Abstract

As climate change continues to be a topic of great interest and worry, many consider what could be done to lower our carbon emissions. Fast fashion has the second biggest carbon footprint after the oil and gas industry. The purpose of this report is to urge fast fashion companies to take action against the unsustainable way fast fashion clothing is produced. The report discusses the environmental harm fast fashion is causing and how brands have responded to the increase in consumers’ environmental concern. Despite other ethical issues the fast fashion has, including child labour and unethical working environments, only the environmental sustainability of fast fashion is examined. It is argued that fast fashion companies should take more actions toward being environmentally conscious. In many ways, improvement can be seen including the rise in green collections, annual sustainability reports and carbon offsetting programs. However, the motives of these actions can also be questioned; are these improvements done to help the environment or to attract environmentally conscious consumers with false advertising? The environmental benefits of more sustainable clothing production are also studied, including improved brand image as well as employment and innovation opportunities. It is concluded that despite the steps taken to be more sustainable, fast fashion is systematically over producing clothing with dozens of collections each year, and this global issue simply cannot be solved with how fast fashion clothing is produced now. The issue is complex and requires drastic changes in all areas of the supply chain; design, textile and apparel production, transportation and store procedures.

 

Keywords: fast fashion, sustainable fashion, green clothing

 

Green with guilt

Climate change and global warming is a fact that is more present in our lives than ever before. Some deny it, but most try to find solutions how to fix it. What can we do? What can companies do?

 

Often in media, climate change experts give very practical advice on how to be more sustainable in our day to day lives. Things like “eat less meat”, “do not use plastic straws” and “use less hot water” are common tips listed on these articles. If the topic is specifically about fast fashion, then the instructions can be more like “buy second hand” and “recycle.” But how much can we rely on consumers to change the systematic over production of fast fashion?

 

The common trend now is to try to introduce “easy” solutions that everyone can do to help with the state of the environment. Of course, it has been shown that consumers have power over companies, and our purchasing decisions matter to some extent. But the trend of excessively blaming consumers for not doing enough for the environment regarding their purchasing decisions should stop.

 

Do we truly need up to 52 “microseasons” of clothing each year? Do we need a t-shirt to cost 1€? The average age of a clothing item in 2019 is five weeks. Compared to 2009, we are buying twice as many items of clothing in 2019. The culture of cheap, disposable clothing is why every second, one garbage truck of clothing is either landfilled or burned – a culture that is largely created by fast fashion.

 

Our decisions have power, and many feel guilty if they feel like they are aiding this to continue. We should try to limit the amount of clothes we buy, but more importantly the companies behind this massively excessive production should change the way clothing is produced from the very start of the supply chain.

 

Rather than pointing the finger solely on consumers, we should turn to the companies and governments to demand stronger actions. What if we focused all of our efforts to creating durable clothing that we can reuse instead of producing billions of clothing items per year, then throwing most of it away and slowly watching our planet filling with our 1€ t-shirts.


Last modified: Tuesday, 17 November 2020, 1:30 AM