticides and dyes and last but not least the enormous amount of waste created by fast fashion items that are only worn once. One of the most impactful garments in this industry is something most of us wear every day: a pair of jeans. The production of a single pair uses on average 8000 litres of water (Water Footprint Network, 2016). Besides water, toxic and corrosive chemicals are used to dye and ‘wash’ the jeans to its desired style. Every year, more than 2 billion pairs of jeans are produced worldwide, adding to its yet existing footprint (Greenpeace, 2016). Some brands in the industry are already putting a lot of effort into the production of sustainable denim. However, reducing the impact of the denim industry is not just up to denim brands and manufacturers anymore: consumers have to play their part as well. To raise awareness and higher the demand for sustainable jeans amongst consumers, this graduation project for House of Denim focusses on solving the following challenge: how might we help consumers buy better jeans? To raise the demand for sustainable jeans, the impact of a jeans has to become more transparent and understandable for consumers. In an attempt to achieve this, a jungle of certifications has popped up in the fashion and jeans industry, resulting in more confusion than transparency; many consumers are not familiar with any of these existing certifications. Besides awareness, understanding what a certification stands for demands quite some knowledge of materials or manufacturing from consumers. To make it easier for consumers to make a positive choice, Brighter Blue, a product rating tool, was developed in cooperation with denim experts and consumers. To accomplish this, the project used an inside- out approach to research the impact of a pair of jeans, to see what factors contribute most to this impact and to explore how this impact could be minimised. Afterwards, a case study was used as a parallel perspective, to see and learn how indices in other industries help change behaviour. Qualitative interviews with eight denim experts and a literature study on green consumer behaviour defined the most important challenges and design guidelines for Brighter Blue. These guidelines were further developed into a first minimum lovable prototype of the rating: the impact index. From this moment and outside-in approached was used to develop this concept using lean methodology. Through three design interventions with important industry stakeholders and (expert) consumers, the rating was developed into the final concept Brighter Blue. Brighter Blue is a positive and easy indicator of the best jeans out there: accessible on various levels to serve as many consumers as possible. By means of a hangtag and Google extension, the ratings are communicated to consumers, so they can look good and feel confident that they have made the right choice. An overarching platform conveys the message that sustainable choices do not have to be that hard or complicated: everyone can vote with their money. Brighter Blue helps consumers regain their power to decide and gives a little push to young conscious consumers that want to make better choices but not always know how. This thesis presents the development and final concept of Brighter Blue, including the rating methodology, working mechanism, benchmarks, prototypes of the various consumer tools, and a detailed plan for further implementation and market launch.

This project is executed on behalf of House of Denim; a non-profit organisation that wants to work towards a more sustainable, innovative and collaborative denim industry. Due to the fast-fashion phenomenon and our linear economic model, there is a growing demand for and pressure on cotton. This, combined with the increasing amount of clothes that are discarded and collected, asks for a systemic change: to work towards a more circular system. Since Amsterdam is internationally known as the jeans capital of Europe, the Dutch government wants to strive towards a circular denim industry in the Netherlands and involved House of Denim to work towards this goal. Increasing the use of post-consumer recycled cotton in denim production is defined as the first step. Increasing the use of recycled cotton in denim production is a complex systemic challenge. Designing for this challenge, asks for a systemic and holistic approach to be able to have a deep understanding of the current system and its complexity. Therefore this project is executed with a relatively new design approach: Systems Oriented Design (SOD). The project can serve as an example in incorporating systemic ways of designing in an educational programme. The main research question in this project is defined as: How can the demand for post-consumer recycled cotton in jeans production, started from within the Netherlands, be increased by triggering the key actor(s) or interaction(s) within the cycle? The research consisted mainly of interviews with experts of different parts of the value chain. By getting to know the different points of view, knowledge about the difficulties in producing and using PCR cotton, the role of all actors and the relations between the actors is gained. Three key problems are defined. 1. Brands have a negative perception of PCR denim. They perceive it as difficult, expensive and low quality fabric. 2. In order to work with PCR cotton, individual brands are given a complicated logistical challenge that results in a time consuming and expensive process. 3. The use of PCR fabric is not adopted as a common practice due to the lacking supply and demand of the fabric. Recycled denim products are not conventional in the shops and consumers do not actively demand it. The concept presented in this project is the Dutch Denim Programme. 
The Dutch Denim Programme is a collaborative and action-oriented program to work towards a Bright Blue loop: a circular denim industry in the Netherlands. The Dutch Denim Programme (DDP) helps brands to raise the demand for recycled cotton by stimulating them and facilitating a collaborative value chain. By setting up the network and initiating the material flow, the DDP will push participants to develop new recycled denim fabrics. Besides that, the DDP will launch the Bright Blue Loop label: a label for denim fabrics and products that contain 20% Dutch recycled cotton. By showing a joint effort, the industry can push the government to incentivize the use of recycled cotton. If the key-actors would participate in the Dutch Denim Programme, House of Denim would be able to realize a growth in the use of recycled cotton in denim production, which would reduce the environmental impact of the highly polluting denim industry.