The fashion industry is far from sustainable ► Communication
The fashion industry has positioned itself or tried to position itself as green, due to the latest innovations and new business models such as recycling, resale, rental, reuse and repair - which are sold as environmental solutions - are far from being fully sustainable and lessening the environmental impact of this industry. This is reflected, for example, in the production of shirts and shoes, which has doubled in the last quarter of a century, but three quarters end up burned or buried in landfills. This failure is due, on the one hand, to the pressure for continued growth, coupled with consumer demand for fast and cheap fashion. Also playing a role are real prices for footwear and clothing, which have halved since 1990, as most new items are made from petroleum-based, non-biodegradable synthetic materials.
Environmental impact
This industry comprises a complex and extensive supply chain, therefore knowing its true total environmental impact is difficult. “There are still very few brands that know where their products are coming from in the supply chain, and even fewer of them have entered into active relationships with those suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint,” says environmental scientist Linda Greer. This complexity and lack of transparency means that estimates of the industry's carbon impact range from 4% (McKinsey and the Global Fashion Agenda) to 10% (UN) of overall global carbon emissions.
Furthermore, since you can't make a blouse, a bag or a pair of socks that work better or are more efficient, to motivate consumption, the industry drives change.
In this sense, the combination of both factors – continuous growth and global supply chain – results in overproduction. Thus, fashion inventories accumulate and 40% of fashion items are sold at a discount. “The need to sell more and get consumers to buy more is still in the industry's DNA,” says Michael Stanley-Jones, co-secretary of the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion. "Clothing has a very short lifespan and ends up in the landfill."
With the advancement of technology and commercial systems, brands can “introduce new lines more frequently. Thus, Zara offers 24 new clothing collections each year; H&M offers from 12 to 16 and updates them weekly. This acceleration and proliferation of "new" served as a constant lure for consumers to return to sites and stores.
Also, to offer low prices for fast-changing styles, they use fossil fuel-based synthetic materials that are cheaper, more adaptable, and more available than natural materials. As a result, polyester has grown to become the number one synthetic fiber and now accounts for more than half of all global fiber production.
Even in this context of great negative impact, brands keep sustainability in mind, but their strategies and actions have not achieved the expected impact. Thus, linked to transparency, all publicly traded fashion companies present their environmental, social and governance performance, but in this case, volume is not a good indicator of progress. As a recent Business of Fashion report noted, "Without standardized language or regulated frameworks, deciphering what companies are actually doing is extremely challenging." Most of the reports do not quantify with carbon emissions and are not audited by third parties.
Another key point is recycling, which is increasingly present, although it still has several obstacles. In this sense, there is an inability to plan the design at scale due to the variability of the supply; limits to recycling technology; underdeveloped infrastructure; and shorter, lower-quality fibers resulting from high-cost, recycled inputs.
Also, these “recycling” actions are doing more damage. Garment reception points encourage more consumption. On the other hand, a recent life cycle analysis (LCA) of cotton jeans revealed that the climate change impact of buying and throwing them away is about the same as recycling jeans into a new pair.
As for bio-based materials, these innovations still have high upfront costs, large capital requirements, resistance to change, and a lack of pricing for externalities.
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Also new business models are not having the desired impact, such as reselling: thrift and donation store sales are still more than twice the size of the online reselling industry. Despite recent growth in space , over the past 10 years, the average percentage of carbon emissions foregone due to resale is much less than one-hundredth of 1%.
Another trend is clothing rental, but this model is not a sustainability solution. According to the Rent-the Runway site itself, -a company dedicated to clothing rental-, this modality only reduces CO2 by 3% compared to the conventional purchase of new clothes.
The projections I have developed predict that the fashion industry will continue to grow over the next decade. The same trends that have fueled its growth will outpace the gains associated with biobased materials and new business models. Unit growth will continue to focus on lower cost, more harmful synthetic fiber products, which will exacerbate a host of other environmental challenges, including water scarcity and the growth of microplastics.
Actions
In this challenging context, the industry has a lot to do. An advance would be to remove the word “Sustainability”, as is the case with Patagonia, which no longer uses the term. At the same time, fashion companies must not be allowed to simultaneously affirm their commitment to sustainability and oppose regulatory proposals that serve the same purpose.
Businesses must use their influence to achieve positive change while designing a business system that is regenerative. To demonstrate progress, reporting must become mandatory, more quantitative and in line with planetary goals and be subject to annual external audits.
You also need to redefine progress. The use of GDP as an indicator is limited. In this sense, the OECD is experimenting with a different marker focused on "well-being" that includes social, natural, economic and human capital.
Another necessary point is that legislators set the price of negative externalities. Carbon and water, for example, should be taxed to include social costs. This would discourage their use, lead to innovation and accelerate the adoption of renewable energy. At the same time, governments must adopt extended producer responsibility legislation. Additional legislation should also be adopted to force fashion brands to share and honor supply chain commitments.
Therefore, the fashion industry has a great challenge and opportunity to become sustainable.
