Sustainable Fashion is a myth- Really?

Few industries tout their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry. Products ranging from swimsuits to wedding dresses are marketed as carbon positive, organic, or vegan while yoga mats made from mushrooms and sneakers from sugar cane dot retail shelves. New business models including recycling, resale, rental, reuse, and repair are sold as environmental life savers.

The sad truth however is that all this experimentation and supposed “innovation” in the fashion industry over the past 25 years have failed to lessen its planetary impact — a loud wake up call for those who hope that voluntary efforts can successfully address climate change and other major challenges facing society.

Most discouragingly, increasing environmental damage has come at a time of heightened transparency. It’s not as if “sustainability” isn’t on the agenda for fashion companies but still nothing has seemingly worked.

Transparency: again a myth

Fashionreport noted, “with no standardized language or regulated frameworks, deciphering what companies are actually doing is extremely challenging.” Most CSR reports do not accurately quantify the full carbon emissions profile of fashion brands and remain unaudited by external parties.

Recycling: is oversold

This is due to a host of reasons including the inability to plan design at scale due to the variability of supply; limits to recycling technology (e.g., it remains near impossible to recycle goods made from multiple inputs); limited infrastructure; and shorter, lower-quality fibers resulting from recycled inputs and high cost. As a result of these obstacles, less than 1% of all clothing is recycled into new garments.

Worse yet, recycling does little to limit environmental damage while exacerbating inequality. Recycling bins in H&M and Zara stores are a guilt-free placebo that encourages ever more consumption. Most donated items end up in landfills in poor countries. At the same time, a recent life cycle analysis (LCA) on cotton jeans revealed that the climate change impact of buying and disposing of a pair of jeans is almost the same as upcycling the jeans into a new pair.

Bio-Based Materials:

Unfortunately, these innovations are plagued by high initial costs (relative to well-established alternatives that benefit from scale economies), large requirements for capital (to fund new production sites), resistance to change, and the lack of pricing for externalities (that allow fossil fuel-derived alternatives to be priced to exclude their true social costs).

While these new business models are attracting capital, it is not yet clear if they are viable businesses. For example, Rent the Runway has burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and remains unprofitable. According to their S1 figures, Rent the Runway lost $171 million on $159 million of revenue in 2020 – more than a decade after it was founded. threadUp also remains in the red, having lost $48m on $186m in revenue last year.

What then, can be done?

Retire “Sustainability”:

Less unsustainable is not sustainable. To their credit, Patagonia no longer uses the term. At the same time, fashion companies should not be allowed to simultaneously profess their commitment to sustainability, while opposing regulatory proposals that deliver the same end.

Ultimately, businesses must disclose their lobbying efforts, use their clout to affect positive change while engineering a business system that is regenerative. To demonstrate progress, stewardship reports should become mandatory, more quantitative, thinner, more attune to planetary thresholds and be subject to annual external audits.

Redefine Progress:

GDP was never intended to be the overarching system goal. It is limited in many ways. For example, it counts the number of cars an economy produces, but not the emissions they generate. The OECD is experimenting with a different marker focused on “wellbeing” that includes social, natural, economic, and human capital. India is considering an Ease of Living index. A new goal is needed to better balance societal progress.

Rewrite the Rules:

Government rule makers must price negative externalities. Carbon and water, for example, should be taxed to include social costs. This would discourage their use, lead to innovation and accelerate the adoption of renewable energy. A governmental committee in the UK has also recommended a tax on virgin plastic (that would cover polyester). For the fashion industry, this would increase the price of synthetics making natural materials more attractive.

At the same time, governments should adopt extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation (as has been done in California for several categories, including carpets, mattresses, and paint). Such laws require manufacturers to pay up front for the costs of disposal of their goods.

Additional legislation ought to be adopted to force fashion brands to share and abide by supply-chain commitments. At present, a law is being developed in the state of New York that would mandate supply-chain mapping, carbon emissions reductions in line with a 1.5-degree Celsius scenario and reporting of wages as compared to payment of a living wage. Brands with more than $100 million in revenue that are unable to live up to these standards would be fined 2% of revenue

Fashion is often said to both reflect and lead culture — the industry has a once-in-history opportunity to demonstrate that creativity and respect for boundaries can lead to authentic sustainability.