Valencia’s municipal staff will wear environmentally friendly uniforms

Comfort will not be the only concern anymore when it comes to clothing the civil servants of tomorrow

The City Council of Valencia has put out to tender the contract for the creation of the uniforms of its municipal employees with some new requirements. Among the latter is that the garments must be made using sustainable production processes and, thus, respectable to the environment.

The contract for the supply of municipal uniforms counts with a budget of more than a quarter-million euros and is previewed to last two years, with a possible extension of three more.

The clothes also have to be hypoallergenic

In total, the work uniforms will be supplied to workers in around 40 municipal services, including ordinances, inspectors, brigades, guards, drivers, protocol employees, technicians, music teachers and health workers.

The Councilor for Resource Management, Lluïsa Notario, has explained that the aim is "to provide the necessary uniformity so that City Council staff can carry out their duties with sufficient guarantees, facilitating homogeneity in the corporate image". The council has highlighted the application of sustainability criteria: "We have a clear commitment to deal with climate change and from the administration, we must be an example in this sense".

Indeed, the aim of the Valencian authorities is to lead by example and to demonstrate that sustainability is a solution that can affect even the seemingly mundane aspects of life, such as what to wear to work.

Companies will have to certify that clothes are sustainable through labels that guarantee that they are quality products, free of harmful substances and manufactured with environmentally friendly production processes. 

The wardrobe must also meet comfort requirements, with special attention to the finishes: seams, zippers, linings, finishing touches, etc. Likewise, the contract obliges the awarded company to adapt the composition of the garments to avoid health problems, such as allergies or hypersensitivity to the different fabrics.