How to calculate your carbon footprint before you shop

If you're asking yourself how to make your wardrobe more sustainable, then a good place to start is finding out how your shopping habits are impacting the planet, and a new tool by luxury e-tailer Farfetch is doing all the hard work for you.

Launching today, the fashion footprint tool lets you the tool allows consumers, when choosing to make a purchase, to consider which materials can reduce the environmental impact of their purchase, and to see the environmental savings of buying new versus pre-owned clothes (both of which you can purchase on Farfetch).

For example, if I want to buy a linen piece, I find out that 1kg of the fabric is equivalent to driving 60km in a car and filling 21 bathtubs full of water. The tool tells me that I should instead look for recycled or organic linen, which should have a lower impact.

Of course, the impact on the planet is reduced even further if I want to buy a vintage or pre-owned item. By adding six dresses to my basket I find out that I have saved the planet the equivalent of one flight from London to Paris for carbon, a 6 person hot tub for water and 3 average-sized pineapples for waste.

SHOP THE CONSCIOUS EDIT

If you don't have time to calculate all of this (though I do urge you to do it, it's highly insightful), then you can shop from Farfetch's Positively Conscious edit.

These have been highly rated by Good On You, an independent app - of which Emma Watson is the face - which lets consumers check the fashion credentials of brands.

The Conscious Edit includes items by the likes of Hunza G, Stella McCartney, Matteau, Ancient Green Sandals and more.

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Contributing Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK. She writes about catwalk trends and the latest high street and Instagram sartorial must-haves. She also helms the Women Who Win franchise.

She has worked in fashion for over 10 years, contributing to publications such as Cosmopolitan, Red, Good Housekeeping, and Stylist.