Marks & Spencer bans all PFCs
24/10/2012
In a statement on October 24, the company said the new commitments were now part of the M&S approach to managing chemicals in its supply chain and will support its existing environmental and chemical policy (ECP), the environmental standards that all dyehouses have to meet in order to work with M&S suppliers. The commitments will also form the basis for M&S' future research and developments in this field.
New commitments include “strengthening and improving” the management of PFCs in the M&S supply chain, including a commitment to eliminate the use of all PFCs by July 2016. This includes water- and oil-repellency finishes in clothing made using C6 as well as C8 chemistry. Some large chemical companies have been moving away from C8 chemistry as part of a commitment to eliminate perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which manifests itself as a by-product, by 2015. In many cases, the new-generation solutions they have invested in and are now bringing to market are based on C6 rather than C8 chemistry. While these new solutions remove risks from PFOA, they are still PFCs.
When questioned by sportstextiles.com about the ban on all PFCs, Marks & Spencer explained that it had banned PFOA and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) more than ten years ago when it became clear that “irresponsible use of this type of technology could lead to environmental issues”.
It added: “The agreement we’ve reached with Greenpeace is to stop using all PFCs by July 2016 and is based on the precautionary principle that in the absence of any compelling evidence or science, we minimise the risk to our business by coming out of the family altogether. So although there is no evidence to suggest that short-chain technology [C6] creates any risk at all to the user we believe our position is one of acting responsibly.”
It said the road-map for “reducing our dependency on PFCs” has been created to give suppliers time to react and to ensure that customers do not see a decline in the performance of products purchased from M&S.
For its part, Greenpeace said there was a need for companies in the clothing supply chain to take a precautionary approach to the PFC group of compounds as a whole, although it too accepted that evidence for banning C6-based products is limited. The campaign group told us: “The case against certain PFCs has been clear for many years, especially key C8 compounds. Evidence for other PFCs, although more limited, indicates that some are likely to have hazardous properties.”
Share this story:
