Nobody can tell you when your uniform needs a passport
Ask five people when the EU Digital Product Passport applies to clothing and you will get five answers. None of them are lying, and the honest answer matters more than the date.
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Beyond the fabric
Stories, ideas and insights on sustainability, circular design and conscious living.
31 posts
Free CPD does not have to mean generic: a shortlist for sustainability training
Teachers are told to embed sustainability across the curriculum, usually with no training budget. Here is what is worth the evening, and what it will not give you.
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Your school's uniform order has quietly become a due diligence decision
The EU due diligence directive was due in national law this month. Almost no school is in scope, which is precisely why schools should understand what it asks of their suppliers.
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Uniforms should not die in a bin: what workwear trade-in teaches dress codes
When an organisation rebrands, thousands of wearable garments are shredded to protect a logo. There is a way to retire the identity without destroying the cloth.
Read moreHow long should a school blazer actually last?
Durability is a laboratory measurement, not an adjective. Here are the tests that produce it, why a single number can mislead you, and the rules about to force the figures into the open.
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Textiles are first in line for the EU's Digital Product Passport, and it is not a compliment
The Commission named apparel the top priority group under ESPR. We were chosen because we know less about our own products than almost any other sector.
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Bringing the mending table into school: what a repair club actually teaches
A lunchtime mending club costs about the price of a textbook. What it changes is not the waste figure. It is the child's relationship to owning something.
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Most of the people sewing school blazers are women, and they earn less for it
An ILO study across nine garment exporting countries found an average 18.5 per cent gender pay gap, with only a quarter of it explained by experience or education.
Read moreFibre to fibre recycling only takes garments that know what they are
Textile recycling capacity is finally arriving at industrial scale. It is also extremely fussy about feedstock, and a school blazer is one of the hardest cases in the wardrobe.
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Mend, don't replace: what happens when a government pays for repairs
France funded around 250,000 clothing repairs in six months by taking a few euros off the price. It turns out mending was never a skills problem. It was an arithmetic problem.
Read moreBrussels shelved one green claims law. A different one still lands in September
The Green Claims Directive was withdrawn, so many people assumed the crackdown was off. An already adopted law bans vague environmental claims from 27 September 2026 regardless.
Read moreTeaching supply-chain literacy with a QR code and a real garment
The EU switched on its Digital Product Passport registry this July. Clothing rules are years away, which makes right now the best time to teach the idea.
Read moreMade in Spain is not a verification
In April the Labour Inspectorate closed a clandestine workshop in the province of Valencia. Proximity feels like knowledge. It is not the same thing, and the label cannot tell them apart.
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Before the EU mandates it: why a Bellver uniform already has a passport
Scan the label in a Bellver polo and you get what the EU will eventually call a Digital Product Passport. Nobody required it yet. Here is what it contains and what it cost to build.
Read moreThe tumble dryer is quietly wearing out your child's uniform
Heat and tumbling do more damage to school clothes than washing does. Air drying roughly halves shrinkage, and one study put the lifetime saving at around 1,800 euros.
Read morePFAS in school clothes: France banned them, and what I would ask for instead of a promise
France restricted PFAS in consumer textiles from January 2026 and Denmark follows this month. What the compounds do in a uniform, and how to read a test report rather than a label.
Read moreSostenibilidad ya no es optativa: teaching it with the uniform already in the room
LOMLOE made sustainability a cross-curricular competency and gave teachers very little material for it. The uniform is already in the room, and it has a supply chain.
Read moreThirteen years after Rana Plaza, the questions still have to come from buyers
The agreement that came out of the 2013 collapse now covers around two and a half million workers, and it is up for renegotiation again. Institutional buyers are why it survives.
Read moreEngland will make schools offer secondhand uniform. Spain can build a better version.
A reuse requirement lands in England this September. Reuse rarely fails on logistics. It fails on dignity, and on what a secondhand garment still carries from the family before.
Read moreWhy your next washing machine will have a filter, and what to do until it does
France has required microfibre filters on new washing machines since January 2025, the first mandate of its kind. Here is what it changes, and what works on the machine you already own.
Read moreThe EU wants 10% recycled fibre in every garment. Can it survive a playground?
A minimum recycled content rule is being asked for from 2028. Here is what recycled fibre actually does to a uniform, and why the percentage means nothing without a durability test beside it.
Read moreThe Green Flag deadline, and the project you can still run
Eco-Schools England closes Green Flag submissions on 31 July. If your action plan is thin, the fastest visible project in the building is already sitting in lost property.
Read moreA cap on branded items is the easy half of uniform cost
New rules limit how many uniform items carry a school crest. That fixes the September invoice. It does nothing about whether the jumper survives until March.
Read moreSpain's textile EPR decree is coming for school uniforms
Spain notified its draft textile producer responsibility decree to the EU in May 2026. Here is what it actually asks for, and why it reaches a school and not only a factory.
Read moreOrganic is not the finish line: what regenerative cotton means for the next uniform
Organic certification records what was not applied to a field. Regenerative asks whether the soil was rebuilt. Ask which standard, and which version of it, not just whether there is a logo.
Read moreGrowth, not wear, is what kills most school uniforms
The average family spends hundreds a year on uniform, and most of what gets replaced is not worn out. Fit planning is the least glamorous longevity strategy there is, and the most effective.
Read moreGOTS, OEKO-TEX and the label soup: what uniform certifications actually check
The two logos get quoted side by side as if they meant the same thing. They audit different things at different points in the chain, and the gap between them is where claims go to hide.
Read moreThe 30-minute, 20 degree wash: why quicker and cooler beats hot and long
One study changed how I do my family's laundry. A short cool cycle released up to 52 per cent fewer microfibres and up to 74 per cent less dye than a long hot one.
Read moreWhat 110,000 green schools have in common, and where the uniform fits
UNESCO counts more than 110,000 schools aligned to its green school standard. Buildings and canteens are treated as teaching tools. The clothes are not.
Read moreChoosing a fabric is choosing a farming community
By the time a child puts on a polo shirt, the decision that produced it is two years old. Here is where the trail from the field usually breaks, and what holds it together.
Read moreWhere do old school uniforms really go?
The EU exported over 1.44 million tonnes of used textiles in 2025. The trade is not the villain, but a crested school jumper is close to the worst thing you can put into it.
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