PLANET
Planet is one of the four pillars discussed in relation to the Fashion Business. It consists of 17 sustainable development goals created and controlled by the United Nations with hope of decreasing climate change, ending poverty and making the world a peaceful and safe ecosystem. With the fashion industry being one of the main contributors to global pollution and carbon consumption, it is necessary that all is aware of the disasters that the business is creating.
It could be argued that ‘Planet’ is the most important pillar as it is negatively impacting us daily; underage workers are forced into working long hours with poor health and safety regulations, millions of animals are being used for cattle farming and huge amounts of land is being destroyed daily. One of the main issues is the poor relationship between consumers and fast fashion and the lack of understanding for the consequences of buying cheap, poor quality clothing from websites such as ‘Shein’
One way in which the fashion industry is looking to develop sustainability is through the concept of circular fashion. The idea of reusing and refurbishing materials which in turn reduces consumption, demand and production. Less production results in a decrease in extraction of natural recourses and pollution, helping to preserve our environment. Without change from our current unsustainable linear economic model of ‘make, use and dispose’, carbon dioxide emissions are expected to grow by 63% by 2030.
One SDG that impacts the fashion industry directly is ‘responsible consumption and production’. As stated earlier, the relationship between fast fashion and consumerism has had a huge negative impact on the world. Websites such as ‘Shein’ and ‘Aliexpress’ mass-produce thousands of clothing items at an extremely affordable rate in order to meet consumer demands. In order to do this, cheap, low-quality materials are used to keep costs down, resulting in disposal after only a few wears. With the increase in consumption, there is a demand for workers, which in countries such as Brazil, India and China, there has been a huge increase in child labor, poor wages and unethical health and safety regulations. The United Nations highlighted this issue and created solutions in order to regulate consumption and production through re-using clothing instead of buying more.