Fashion or Our planet? You choose.
When you ask someone young or old, what is our planet? Humans general response can range from the Earth, a large rounded astronomical body, a star or just where we live. However when you change the question to: How do you as an individual affect our planet? Not many could answer. Some may even be confused, but I can tell you that at least once in our lifetime we have affected ‘Our planet’ directly through fashion. Yes, the clothes we wear daily, the new released shoes we queued hours for at the Black Friday sale; the endless amount of socks we buy as “I lost them in the wash”. Fashion is a major contribution to the climate crisis, pollution, poverty, death and many factors that cause destruction and devastation to Our planet.That’s why this week I’ll be talking about the first pillar of sustainability:Planet.
Circular economy:
The circular economy is an economic system that is constructed on reusing and regenerating materials or products in a sustainable/ environmentally friendly way. How does that relate to fashion? “The CE has initiated motivation within the fashion industry to tackle some of the issues arising from production/consumption of fashion. In fact, there are three main principles of CE: design out waste and pollution; keep products and materials in use; and regenerate natural systems.”(Gwilt, 2020).One example of the industry not adopting the circular economy is that fashion is responsible for 1715 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2015 and emissions will grow by 63% by 2030. Listening to Katarina Rimarcikova in one of my lectures was a true eye opener for me- she expressed “We would need 3 planets by 2050 because of the amount of resources and product use”.
Sustainability:
Sustainability is maintaining or supporting a process over time. If fashion was sustainable brands would focus on reducing the impact the ‘life cycle’ has on the planet, but also be conscious of the individuals behind their brand. In 2015 the United Nations summit endorsed 17 SDGs (sustainable development goals) in its 2030 agenda. One SDG that particularly stood out for me is number 12: Responsible Consumption and Production. This is something I believed,before my research, that all companies would adopt…but I was wrong. “It takes 2700 litres of water to produce a cotton t-shirt, Levis uses over three thousand litres of water to produce jeans. 5000 children die each due to a lack of clean water.” (Corner, 2014).In my opinion i wouldn’t say that’s responsible and is all of this really worth it for a T-shirt?
However many brands have sustainable focal points. One brand in particular is Patagonia. They use 100% renewable energy, work with organisations such as Finnwatch to focus on human rights and can reuse, resell, and recycle their products after being purchased.
The inspirational Patagonia advert:
“The wasteful and polluting impacts of the industry are set to drastically increase by 2050” (Ellen MacArthur 2017). In short, sustainability has been floating around the fashion industry for many decades now and although people are agreeing we need change, it simply is not happening. Fashion or Our planet?You choose.
Reference list:
-(Corner, F 2014. Why Fashion Matters. London: Thames and Hudson)
-(Gwilt, A 2020.A Practical Guide to Sustainable Fashion. London: Bloomsbury Publishing)
-(Patagonia https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/our-footprint/migrant-workers.html)