You may have heard that the fashion industry is the second biggest polluter on the planet after gas and oil.

Well, wool totally bucks that trend as it’s the most environmentally friendly, sustainable and, ultimately, biodegradable material you can buy.

Here at Glenbrae in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, lambswool and merino wool jumpers, sweaters, slipovers and other garments are made from natural resources – you can’t get more natural than wool off a sheep’s back – which means they’ll last you for years and years.

But, when eventually you’ve loved wearing them so much you’ve literally worn them out, lambswool is 96% biodegradable and merino wool is just slightly behind on 93%.

Of course, you don’t really need to know that as the wool is perfect for recycling so you’d never dump it in landfill anyway.

There is great concern about the so-called ‘nasties’ – micro plastics and synthetic materials – in many clothes, particularly school uniform.

That’s why it’s important for all our futures to always buy clothes made from natural fibres with wool at the top of the pecking order … naturally.

You don’t need to wash woollen clothes that often and when you do they can be on a low temperature so that’s an important saving too.

Lambswool and merino wool just lasts and lasts

All our Glenbrae garments are made with our unique elastomeric yarn called Spirol. That means its stretchy and moves as you move to ensure the shape always stays the same. With Spirol it’ll never go baggy, has longevity, low pilling (that’s bobbly small balls of lint that form on the surface of fabrics) and is easy care so you can machine wash it and tumble dry.

There’s a saying that “you don’t wear your wool clothes out, you wear them in.”

It just stays like new, far outlasting clothes made from other, manmade materials.

Lambswool and merino wool is far better for the environment

Wool uses 18% less energy than polyester and nearly 70% less water than cotton to produce 100 jumpers.

One polyester fleece garment produces more than 1,900 fibres every wash, releasing tiny plastic fibres into our waterways.

Micro plastic pollution is a worrying and increasing problem in our oceans with between 20% and 35% of this kind of aquatic pollution coming from clothing and the vast majority being generated when clothes are washed.

Wool sheds fibres during washing, but these fibres break down naturally without causing any harmful effects to the environment.

Clothes manufactured from synthetic fibres can take up to 40 years to degrade, but wool takes a fraction of that time – around 12 months - as it’s a natural fibre. This is because wool is made up of keratin, a natural protein similar to the protein in human hair, which can be broken down naturally without causing any environmental problems. Wool grows naturally on sheep like our hair grows.

Wool biodegrades naturally so it doesn’t accumulate in landfill and oceans. If it does end up in landfill it decomposes in soil quickly while slowly releasing nutrients such as nitrogen and potassium back into the earth so even works as a highly effective soil fertiliser.

So if you want to be really sustainable and save the planet then wool has to be the truly natural choice.