Planet

Ailin Jin ⋅ 9th October 2023

In the fashion industry, there are many different elements that can affect the business. Planet, People, Profit and Purpose are the main four factors (pillars), and each pillar has its own function in the system. The planet pillar is crucial to the fashion industry as it encounters issues such as pollution and greenhouse gases. These issues are caused throughout the whole life cycle of a fashion garment: design, production, distribution, use and end-of-life. In total, this $2.5 trillion industry (fashion) produces 20% of the global water waste and creates 10% of the global carbon emissions, these consequences may lead to serious concerns like climate change, animals losing their habitats and rising sea levels. The study “Environmental Assessment of Swedish Fashion Consumption (2015)” by Mistra Future Fashion has examined the environmental impact of the annual consumption of textiles in Sweden. The study shows that the production of a garment is the dominant phase, accounting for 56 per cent of the impact. Combined with the manufacturing of textile fibres, production accounts for 70 per cent of the impact on the climate.

A circular economy is a sustainable approach that aims to ‘design out waste by minimising the number of natural resources used to make a new fashion garment which forms a non-linear model of the fashion life cycle. Recently, more and more fashion business has adopted the idea of having a circular economy. For example, many clothing brands used the idea of upcycling used clothes, which reduced the environmental costs in the design and production stages of the life cycle. Also, upcycled clothes create a sense of vintage which newly produced clothes don’t have.

In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In the business world, environmental costs are usually ignored as the majority of them are more profit-driven. The fashion business harms the environment in several ways, but most importantly it affects water, in the production stage, chemical dyes are used which some companies will directly drain to rivers & seas, thus causing water pollution. However, as more people are concerned about the environment, fashion businesses started to incorporate corporate social responsibility to prove that they are behaving in an ethical way.

The UN published 17 sustainable development goals. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to transform our world. They are a call to action to end poverty and inequality, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy health, justice and prosperity. (WHO, 2015) Responsible consumption and production is one of the most crucial SDGs to consider in the fashion industry. Patagonia is a clothing company that puts a huge focus on this SDG, 98% of the products in their line are made with recycled material and they used 935 tons of plastic waste out of the world’s oceans by turning discarded fishing nets into gears. In addition, they also fulfilled the SDG “decent work and economic growth”, 85% of the products in their line are made in Fair Trade-certified factories.