Fashion Sustaining the Planet
The fashion industry seems to have locked on to the new innovative digital marketing trends, and consumers can’t seem to hold back their excitement. In this modern society there is a constant need to provide perfect services, smart interactivity, and affordable necessities to keep the flow of consumption at ease for optimum utilization. Artificial intelligence is now known as the advantage for usefulness, but how productive is this technology when it comes to improving the most concerning problem within the Fashion Industry?
Sustainability may feel as though it’s never going to cease and that is because it was never brought up to be a trend and will not be disregarded. It is a reminder that we should not be normalising the badly designed supply chain that forces the planet to absorb the natural resources we have mutated. Furthermore, due to the rapid change in trends that consumers can easily access through social media, products are obtained in an unsatiable manner leading to an increase in inefficient use.
Within each process of manufacturing garments, from the growing of raw materials to the production, packaging, and transportation, the fashion industry contributes to the deterioration of the environment. In addition to being the third most polluting industry and producing 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions, fashion’s emissions of harmful greenhouse gases is projected to increase by more than 50 percent by 2030(Heatable.co.uk Oct 2023). We all have until then to limit climate change and the fashion industry must at least reduce carbon emission by 50% to make a significant impact. Throughout the entire fashion supply chain, natural resources are extracted, habitats are exploited, toxic emissions are produced, water is polluted from the chemical treatment for dying and waste is carelessly dumped. Fashions impact on the climate crisis is not solely about carbon emissions, but water, chemicals, deforestation, textile waste, microplastics and more. The global fibre basket lacks diversity, which could be an alarming sign to establish more traditional production methods along with minimising microtrends, overproduction, synthetic fibres, and chemical heavy processes.
Will AI help the Fashion industry reduce the crisis of fashion emissions? ‘An investigation into traditional forms, fashion history and present fashion reveals many examples where fabric is treated as precious in the making of clothes, and very little or none is wasted’ (Timo Rissanen,2015). However, if AI is used with sustainable purpose there are many opportunities for companies to convert their use of AI for advertising to JIT ‘Just in time’ technology. Acknowledging these ‘new production technologies can allow a garment to be manufactured without creating unnecessary stock’ (Gwilt, A. (2020). What Fashion brands need to start doing is highlighting their transparency in the progress of their sustainability. M&S has joined the UN’s Race to Zero(sdgs.un.org) and advertise their Shwop drops to encourage customers to give old clothes a new purpose (project with the UK charity OXFAM) to support the regenerative system. In conclusion the fashion industry and society need to achieve responsible consumption and production whether its traditional or modern to transform our world by 2030.
Bibliography:
Heatable.co.uk(Oct, 2023)-Most polluting industry
https://heatable.co.uk/boiler-advice/most-polluting-industries
Timo Rissanen (2015)Zero Waste Fashion Design-
Gwilt, A. (2020). A Practical Guide to Sustainable Fashion. London: Fairchild Books-
https://libsearch.arts.ac.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=1452042&query_desc=
Sdgs.un.org- Agenda for Sustainable development
https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
Marksandspencer.com
https://www.marksandspencer.com/c/plan-a-shwopping