When the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, first announced plans to build over 50 eco towns it was hailed as a way of creating affordable housing and a greener way of living. However, as the practicalities of building these eco towns came to light cynicism grew about whether they’d be eco friendly or just create rural sprawl. Instead, there’s now growing clamour for renovating existing houses to create eco homes rather than building new ones.

What are Eco towns?

Eco towns are designed to be green, sustainable housing developments. Initially, eco towns were supposed to fulfil the following criteria:

• At least 30% of the eco houses in each eco town must be classified as ‘affordable housing’
• Roads should be largely car free, with a speed limit of 15 mph
• The town should generate zero carbon in a year (excluding transport emissions)
• At least 40% of the eco town should be green space e.g. parks, gardens and playing fields
• There must be shops and a primary school within walking distance of every home
• To encourage people to use public transport, bus times will be displayed in eco homes

Since being announced these requirements have been downgraded (largely due to realisation that people can’t be forced from their cars). This has led to accusations that previously rejected housing projects are now being rubber stamped as ‘eco towns’ in order to bypass normal planning controls.

Recently, it was announced that four eco towns are to be built, with another nine planned. Construction is expected to start in 2016, but the number of eco houses built will be far fewer than the 100,000 originally planned.

Why not turn existing houses into eco homes?

Controversy continues to dog the progress of building these eco towns, with serious question marks over their sustainability, transport links, jobs and whether it’s just a gimmick to get more homes built on green belts.

Instead many have questioned why more isn’t done to turn existing houses into eco homes. This can be achieved by making them more energy efficient (as well as decorating them with eco textiles and eco furniture).  Buildings account for almost 50% of the UK’s carbon emissions. So the Government has at least made at start on making homes more eco friendly by announcing plans to insulate all homes by 2015, and vastly reduce the energy wasted on heating.

This year Fairtrade celebrated its 15^th birthday. Since being founded by Oxfam and Christian Aid, Fairtrade has helped increase the livelihoods of 7 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Initially the only Fairtrade products available were coffee and chocolate. But the range has since grown to include over 4500 products, including eco textiles, eco furniture and many other items you can buy for your eco home.

What is Fairtrade?

Fairtrade is an organised social movement aimed at helping producers in developing countries get a fairer price for their goods and to become more self sufficient. It finds its roots in the anti capitalist radical student groups of the 1960s, which deplored the exploitation of developing countries by Western companies.

In order to offer customers cheap clothes and food it was often the producer’s income that suffered. This meant the people producing the coffee, bananas, honey and many other products were unable to improve the livelihoods for themselves and their families. So the next time you buy a T-shirt for £2.00 think of the mere pence paid to whoever made it.

Consequently, The Fairtrade Foundation was launched to ensure more producers could be paid a fairer price and helped to gain the knowledge, skills and resources they needed to improve their lives.

The impact of Fairtrade on eco furniture

Currently, the aspect of eco furniture most affected by the Fairtrade movement is the use of organic cotton used to make eco textiles and eco furniture. Conventional cotton is very environmentally damaging to manufacture due to the heavy use of pesticides. In fact, it’s blamed for causing up to 20,000 deaths. Organic cotton, on the other hand, is far less damaging to the environment and the people who grow it due to the use of pesticide free farming methods.

Organic cotton was first certified as Fairtrade in 2005. Since then sales of items made from Fairtrade cotton (such as eco upholstery) have grown from £200,000 to £7.79 million.

The growth of Fairtrade products for your eco home

Last year sales of Fairtrade products reached £700 million, and they’re expected to quadruple by 2012. This reflects how more and more people are becoming ethical shoppers and buying products that promote a more sustainable way of living.

The ethos of Fairtrade is intrinsically linked to that of eco design. So you can expect to see much more eco furniture you can buy for your eco home becoming Fairtrade certified in the future.

In the last few years eco designed fashion has found its way out of specialist boutiques and onto the high street. Thanks to the support of top designers, like Stella McCartney and Katherine Hamnet, ‘eco chic’ can be seen paraded on the catwalks. The fact that Top Shop, Debenhams and Marks & Spencers all now stock eco fashion ranges shows it’s big business, and taking up increasing wardrobe space in eco homes.

So how did the eco design in fashion movement come about? Well, it’s due to a combination of concerns about the way clothes are made: the effect on consumer health, poor working conditions and the environmental damage of growing cotton.

Fears over the health of consumers

The roots of eco fashion can be traced back to the 1970s when woolly leggings and rugged tie-dyed hemp fabrics were trendy amongst the eco conscious. Initially concerns focused on the use of pesticides on cotton crops. But by the 1980s these fears grew to include the harsh chemicals used to make synthetic textiles, such as nylon and polyester, and their potentially damaging effect on people’s health.

This was the start of eco design’s influence on the fashion industry. In response to the outcry many manufacturers changed their processes, and started marketing their clothes as made from natural textiles or chemical free fabrics.

Working conditions

Unlike our grandparents, who’d repair old clothes before buying new ones, the 1990s saw an explosion in demand for cheap throwaway fashion. Big clothing brands were under pressure to find ways of cost saving. This meant many moved their manufacturing abroad where they could take advantage of cheap labour.

However, this led to a backlash when the working conditions in foreign ‘sweatshops’ starting becoming exposed in the media. Many of the big brands were implicated, as cheap throwaway fashion was shown to come at a high human cost.

Since the 1990s many brands have been pressuring their manufacturers to improve wages and working conditions. Many of them now promote their eco designed clothes as coming from Fair Trade sources where the manufacturer is a paid a fair price and the workers aren’t treated like slave labour.

Environmental concerns

Cotton is the most widely used textile, grown in over 60 countries and covering 5% of all cultivated land. It’s also seen as the most polluting, due to the huge quantities of pesticides used to kill insects. In fact, cotton crops are estimated to use a quarter of all the world’s pesticides, which harm the health of farm workers, seep into the water supply and damage the soil, making future crops potentially dangerous to eat.

Organic cotton, on the other hand, is farmed without pesticides, making it far less environmentally damaging. And whilst crop yields are typically lower than conventional cotton, the farmer can sell them for a higher price to balance their income.

At the moment nearly half a million tonnes of clothing is added to British landfill sites every year. Hopefully, as the eco designed fashion trend continues to grow in popularity, there will be far less throwaway fashion polluting our planet in the future.

In the last few years eco designed fashion has found its way out of specialist boutiques and onto the high street. Thanks to the support of top designers, like Stella McCartney and Katherine Hamnet, ‘eco chic’ can be seen paraded on the catwalks. The fact that Top Shop, Debenhams and Marks & Spencers all now stock eco fashion ranges shows it’s big business, and taking up increasing wardrobe space in eco homes.

So how did the eco design in fashion movement come about? Well, it’s due to a combination of concerns about the way clothes are made: the effect on consumer health, poor working conditions and the environmental damage of growing cotton.

Fears over the health of consumers

The roots of eco fashion can be traced back to the 1970s when woolly leggings and rugged tie-dyed hemp fabrics were trendy amongst the eco conscious. Initially concerns focused on the use of pesticides on cotton crops. But by the 1980s these fears grew to include the harsh chemicals used to make synthetic textiles, such as nylon and polyester, and their potentially damaging effect on people’s health.

This was the start of eco design’s influence on the fashion industry. In response to the outcry many manufacturers changed their processes, and started marketing their clothes as made from natural textiles or chemical free fabrics.

Working conditions

Unlike our grandparents, who’d repair old clothes before buying new ones, the 1990s saw an explosion in demand for cheap throwaway fashion. Big clothing brands were under pressure to find ways of cost saving. This meant many moved their manufacturing abroad where they could take advantage of cheap labour.

However, this led to a backlash when the working conditions in foreign ‘sweatshops’ starting becoming exposed in the media. Many of the big brands were implicated, as cheap throwaway fashion was shown to come at a high human cost.

Since the 1990s many brands have been pressuring their manufacturers to improve wages and working conditions. Many of them now promote their eco designed clothes as coming from Fair Trade sources where the manufacturer is a paid a fair price and the workers aren’t treated like slave labour.

Environmental concerns

Cotton is the most widely used textile, grown in over 60 countries and covering 5% of all cultivated land. It’s also seen as the most polluting, due to the huge quantities of pesticides used to kill insects. In fact, cotton crops are estimated to use a quarter of all the world’s pesticides, which harm the health of farm workers, seep into the water supply and damage the soil, making future crops potentially dangerous to eat.

Organic cotton, on the other hand, is farmed without pesticides, making it far less environmentally damaging. And whilst crop yields are typically lower than conventional cotton, the farmer can sell them for a higher price to balance their income.

At the moment nearly half a million tonnes of clothing is added to British landfill sites every year. Hopefully, as the eco designed fashion trend continues to grow in popularity, there will be far less throwaway fashion polluting our planet in the future.