A sustainability ‘toolkit' produced by clothing manufacturer Gap is to be made available industry-wide, in a bid to make it easier for companies to source sustainable textiles.

The Preferred Fiber Toolkit (PFT) is a resource for sourcing and design teams that is designed to make it easier to identify sustainable fibres and support the pursuit of corporate sustainability goals. Gap announced last week that it has teamed up with Textile Exchange, a global non-profit that promotes sustainable clothes, to adapt the PFT for wider use across the fashion industry.   

The resource is based on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition's (SAC) Higg Materials Sustainability Index and promotes the consideration of "holistic indicators" when selecting new fibers, including biodiversity, land-use change, and waste-elimination.

Launching the PFT, Gap Inc and Textile Exchange said the industry currently struggled to "cohesively measure and explain sourcing material choices" and as such they hoped the PFT could help the sector shift away from a company-by-company approach to sustainable sourcing that can be "subjective and opaque".

Gap Inc's product sustainability manager, Diana Rosenberg, said the PFT had been integral to helping the company meet its environmental targets.

"The development of the PFT has been crucial to Gap Inc's ability to set goals and develop internal awareness on how to design better products and set fiber strategies," Rosenberg said. "A rigorous and data-driven approach allows for greater confidence in our sustainable materials sourcing decisions, while creating an incentive to select more planet-friendly raw materials."

The updated toolkit, developed by Textile Exchange, includes refined methodology and an independent review process. The organisation will also update the resource with a broader set of sustainable materials, which it will encourage the industry to use.

Liesl Truscott, director of Europe and materials strategy at Textile Exchange, added. "We will continue to improve upon the foundational work of Gap Inc. to create a tool that combines quantitative and qualitative data from materials into a decision-making tool for the industry. This tool will drive the work of Textile Exchange to meet our 2030 Climate+ goals."