Leading supermarket fashion retailer George at Asda has announced that it’s launching a sustainably sourced school uniform as part of its George for Good commitment, offering customers the chance to buy recycled or sustainably sourced school clothing from one of the top four supermarkets for the first time.
The majority of the range will be responsibly sourced via the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). BCI is the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world, and together with its partners, the programme provides training on more sustainable farming practices to more than two million cotton farmers in 21 countries*.
Prices will start at just £2 for a two pack of crew neck t-shirts which are sourced as responsible Better Cotton (BCI) and every piece of clothing will have a recycled or sustainable element to it. Despite this, customers won’t see any price increases across the schoolwear range.
Other selected products in the range, such as the front pleated skirt, will include recycled polyester and all viscose in the range will be made from responsibly sourced viscose, where all of it comes from plant material sourced from sustainable forests.
All the polyester in the range is made from a minimum of 25% recycled polyester – that is polyester yarn spun from recycled plastic bottles. The plastic bottles are finely shredded almost to a molecular level and then respun into yarn to make new polyester. The total number of plastic bottles recycled to provide the polyester in George school trousers is a total of 3 million!
Ben Alexander, Senior Buying Manager for Schoolwear at George, said: “We’re really excited to be able to provide our customers with a sustainably sourced schoolwear range this year, without compromising the price or quality of our range. We know sustainability is extremely important to our customers, and even more so for our younger generation, so we hope they’ll be proud to go to back to school in our new uniform.”
In addition to the new sustainable aspects of the range, George schoolwear will still offer the same technology on its products including stay white, stain release, easy iron, ecolite Telfon™ and lasting colour, as well as the famous 100 day guarantee and click and collect service which is available across the whole George clothing range.
Jade Snart, Senior Manager for Sustainability at George, said: “Last year we announced our George for Good campaign which stated that amongst lots of other things, by 2025, Georgewill source 100% more sustainable cotton for George own brand clothing and I’m delighted to say we are well on the way with delivering this promise. Our sustainably sourced school uniform is something we’re extremely proud of as a business and we’ll continue to work hard to make even more sustainable garments available.”
The George for Good campaign was launched in 2019, which focuses on creating fashion and homeware products that are fit for the future. The supermarket fashion retailer pledged that by the end of 2025, all cotton and viscose will be responsibly sourced and all polyester will have a minimum of 30% recycled content.
The sustainably sourced schoolwear range includes the following items and their starting prices:
· 2pk t-shirts from £2
· 2pk polo shirts from £2.50
· 2pk shirts from £3
· Blouses from £3
· 2pk sweatshirts from £4
· Gingham dresses from £4
· Pinafores from £5
· 2pk shorts from £5
· 2pk trousers from £6
· 2pk skirts from £6
· 2pk jumpers from £6
· 2pk cardigans from £8
· Blazers from £10
George currently offers a variety of shapes and fits for all schoolchildren and the full range of sustainably sourced schoolwear is now available at selected George at Asda stores across the UK as well as online at www.george.com.
*Better Cotton is not physically traceable to end products, however, BCI Farmers benefit from the demand for Better Cotton in equivalent volumes to those we source.
