It’s hardly a secret that the fashion industry has been home to a range of ethical issues for a number of years now and the problems are only getting worse. From child labour and low wages to health and safety risks, animal cruelty and pollution, the list of problems in the fashion industry is extensive – and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
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| Image courtesy of Social Cut on Unsplash. |
The facts are undeniable. Not only is the fashion industry now, behind the oil industry, the second biggest polluter in the world but the global apparel and footwear industries account for 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Fast fashion – cheap, trendy clothing that copies styles from the catwalk and celebrity culture and is quickly pumped through stores to maximise on current trends – is at the forefront of contemporary issues in the industry.
Olivia Pinock, a fashion journalist specialising in sustainability, says ‘when it comes to fast fashion, this leads to increased production and consumption of fashion and this puts enormous strain on the resources it requires to produce fashion and the people who work in it’.
The main areas of concern in fast fashion, according to Olivia, range from the treatment of garment workers and the usage of water and toxic chemicals to the amount of waste produced by the industry.
There are approximately 40 million garment workers in the world today – 85% of them are women - and many of them don’t have the same protection or rights as workers in the west. To produce cheap fashion, it’s common practice that brands manufacture in the areas of the world where manufacturing is cheapest. As these countries don’t tend to have strong employment laws, these workers are some of the lowest paid workers in the world. In fact, over 50% of workers are not paid the minimum wage in countries such as India and The Philippines and, according to The Green Hub, 9 out of 10 workers interviewed in Bangladesh cannot afford enough food for themselves or their families. But, as Olivia notes, even the West isn’t exempt – ‘even in countries that do have strong employment laws, like the UK, the demand for cheaply produced clothing leads to illegal practices such as paying below the minimum wage, slavery and employment of illegal immigrants’.
Statistics are damning in the fashion industry’s use of water and toxic chemicals. Growing the crops needed to produce clothing requires large amounts of water – a t-shirt alone takes 2,700 litres (three years of drinking water) just to produce the cotton for its production – meaning there’s an environmental impact. Not only is water from lakes and rivers often diverted to farms, drying them up and eventually destroying the ecosystems of these waterways, there’s a human impact, too – people need water to drink. And, when the water is being largely used in clothes manufacturing, there’s a risk of people missing out on drinking water.
Over 90% of cotton is now genetically modified and it’s not just large amounts of water that’s used in this process. Cotton production is now responsible for 18% of worldwide pesticide use and 25% of total insecticide use. Along with this, nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make polyester fibre – the most commonly used fibre in our clothing – but this takes over 200 years to decompose so, not only do the chemicals fashion production harm the environment and wildlife, but they also have a large impact on waste.
80 billion pieces of clothing are consumed globally each year, but what about those we throw away? Well, due to the fibres in synthetic clothing (like polyester), most end up in landfill – but they don’t break down. Actually, 85% of the plastic pollution currently in the ocean is due to microfibers from synthetic clothing. Going by current trends, the number of microfibers entering the oceans between 2015 and 2050 has the potential to amount to over 22 million tonnes. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the fashion industry currently produces 20% of global wastewater; by 2030, it is expected that fashion waste will escalate to becoming a 148 billion tonne problem.
Olivia thinks there a lot that needs to be done – ‘we need diversification of materials so that we’re not placing all the strain on one area. We need to adopt new business models, such as slow fashion and circular systems where clothes are brought back into the cycle at the end of their first use. We need investment in sustainable solutions. We need consumption of clothing to slow down and we need more sustainable practices across the board to be adopted by fashion companies’.
But what can we, as consumers, do?
Claire Aston, country co-ordinator for Fashion Revolution Rwanda and co-founder of online platform Together Street, says ‘when faced with such monumental problems, many of us feel overwhelmed and respond with denial and inaction’. That’s how she and Together Street co-founder Abi felt – tired of doing nothing about the things they care about, they founded Together Street ‘as a way of learning more about the issues and finding simple, practical actions we could take to make a positive difference’. Their mantra? Start where you are, do what you can, make learning a habit and invite others to do the same.
Claire suggests ten simple actions we can take: firstly, buy less - don’t buy things on impulse and when you do want to buy something, ask yourself if you really need it, if you’ll actually wear it, and if it goes with anything else in your wardrobe. Secondly, avoid trends - before buying something, ask yourself if you’ll still want to wear it in a year’s time. If they answer’s no, don’t buy it. You can also buy better quality - well-made clothes last longer and fit better; they may might be more expensive but, instead of looking at the price-tag, consider the cost-per-wear - a shirt that costs £50 and gets worn 50 times is actually much cheaper than a £5 ‘bargain’ that gets worn five times before it gets thrown away. Repair and re-wear the clothes you already own and try second-hand, before buying new clothes. Also, try not to buy clothes for one-off occasions - borrowing or renting are great options instead. It’s also a good idea to wash less, using lower temperatures. Don’t forget to ask questions and keep challenging yourself to learn more and, of course, supporting ethical and sustainable brands is really important. And share the knowledge! Tell your friends and family when you find out something interesting, or discover a good sustainable brand.
Things are slowly improving in the fashion industry - as of May 2018, 12.5% of the global fashion market had pledged to make changes in terms of sustainability by 2020. Large, well-known high street brands such as H&M – who have pledged to use 100% renewable or recycled materials by 2030 - are taking initiative in terms of sustainability, but independent, sustainable brands are also becoming more common.
Ashlea Atigolo is the founder and designer of sustainable menswear brand EBYAK. She is also the first female menswear designer to design the UK’s first men’s sustainable streetwear collection that is both vegan-friendly and Peta approved.
‘I founded and created EBYAK to be different from the start. Our ethos is built on the belief that clothes should be sustainable. EBYAK's is also different from high street stores because it is driven by always striving to offer an environmentally-friendly, up-cycle and sustainable alternative to supply the demand for popular fashion trends’.
Priced from £35, EBYAK’s exclusive range ‘The Collection’ is ‘durable and produced to the highest quality so that the garments within this collection do not fall apart after a few usages, thus making them less likely to be thrown away quickly. All the pieces produced within the collection use the finest 100% certified organic cotton that has not only been ethically made but it is also sustainable, GM-free, eco-friendly, and animal-free, making it vegan-friendly too’.
Ashlea recognises that a large drawback of sustainable fashion is that it is typically higher in price but, as a brand, EBYAK ‘also believe that to 'compete' with fashion trends and high street stores, sustainable men’s designer clothing shouldn’t always have to be expensive’ and are dedicated to making ‘The Collection’ available for all.
And her positivity about sustainability in fashion doesn’t just lend itself to her own brand – Ashlea feels that ‘the demand for ethical fashion is changing fashion for the better’. She believes people today care a lot more about what they ‘consume, wear and are doing within the world’ and this is only helping the discussion of sustainability within the fashion industry.
With documentaries about environmental issues linking problems more specifically to fashion, the problems are gaining more mainstream attention – and social media is helping, too. It’s a talking point and the introduction of websites and apps testing and checking the sustainability of brands and products, it’s easier than ever to make conscious decisions.
Good On You, for example, is basically the Google for sustainable fashion. Founded in Australia in 2015, Good On You works to compare and rate global fashion brands according to their ethics and sustainability. Rating brands based on three elements (people, planet and animals) and according to information from certification schemes such as Fair Trade and the Global Organic Textile Standard, Good On You looks at whether brands are taking positive steps or are engaging in ‘negative citizenship’ and scores each brand from an average of each of these areas.
With a brand directory ranging from Oxfam (rated as great) and Marks & Spencer (rated as good) to Burberry (rated as it’s a start) and Louis Vuitton (rated as not good enough), the Good On You app is the perfect accompaniment for shopping sustainably – or, at least, learning more about the topics and issues at hand.
It’s easy to want change but it’s not as easy to make change happen. This is more than just a trend – things are improving, and people are becoming more aware. And people are willing to change; Vogue Australia survey found that 66% of millennials said they would pay more for sustainable fashion.
Actress Emma Watson wrote in her letter of support for Good On You that ‘we have so much power to change the world by just being careful in what we buy’, and she’s right. That extra bit of research, or the extra money you might be spending on a shirt because it’s sustainable is worth it. Sustainable fashion is here to stay; it’s better for the environment, for wildlife, for us. After all, what’s the point in buying clothes if we don’t have a planet left to wear them on?
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