Planet
One of the four pillars of the Fashion Business School is Planet, this encompasses facets of sustainability to do with the environment. The fashion industry is seeing exponential growth, its worth is set to reach $1.7 trillion in 2022. (Statista). With this, there are ongoing detrimental effects to the planet following this unprecedented level of production and demand. As stated in the UN’s IPCC report, the climate crisis is ‘unequivocally’ caused by human activities. In this era of fast fashion, designers ‘must consider the problem of post-consumer waste’ ( Hethorn, 2015) along with the waste produced actively in the supply chain.
One way to slow down this global climate crisis is to veer away from our current linear system model and towards a circular economy. This means the resources used in fashion can be regenerative and restorative, and the same materials can be reused and recycled, reducing the sheer volume of waste and pollution in production. Circularity also includes using higher quality materials so they can be ‘infinitely recyclable or biodegradable’, this model ‘ prioritizes clothes and textiles being kept at their highest value during use and re-entering the economy after use, never ending up as waste.’ (Gwilt, 2015).
Within fashion, sustainability refers to creating and disposing of clothing in a manner that minimises the negative effects on the environment. A key issue within the industry is clothing being underutilised. Consumers especially those in high-income countries, miss out on ‘$460 billion of value each year by throwing away clothes they could continue to wear’ ( MacCarthur, 2017). By increasing the durability and quality of clothing, garments will remain in an individual’s wardrobe for longer reducing new purchases, and they will retain value if they are then sold and enter second-hand markets through resale. This means fewer clothes are created reducing carbon emissions, water use, and landfill.
The United Nations have 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one within the environmental Pillar is life below water. Fashion Production ‘makes up 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions, dries up water sources and pollutes rivers and streams’ (UNECE,2018), washing clothes sends microplastics into the oceans. Approximately 60% of all materials used in the fashion industry are made from plastic (UNEP, 2019). Therefore, to meet this SDG it is advantageous to reduce the production and consumption of fashion as there is a direct consequence to sea life. In order to conserve the planet, sourcing and manufacturing clothing must become more ethical. It must also be held to a higher standard as fast fashion is particularly detrimental because of its low quality and life span of just 7 wears on average.
Bibliography
Janet Hethorn, Sustainable Fashion, What’s Next?, 2015
Alison Gwilt, A Practical Guide to Sustainable Fashion, 2020
The Ellen MacCarthur Foundation, Fashion and the Circular Economy, 2017
https://archive.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/explore/fashion-and-the-circular-economy
UNECE, International Conference, 2018
https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/RCM_Website/RFSD_2018_Side_event_sustainable_fashion.pdf
UNEP, Fashion’s tiny hidden secret, 2019
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/fashions-tiny-hidden-secret