Sustainable fashion

In a world of fast fashion we need to start thinking about the sustainability of our wardrobes. Too many garments are bought at ridiculously low prices to be worn only an handful of times at great cost to the environment and to workers.

What is fast fashion?

Fast fashion brands such as H&M, Zara, Primark, Topshop, New Look and ASOS have extremely short rotation cycles taking only 2-4 weeks from conceptualisation to sale, and typically come out with 12-24 collections per year. The goal is to make "trendy" clothes which go out of style again very quickly, thus necessitating further purchases. Fast fashion companies produce excessive quantities of garments as this reduces the cost per unit. Whatever is not sold is wasted. Labour is sourced from the countries that have the lowest minimum wages. Materials are sourced from the cheapest countries. This can mean a jacket sold in the UK may have elements sourced from ten or more different countries.

Typically 50% of a garment's revenue will go to the retailer, 25% will go to the brand (which in fast fashion is usually the same as the retailer) and the remaining 25% will be split among the intermediaries - transport, manufacturers, labourers, overhead, etc. With clothing prices so low, think about how much is spent at each stage of production and how that can possibly be ethical. Someone somewhere is shouldering a high cost so that buyers can pay a low price.

The fashion industry is enormous and growing. 1 in 6 people work in the fashion industry worldwide. 150 billion new garments are produced each year and this creates 92 million tonnes of fabric waste - 15% gets recycled and the remaining 85% goes to landfill. The amount of clothing we own increased by 60% between 2000 and 2014 and we now keep clothes for half as long as we did 15 years ago.

Environmental cost

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of the global carbon footprint. The industry is second only to the oil industry in terms of pollution and is especially harmful to our waterways.

Cotton is the forth most pesticide-consuming crop and one of the most chemically-dependent crops in the world. These pesticides contaminate the soil and water, harm wildlife and even have consequences on human health. Whilst organic cotton is better for the environment it accounts for only 1% of all cotton grown. Even organic cotton is still one of the thirstiest crops in the world - it takes approximately 2,700 litres of water to make a single t-shirt.

The fast fashion industry has fuelled a huge rise in the use of polyester. Polyester is a non-biodegradable, polluting plastic made from fossil fuels. Polyester is extremely energy-intensive to produce. When washed, polyester sheds micro-plastics which enter our water systems and pollute our oceans. Fish are consuming these micro-plastics and we are consuming the fish.

Each raw material is sourced from a different country, shipped to another for manufacturing, shipped to another for packaging and another country for sale. That's a lot of transportation costs which are very harmful to the environment.

Human cost

Fast fashion is cheap because the clothes are made in countries where workers are paid very very little. In Bangladesh the minimum wage is approximately a quarter of the living wage. The government is afraid to increase the minimum wage because doing so will make Bangladesh a less competitive country and the economy is so heavily reliant on the textile industry that it cannot afford to lose out on revenue. Instead it is down to the "good-will" of individual businesses to pay workers a decent wage. The fashion industry fuels the poverty cycle with 98% of workers in the apparel industry not receiving a living wage.

Factories in lower-income countries generally get paid upon completion. Costs of raw materials, shipping, labour, etc. need to be covered upfront with the expectation of getting paid by the 1st world country somewhere down the line. Due to the pandemic, many fashion companies simply stopped paying factories. Not just cancelling future orders but actually refusing to pay for orders that were already started or even completed. Brands that have not honoured their commitments to date include Topshop, Matalan, American Eagle Outfitters, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Asda, Urban Outfitters and Mothercare*.

In April 2013, Rana Plaza, a factory in Bangladesh, collapsed killing 1,334 people and injuring thousands more, mostly women. At the time the Bangladesh minimum wage was £26 per month (lowest in the world). It is now around £75 per month. The global not-for-profit movement Fashion Revolution arose form this tragedy to promote transparency & ethics in fashion, hold brands accountable and ensure an accident like this never happens again but we still have a long way to go in reforming the fashion industry.

Greenwashing

Greenwashing is where unsustainable brands market products to make buyers believe that they are sustainable. It is an ever-growing practice as people become aware of the sustainability issues surrounding the industry and place more value on good ethics and environmentally friendly practices. The reality is that very cheap clothes can only be made by exploiting workers through child labour or slave labour or by using very low quality fabrics. Legislation makes it possible for fashion brands to find loopholes through which they can deceive buyers, making them think they are making sustainable choices when in fact the line is not necessarily sustainable. There is no official definition of the word sustainable so it is a term that is thrown around a lot in marketing to sound good.

An example of greenwashing is the H&M Conscious collection. H&M uses ambiguous wording in their marketing: "Every piece is made from a sustainably-sourced material, such as 100% organic cotton" is what they say in their press release but the fine print clarifies "At least 50% of each piece is made from more sustainably sourced materials" and individual garments don't say specifically which materials are the more sustainable ones. The collection also only represents a small part of the entire H&M brand, therefore the rest of the collections even more "non-sustainable" and H&M are still not paying their workers a living wage.

Another example is Primark's sustainable denim range which claims to use 100% sustainable cotton. In reality this means that their farmers are trained to use the same techniques as organic cotton farmers but continue to use the pesticides that are so harmful to the environment in production in order to keep costs low and yield high.

What you can do to help

Of course, the best thing you can do is simply buy less clothes. Consider how often you would wear the item and whether you think it is something you would still want to wear in five years time or if you're just buying it to fit the current trend.

You can also buy second-hand clothes from charity shops and websites like De-pop and Vinted. This helps to extend the clothes' life, it means you're not directly funding fast-fashion companies and the money can go to a better cause instead.

If you're buying new and you care about sustainability, do some research into the brand you're buying from, look for independent local businesses and just be aware of the practices you're supporting when you make a purchase.

*Workersrights.org (accurate as of April 30th 2021)

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