Sustainable fashion is a term describing efforts within the fashion industry to reduce its environmental impacts, protect workers producing garments and uphold animal welfare. Sustainability in fashion encompasses a wide range of factors, including cutting emissions, addressing overproduction, reducing pollution and waste, supporting biodiversity and ensuring that garment workers are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions.
In 2020, it was found that voluntary, self-directed reform of textile manufacturing supply chains by large companies to reduce the environmental impacts was largely unsuccessful. Measures to reform fashion production beyond greenwashing require policies for the creation and enforcement of standardized certificates, along with related import controls, subsidies, and interventions such as eco-tariffs.
Background and history In the early 1990s, roughly coinciding with the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, popularly known as the Rio Earth Summit, 'green issues' (as they were called at the time) made their way into fashion and textile publications. These publications featured companies such as Patagonia and ESPRIT. Doug Tompkins and Yvon Chouinard noted that exponential growth and consumption are not sustainable. In the late 1980s, they commissioned research into the impact of fibers used in their respective companies. Fiber and fabric processing are still the norm in sustainable fashion 30 years on.
In 1992, the ESPRIT e-collection was developed by head designer Lynda Grose and launched at retail. In parallel with industry, research around sustainable fashion has been in development since the early 1990s. The field includes technical projects that try to improve the efficiency of existing operations.
Northwestern University Library's Art Collection staff began developing a research collection of fashion materials around 2005, motivated by widespread student and faculty interest and by the increasingly scholarly nature of many fashion-related titles appearing in catalogs and approval plans.
In the European Union, the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations required in 2007 that clothing manufacturers and importers identify and quantify the chemicals used in their products. In 2012, the world's largest summit on fashion sustainability was held in Copenhagen, gathering more than 1,000 key stakeholders in the industry. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition also launched the Higg Index, a self-assessment standard for the apparel and footwear industries.Clark, Evan. "Sustainability Index Unveiled" , Women's Wear Daily, 25 July 2012. Retrieved on 20 December 2012.Binkley, Christina. "Which Outfit Is Greenest? A New Rating Tool" , Wall Street Journal, 25 July 2012. Retrieved on 20 December 2012.
In 2019, the UK Parliament's Environment Audit Committee published a report and recommendations on the future of fashion sustainability, suggesting wide-ranging systemic change, such as lowered value-added tax for repair services.
In 2023, France introduced a repair bonus for clothing and footwear that gives consumers discounts for eligible repairs, encouraging people to repair items instead of replacing them. France’s repair bonus also applies to textiles and shoes, offering consumers a discount when they use an approved repairer, with the goal of extending the life of products rather than replacing them.
Purpose Sustainable fashion followers believe the business sector can act more sustainably by pursuing profit and growth. The movement believes that clothing companies should incorporate environmental, social and ethical improvements on management's agenda. This may include increasing the value of local production and products; prolonging the lifecycle of materials; and reducing waste. Another goal may be to educate people to practice environmentally friendly consumption by promoting the "green consumer".
Recent research shows that when fashion brands highlight how their products are made in environmentally friendly ways, people tend to think more positively about those brands. They are also more likely to buy from them and pay higher prices, especially if the brand is already familiar to them.
Critics doubt the effectiveness of this. The discussions following the Burberry report of the brand burning unsold goods worth around £28.6 million (about $37.8 million) in 2018, which is an overproduction.
Production models
Aesthetic and social preferences of fashion change over time, leading to some items becoming obsolete and affecting garment lifespans. The fast fashion business model became dominant in the 21st century, leading to an increase in the consumption of inexpensive garments. This model can disincentivize companies from making durable products. It also has significant health and environmental risks impacting developing countries and garment workers. The "slow" movement, particularly slow food, has been proposed as an alternative to improve the sustainability of fashion.
Fast fashion
The current condition of the fashion system is related to the temporal aspects of fashion; the continuous stream of new goods onto the market, or what is popularly called "fast fashion". As a way to conform to the latest fashion styles, current fast fashion trends presuppose selling clothing in large quantities. The quality of a garment does not necessarily translate to a slower pace of consumption and waste. These releases are exacerbated by the acceleration of fashion trends. As microtrends are only lasting an average of 3 years, the demand for clothes has also accelerated.Nelson, Mariel. "Micro-Trends: The acceleration of fashion cycles and the rise in waste". Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production, May 17, 2021
Consumption has risen to 62 million tonnes annually and is projected to reach 102 million tonnes by 2030. Shein alone is responsible for over 6 million tons of greenhouse gases a year from the production of polyester textiles, and uses hundreds of gallons of water per garment. The fashion industry has a value of three trillion dollars. It is two percent of the world's gross domestic product.
