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Erika Koljonen investigates whether cheap and cheerful clothing can be as sustainable as fast fashion brands claim.
Fast fashion and sustainability are mutually exclusive, no matter how you go about it. By its very definition, fast fashion companies rely on the consumers’ ever-constant, ever-growing need for new products.
Major Contributor To The Carbon Emissions
It’s a cheap way to stay on top of the latest trends, and due to arguably poor quality, many items do not last for much more than a year.
In fact, studies show that the average number of times a garment is worn before it is disposed reduced by 36% between 2002 and 2015. This leads to the obvious: buying more clothes.
70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are the result of just 100 companies.
In 2016, 1.13 million tonnes of clothing were bought in the UK alone.
McKinsey and Co’s 2016 research discovered that the production of clothes had doubled between 2000 and 2014.
The number of garments purchased by the average consumer rose by 60% in the same period.
It is feared that, by 2050, fast fashion could account for a quarter of the world’s carbon budget.
It is currently estimated that 1kg of fabric generates an average of 23kg of greenhouse gases, with 200 tonnes of water going into one tonne of textile.
Clothing is, by and large, recyclable and, yet, the Guardian has reported that less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing. Around 12% is recycled into other products like mattress stuffing. This leaves 87% completely unaccounted for.
Yet another affordable product to be bought en masse, only to wind up in a landfill a year from now.
Most of this can probably be found in landfills around the world.
Hundreds of millions of items wind up in landfills every year, equating to 300,000 tonnes in 2016 in the UK alone. This makes up 5% of the UK’s annual carbon and water footprint. Although we are purchasing fewer clothes than before – in 2018 around a third of us were buying new clothes once a month, with 67% shopping once every two to three months – this is still a shocking statistic.
High Street Brands Embrace Climate Change Fad
No high street brand has embraced the climate change fad quite like the H&M group.
Anna Gedda, the brand’s head of sustainability, doesn’t even see H&M as a fast fashion brand. In its 2018 sustainability report, the H&M group stated that 95% of its cotton comes from sustainable sources, and the intention is to reach 100% by 2020.
It provides detailed accounts of sustainability programs, its social media campaigns emphasise green initiatives, and new environmentally friendly items are churned out every week. Almost all H&M brands accept bags of donated clothes worldwide in an attempt to recycle old fabric, and the H&M Foundation has partnered with the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel to turn these into new clothes.
In exchange for a bag of clothes, the customer ironically receives a 10% discount to spend in-store – on more clothes.
This initiative isn’t enough: the Guardian claims it would take H&M 12 years to recycle the amount of clothing it produces in 48 hours. This being said, H&M is doing better than many others.
It is feared that, by 2050, fast fashion could account for a quarter of the world’s carbon budget.
The UK-based Arcadia group – to which Topshop belongs – provides vague reports on sustainability on its website, and has little to no evidence of sustainable production in its campaigns.
Most of the information on Arcadia’s website mentions things like its energy-efficient store practices, but doesn’t go into detail regarding the impact that its clothing production has on the environment. Nor does it outline any concrete plans to change things.
Consumer Culture
At the end of the day, we live in a capitalist society completely and utterly reliant on consumer culture.
It feels unfair that responsibility to tackle climate change is being put on the consumer in such a way, when studies show that 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are the result of just 100 companies.
Of course, doing so creates a great diversion. Companies appear to be doing something, and the consumer is left with a clear conscience.
Feeding the market with cheap clothing – like Primark’s £13 sustainable cotton jeans – is not the answer, but an additional burden. Yet, another affordable product to be bought en masse, only to wind up in a landfill a year from now.
Efforts to shop less and to shop second-hand, where possible, only go so far. The real change, the one that can actually impact climate change, needs to come from the top down.