Swedish menswear brand Asket recently launched The Impact Receipt, a receipt that goes beyond the traditional cash receipt as it breaks down and shares the true environmental impact of a garment’s creation.

After having invested in a two-year Life Cycle Assessment with RISE (Research Institute of Sweden) to calculate the impact of every garment in its permanent collection, Asket will now share with its customers the figures that represent the CO2 emitted, the amount of water required and the energy consumed for its garments’ production.

August Bard-Bringéus and Jakob Dworsky co-founded this brand in 2015 with the aim to end overconsumption and restore value to the apparel industry. Their approach is based upon the idea to do away with seasonal collections that only fuel fast-consumption habits and replace it with a single permanent collection made under full transparency and accountability. The brand aims to offer quality garments designed to last a lifetime–not five washes only–and is trying to reduce wardrobes to the amount of garments actually needed, to be cared for longer.

Bard-Bringéus, explains: “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. 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.”

Considering that consumption is growing by double digits every year, but the share of garments made of re-used resources remains less than 1% and consumers continue to throw away 60% of their garments within a year of purchasing them, Asket believes that communicating the hard truth about one’s wardrobe’s impact, rather than using consumption-enticing “green messaging,” is the only way to actually change consumers’ behavior.

“The Impact Receipt is the final piece of our total balance sheet: price, origin and impact,” adds Bard-Bringéus. “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.”

For now The Impact Receipt is available for the top selling pieces of the collection only–the T-shirt, the Oxford Shirt, the chino and all merino knitwear–while by mid-2021 information on the whole collection to be complete and available.

The Impact Receipt is now including voices of the climate impact calculated in kg CO2, water scarcity in cubic meters and primary energy in MJ (non-renewable and renewable), associated with a garment’s entire production cycle–including fiber sourcing for material, trims and packaging; textile processing; transports in production; warehousing and packaging; as well as distribution to customers and returns across six key markets.

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