Green brands: BAM (Bamboo Clothing)

We asked Which? members to tell us what they thought about clothing retailer, BAM, and its sustainability. 91% of BAM shoppers viewed as sustainable.

Which? carried out a survey in February 2023 into our members' perceptions of how sustainable certain brands are. We asked them tell us which brands they'd bought from in the last two years, rate how sustainable they thought that brand was, and give us their reasons why. 

We then took a further look behind the scenes at some of these companies to see whether the reality lives up to peoples' high expectations.*

The top reasons given for BAM’s sustainability were its use of environmentally friendly/non-toxic materials (71%), low environmental impact products (44%) and its recyclable or minimal packaging (40%).

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Why should we be worried about the impact of our clothing on the environment?

Fast fashion – the practice of creating cheap, mass-produced clothing that keeps up with the latest fashion trends – has a huge impact on our planet. The industry is estimated to be responsible for 10% of our annual carbon emissions.

Different textiles all have different impacts. This might be the water required in the manufacturing process, the hazardous chemicals used in producing clothes, the microplastics found in many synthetic fabrics that end up in landfill or the natural environment. 

We associate much of fashion’s problem with synthetic plastic-based fibres. They use fossil fuels, are energy-intensive, shed microfibres and are difficult to recycle, so mostly end up in landfill or being incinerated.

But what's 'good' and 'bad' isn't a simple equation. Natural materials, though they may feel inherently a more virtuous choice, aren't necessarily always the answer. Leather, for example, has a large environmental cost and is associated with deforestation. According to Our World in Data, cattle rearing is responsible for 41% of global deforestation – mostly in Brazil. And leather's production can use hazardous chemicals that pollute waterways and damage workers’ health.

Some plant-based fibres come with environmental concerns, too. Cotton is a very thirsty crop and needs a huge amount of water to keep it growing, in often dry climates. Non-organic cotton is grown with the aid of significant amounts of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. 

Fabrics like viscose, although plant-based, often involve intensive chemical processing which can be polluting and hazardous.

And that’s without even considering the social harm caused by an industry caught up in massively complex supply chains where workers can be subject to inhumane working conditions for very little reward.

Wearing your clothes for many years, repairing them and buying second hand are all good ways of reducing your personal impact. If you need to buy new items, it’s worth considering retailers who take their impact seriously and are taking steps to reduce it.

BAM: in summary

Who owns BAM?

BAM was founded in 2006. It uses bamboo as the basis for its fabric (around 65% of the fibre it uses is bamboo-based). 

BAM is available through its own website and some independent retailers. 

BAM’s materials 

BAM uses a number of materials in its clothing, but takes its name from its use of bamboo viscose, also known as rayon – a fibre made from bamboo. 65% of BAM's fibre usage comes from bamboo-based fibre.

Bamboo grows incredibly quickly – faster than any other plant. Some species can grow up to a metre a day and it needs very little water and no pesticides. It doesn’t use much land and is harvested without damaging the root systems so it can keep on growing. 

So far so good – a very climate-friendly crop.

But, unfortunately, turning bamboo into a fibre than can be used for fabric involves an intensive chemical process. For conventional viscose, this has the potential to be very environmentally damaging due to the chemicals used which are then released into the environment and waterways.

Ethical Consumer recommends avoiding bamboo viscose made using conventional methods and trying to source lyocell or Tencel instead. These are 'closed-loop viscose' which means they are made using systems that recapture and reuse the chemicals involved over and over again, so they aren’t discharged into waterways as waste.

Brand names for this type of MMCF (man-made cellulosic fibre) are Tencel Lyocell, Tencel Modal and Lenzing Ecovero.

BAM’s viscose is not one of these – it says that it has only very recently become possible to source bamboo lyocell in the clothing market – but it says that chemical capture and reuse is standard practice across most viscose production today. It gets its viscose from two Chinese producers. These were both ranked highly (coming joint third) by the Canopy Hot Button 2022 report for their raw materials sourcing and BAM says it is confident that they are treating chemicals responsibly too.

BAM says it is satisfied that it is sourcing its bamboo viscose ‘from some of the world’s most responsible’ viscose producers (both are Oekotex SteP certified –  a rigorous industry audit that includes chemical use).

BAM uses other fabrics, including organic cotton and Merino wool, to blend with its bamboo viscose. Its Merino wool is certified by the RWS (Responsible Wool Standard). It's also increasing its use of yak's wool which it says offers better traceability and animal welfare compared to conventional wool.

It has a range of outerwear called 73 Zero which is 100% recyclable through fibre-to-fibre textile recycling schemes. . It has targets for 25% of the range to be recyclable or biodegradable by 2025 and to have a fully circular range by 2030.

They are developing new 'next generation' fabrics that offer natural alternatives to synthetic fabrics.

Virgin synthethic fibres currently account for less than 5% of fibres it uses and it says its goal is to eliminate them completely.

BAM’s packaging

BAM has removed ‘conventional’ plastic from its packaging. It qualifies this because the brand still uses compostable plastic (both home and industrially compostable) as garment bags.

For more information on this material, read our news story on five things to know about compostable plastic.

While home compostable plastic can technically go in your home compost bin, research has found that it sometimes takes far, far longer to break down than found under ideal conditions.

And unfortunately, there is no large-scale solution for collecting industrially compostable plastic. So if you don't put it in your compost, which you often can't, it has to go in your general household rubbish (it is not recyclable). There, it's likely be incinerated or possibly sent to landfill. As BAM does acknowledge, this is not a perfect solution.

BAM avoids unnecessary plastic use by using paper parcel bags and tags made of recycled paper cord and a safety pin, as well as packaging socks and underwear in card or paper.

Other sustainability information

BAM has calculated its carbon emissions for scope 1, 2 and 3 and has a goal to be net zero by 2030. It is an expanding company which means that its carbon emissions are still going up year on year. Initiatives such as switching to recycled fabrics and using renewable energy are attempting to reduce this. It says it has moved away from offsetting.

BAM has come up with emissions data for the customer’s use of a product based on 50 washes over the lifetime of the product at 30 degrees.

It has recently launched BAM DNA on its 73 Zero range which allows consumers to scan a QR code printed on a product that will then give information on the supply chain of that item from where the raw materials were grown, to its processing and packing. It plans to expand this to all clothing.

Our research 

*The brands that survey respondents could answer on were preselected based on a previous Which? survey carried out in November 2022 asking members to highlight brands they considered sustainable. 

Other clothing brands rated highly by members in our survey were Paramo (84%), Patagonia (82%), Rohan (66%) and Seasalt (63%)

Find out more about our investigations into what supermarkets are doing about the environment, how to buy second-hand online, or what makes a green energy supplier.