Changing or upholding the system? : Finnish university students' perceptions on novel wood-based textiles

Abstract

The clothing and textile industry is one of the most problematic in terms of sustainability: the production value chain harbours a multitude of environmental and social problems, and the rampant success of fast fashion has made consumers buy more clothes than ever in an accelerating pace. To combat these adverse impacts and drive the sustainability transition in the industry circular bioeconomy strategies, practices, and models such as substituting textile materials currently used with more sustainable biobased alternatives should be implemented. These novel textiles have shown great promise in their environmental attributes in increasing the positive climate impact of both the clothing industry and the forest-based industry as well.

This paper discusses the consumer perceptions on three selected Finnish novel wood-based textiles. The in-depth views on attributes consumers associate with wood-based textiles and that affect purchase decisions in terms of textiles in addition to the main barriers of purchasing wood-based textiles were examined in three focus group interviews with 13 participants.

The results show that consumers perceived these textiles positively overall, but the use of wood raised concerns of deforestation and biodiversity loss. The recyclability of these novel textiles somewhat reduced the concerns. The main attributes of textiles influencing purchase decisions were feel and quality, where price had a diminished affect regarding the novel textiles. The main barrier for purchasing wood-based clothing was the lack of knowledge, which created other barriers such as doubt and uncertainty about the product and its sustainability. The barrier could be overcome, and the novel textiles more easily accepted by emphasizing the circular economy aspects of the novel wood-based textiles or focusing the marketing and communication of the textiles to other more purchase determining factors such as quality.