Most factories that produce "fast" clothing employ workers on low wages. Workers from Shein are reported to make as little as 4 cents per garment produced, as well as operating on 18-hour workdays with 1 day off per month. Exploitative fast fashion production is prevalent in countries like China, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Fast fashion is interrelated with the issue of climate change as the resources used to make them (the companies where the clothing items are manufactured) release many fossil fuels to produce them. With fast fashion comes the talk of socioeconomic status, creating a divide between who can afford sustainable clothing and those who can't. Companies target marginalized groups to sell fast fashion to, knowing these groups are more willing to buy clothes to fit into the society that advertisements and media sell to them. It doesn't help that many companies that sell fast fashion (under greenwashing pretenses) use broad and ambiguous statements to keep up with their sales goals, entering a grey area into what their business is truly selling and promoting.
Slow fashion
Slow fashion is a proposed sustainable alternative to fast fashion. The term was coined by Kate Fletcher of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and inspired by "slow food". It intends to challenge fast fashion's focus on mass-production and globalized style.Fletcher, K., & Grose, L. (2012). Fashion and sustainability: design for change. Laurence King.
A slow-fashion garment often consists of durable materials, traditional production techniques, or design concepts that are seasonless or will last for more than a season. From an environmental point of view, advocates claim it leads to less industrial waste following transient trends. The Anglo-Japanese brand People Tree was the first fashion company to receive the World Fair Trade Organization product label in 2013.
The concept of slow fashion has been criticized. To stop consuming "fast fashion" strikes against low-income consumers whose only means to access trends is through cheap and accessible goods. Those who are already in a high position in society can afford to slow down and cement their status and position, while those on their way up resent being told to stay at the lower rungs of the status hierarchy.
In recent years, resale platforms such as Depop, The RealReal, and Vestiaire Collective have accelerated consumer interest in circular fashion by promoting the resale and reuse of clothing among Gen Z shoppers.
Garment use and lifespan
The environmental impact of fashion also depends on how much and how long a garment is used. With the fast fashion trend, garments tend to be used half as much as compared to 15 years ago. It has been estimated that each year around $172 million worth of garments is expected to be discarded, many of them after being worn only once. There has been a 7.1 kg increase in global per-capita textile production from 1975 to 2018.
Typically, a garment used daily over years has less impact than a garment used once to then be quickly discarded. Studies have shown that the washing and drying process for a pair of classic jeans is responsible for almost two-thirds of the energy consumed through the whole of the jeans' life, and for underwear, about 80% of total energy use comes from laundry processes. The dyeing process also contributes around 15–20% of wastewater. For this reason, techniques are being introduced to reduce energy and water consumption, such as using in the dyeing process, where heat and pressure turn liquid into a sustainable solvent for the dye (supercritical CO2).
Low-quality products that deteriorate rapidly are not as suitable to be "enchanted" with emotional bonds between user and product. According to a study done by Irene Maldini, keeping garments longer does not translate into lower volumes of purchased units.
Concerns Environmental
The fashion industry has significant environmental impacts, particularly in relation to greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, chemical pollution, and waste.
Globalization has made it possible to produce clothing at increasingly lower prices that many consumers consider fashion to be disposable. Developing countries typically produce the textiles and clothing for developed countries. In 2021, the Changing Markets Foundation released a report on the fashion industry's dependence on oil extraction. The report suggested that synthetic fibers in the textile industry account for 1.35% of global oil consumption. Fast fashion's model leads to significant over-production, textile waste, and heavy reliance on synthetic materials produced in fossil-fuel high factories. Research has pointed out that the need for constant new inventory puts strain on manufacturers, resulting in low pay and high population output.
The usage level of fashion materials is 79 billion cubic meters annually. Only around 20% of clothing is recycled or reused; huge amounts of fashion products end up as waste. It has been estimated that in the UK alone, around 350,000 tons of clothing end up in landfills every year. The average American throws away nearly 70 pounds of clothing per year. Around 5% of the total waste worldwide stems from the textile industry.