On Sustainability
Sustainability: Here’s a word that gets thrown around so casually and frequently that I think people have started to really become numb to the actual meaning.
Sustainability: noun
the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
"the sustainability of economic growth"
avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance.
"the pursuit of global environmental sustainability"
Definition from Oxford Languages
Can we take a moment to reread that second definition? The avoidance of the depletion of natural resources. This implies that it can still be avoided. Not to be a debbie downer, but reversing climate change at this stage is going to take some serious multi-faceted strategies, time, money, and technology. However, if you think this means that things are beyond hope and we should all just throw our hands up and go back to binge-watching Riverdale, you’ve got another thing coming.
Why is there an increased focus on sustainability within the fashion industry?
Simply put, research shows that the fashion and garment industry is one of the most polluting industries globally. Different sources put it at various spots within the top 5 most-polluting industries, but any way you look at it, it’s not great. Unfortunately a large part of it is due to fast fashion, overproduction, tax breaks for destroying unsold stock, and a resistance to changing business practices.
This $2.5 trillion industry is transforming slowly, however as of 2018, the UN reported that 10% of global carbon emissions are attributed to the production of fashion. Mainstream fashion brands often have extremely long and opaque supply chains and energy-intensive production.
Textile waste is as sad as it looks. Photo source: Fashion Revolution
A few other astounding statistics for you:
85% of clothes end up in landfills around the world. That number was published by a Paris fashion event that wanted to dedicate an event to the 50th celebration of Earth Day.
1.7 billion tons of CO2 are produced yearly, more than international flights and shipping combined, reported WBUR.
Less than 1% of clothes are recycled into new forms of textiles. With polyester (an oil-based plastic) being a prevalent material, what this means is water pollution from microfibers getting into our waterways as clothes are washed and landfills being clogged by materials that won’t degrade for potentially hundreds of years,
20% of industrial wastewater pollution originates from the fashion industry.
How can we do better as consumers?
Organizations like Fashion Revolution, Good On You, and the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion all do incredible work in researching, raising awareness, and holding fashion brands accountable for publishing more transparent statistics about their supply chain, and reducing their environmental impact.
The good news for us is that this gives us information at our fingertips to make better choices to lower our own carbon footprint. Information is a powerful tool, and there are tons of ways to support these organizations and what they’re doing, in addition to voting with your wallet to support brands that have sustainable practices.
Fashion Revolution Week just passed in April, and is held every year in commemoration of the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. The main goal of this initiative is to push brands to have more transparency around their labor practices. This event grows every year, and you can check out more here: https://www.fashionrevolution.org/about/get-involved/.
The simple take: there’s a lot that we can do.
The information can be overwhelming, and I don’t mean to make this sound like a lost cause. Is the impact on our planet terrible? Without a doubt. Is it a hopeless cause? Well, as you can see, there’s a lot of room for improvement for manufacturers, brands, and every player along the supply chain process before as an industry (consumers included), we can say that we’ve done our best. I think there’s a long road ahead, and like any effort that aims to create long-lasting change for our little blue dot, it’s going to take a lot of awareness raising, collective effort, and eventually, legislation.
From voicing our concerns, getting involved in events to raise awareness, and voting with our wallet, I’ll be sharing more ways to take action. I’m just getting started here! As I learn about more initiatives that we can support as conscious consumers and global citizens, I’ll be sharing them both here and on my Instagram, so keep an eye out in both places!
Until next time, here’s some great informative entertainment from Hasan Minhaj. His Netflix show has a great episode on fast fashion’s impact on the environment and I encourage you to check it out: The Ugly Truth of Fast Fashion.
Leave a comment below if you have questions or comments on anything I’ve written about! Changing this industry will take a collective force, and dialogue and discussion are a big part of that!