PLANET

While fashion plays an important role in keeping up with consumer demands, it is also one of the biggest contributors to the issue of PLANET. Within Fashion Business School, this pillar focuses primarily on sustainable practices and ensuring the recognition of environmental damage. This is due to the fact that the fashion industry has put considerable pressure on natural resources in order to ensure fast, low-cost production, leading to levels of pollution, including the use of hazardous chemicals, dyes, and synthetic fibres. Approximately 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions were generated by the textile industry in 2018, accounting for 4% of worldwide emissions (Berg and Magnus, 2020). 

A further consequence of mass production is that fashion has become a toxic industry that produces 13 million tons of textile waste every year (Rauturier, 2022) and only 1% of the materials are recycled back, despite the possibility of recycling 95% of them (Atstāja, 2021). In response to these concerns, numerous fashion companies have begun to adopt the circular economy concept, making a shift from the linear “take-make-waste” model to a reuse-based model (Gueye, 2021). This regenerative concept ensures clothes, textiles, and fibres are used to their full potential during use and are recycled after use, never ending up in landfills (MacArthur, 2017). By doing so, business models will be reoriented from focusing on economic revenue and profit maximisation to prioritising environmental protection and social capital for a better future. However, for a circular economy to be established, it is imperative to make changes at all stages of production and consumption, requiring collaboration and radical thinking. 

The commitment to achieving a circular economy is a key component of improving the sustainability of the fashion industry, since sustainability within fashion refers to adopting a process that is balanced in terms of economic growth, environmental protection, and social welfare. Additionally, the circular economy is one method of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations (Gabriel and Luque, 2020). Reducing, reusing, and recycling materials and resources can reduce waste and material consumption, as well as greenhouse gas emissions (Englund and Andre, 2021), which aligns with Goal 13. This goal seeks to ensure that all resources are used sustainably in order to reduce CO2 and combat climate change.

Implementing this goal to businesses could be challenging since all aspects of the fashion process are responsible for carbon emissions, from raw materials extraction to textile and product manufacture to transportation and marketing. In addition, 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to the textile industry, owing to its long supply chains and energy intensive production processes (United Nations, 2018). However, upcycling clothes, or using sustainable fashion, would be one step ahead of making a positive impact on a country’s climate action.

References

Atstāja, D. (2021) Challenges of textile industry in the framework of circular … – rsu, dspace. Available at: https://dspace.rsu.lv/jspui/bitstream/123456789/6055/1/Challenges_of_textile_industry_in_the_framewor.pdf (Accessed: October 8, 2022). 

Berg, A. and Magnus, K.-H. (2020) Fashion on climate – mckinsey & company, Mckinsey.com. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/fashion%20on%20climate/fashion-on-climate-full-report.pdf (Accessed: October 8, 2022). 

Englund, M. and Andre, K. (2021) A circular economy: A tool to bridge climate mitigation and adaptation?, SEI. Available at: https://www.sei.org/featured/circular-economy-mitigation-and-adaptation/#:~:text=The%20role%20of%20the%20circular,and%20reduce%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions. (Accessed: October 8, 2022). 

Gabriel, M. and Luque, M. (2019) Sustainable development goal 12 and its relationship with the textile industry, SpringerLink. Springer Singapore. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-13-8787-6_2 (Accessed: October 9, 2022). 

Gueye, S. (2021) The trends and trailblazers creating a circular economy for fashion, Circular Economy in the Fashion Industry. Available at: https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/articles/the-trends-and-trailblazers-creating-a-circular-economy-for-fashion/. (Accessed: October 9, 2022). 

Hill, M. (2022) What is circular fashion?, Good On You. Available at: https://goodonyou.eco/what-is-circular-fashion/ (Accessed: October 8, 2022). 

MacArthur, E. (2017) A new textiles economy – full report: Shared by fashion, A New Textiles Economy – Full Report | Shared by Fashion. Available at: https://emf.thirdlight.com/link/2axvc7eob8zx-za4ule/@/preview/1?o (Accessed: October 9, 2022). 

Rauturier, S. (2022) Everything you need to know about waste in the fashion industry, Good On You. Available at: https://goodonyou.eco/waste-luxury-fashion/ (Accessed: October 9, 2022). 

Ro, C. (2020) Can fashion ever be sustainable?, BBC Future. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200310-sustainable-fashion-how-to-buy-clothes-good-for-the-climate (Accessed: October 9, 2022). UN Helps Fashion Industry Shift to Low Carbon (2018) Unfccc.int. United Nations. Available at: https://unfccc.int/news/un-helps-fashion-industry-shift-to-low-carbon (Accessed: October 8, 2022).