Consumers who find buying locally produced clothing important Europe 2020

According to a recent survey conducted with fashion consumers in five European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, the share of consumers who thought buying clothing that was produced locally was important varied between 10 percent in Italy and 18 percent in Spain.

Local, environmental, and fair

The same survey also revealed that concerns about the environmental impact of the fashion industry sometimes deterred consumers from purchasing clothing items. About a quarter of Spanish consumers tried not to buy clothing items due to concerns about their environmental impact. European consumers were also overwhelmingly in favor of fashion brands’ responsibility in publishing their social and environmental policies.

Sustainable fashion purchases: drivers and barriers

Recent consumer awareness about making sustainable choices in their purchases has led fashion retailers to invest in making environmentally friendly products more available. However, compared with fast fashion products, which are cheaper with shorter life cycles, eco-friendly products are often more costly. According to the findings of Statista’s Global Consumer Survey 2020, US consumers were generally willing to pay extra for sustainable fashion items, associating them with being of better quality as well as eco-friendly. That said, when thinking about reasons for not buying them, consumers gave “high prices” as the leading barrier to buying sustainable fashion.