By Helena Prado and Gerasimos Skaltsas
We all like to buy clothes that replicate the trends we have just seen on the runway for a ridiculously low price. But like everything in the world, this comes at a cost. Do we really understand the impact of our choices?
Which industries are the biggest polluters of our planet[1]? Number one is the oil industry, as many would have predicted, closely followed by, guess what… the fashion industry.
Let’s understand this issue through three dimensions:
- There is a huge environmental cost imbedded in our fast-fashion inexpensive clothes. This is a complicated business involving long and varied supply chains of production, raw material, textile manufacturing, clothing construction, shipping, retail, use and ultimately disposal of the garment. What we get as a result is an irresponsible use of natural resources and the generation of large amounts of toxic residues.
- Despite technological development, the apparel industry is extremely labor-intensive. It employs one in every six people in the world[2], most of them being women and some earning less than US$3 per day[3]. Far from the eyes of the general public, millions of people are working in precarious conditions where safety and health are neglected. The Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, that killed 1,100 people, and the factory fire in Pakistan in 2012 were sad reminders.
- Apparel products’ lifecycles are extremely short, and the clothes we don’t use anymore are piling up somewhere. More than 150 billion garments are produced annually, enough to provide 20 new garments to every person on the planet, every year. Fast fashion garments, on average, are worn less than 5 times and kept for 35 days. Eventually they end up in the trash. But a fiber like polyester for instance, widely used in this market segment, takes more than 200 years to decompose[4].
Take Inditex (Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, etc), for instance, the mother of fast fashion. They are considered the most successful company in the industry, having sold over 23 billion Euros in 2016. We study their business model, their supply chain, and give them the status of the “best-practices of the industry” in terms of flexibility and profitability. They have disrupted the apparel market by affecting our relationship with clothing: because of companies like them, fashion became democratic. We have immediate access to the latest fashion trends at incredibly low prices. But what is the true cost of these advantages?
In 2011, Inditex was accused of using suppliers that forced migrant workers in Brazil to work in slave-like conditions. After reaching an agreement with Brazilian government to allocate 1.4 million euros to social purposes, they were accused again of making the same mistakes in 2015. A report by the Clean Clothes Campaign in 2013 found that Inditex still sourced products from Chinese factories that sandblasted jeans. This method involves firing abrasive sand onto denim under high pressure as a cheap and easy way to produce ‘distressed jeans’. This process is known to cause potentially lethal pulmonary disease to employees involved. Additionally, Greenpeace’s Toxic Threads[5] investigation found that 60% of Zara samples tested positive for NPEs and 20% tested positive for cancer-causing amines released by azo dyes – Zara was the only brand of the 20 assessed to test positive for the latter. The good news is that all these discoveries actually triggered consumer conscience, and companies like Zara and H&M have made commitments to creating more ethical and sustainable practices.
The truth is that no one can ignore these consequences. Not even the fashion industry itself. Whether or not the industry’s players agree on the extent to which they have contributed to environmental issues like global warming, they definitely seem to be suffering from them. On the textile manufacturing side of the business, fabric production and cost is sensitive to changes in climate. Global warming has been slowing crop growth, and we’ve seen prices inch upward between 5 and 6 percent within the past two years[6]. On the demand side, it is also known that whenever winters are warmer than usual, apparel companies tend to sell less. Consumers are less inclined to renew their wardrobes and tend to hold on to their autumn clothes for longer.
The fashion industry has started to respond to this concern in multiple ways. For example, many clothing manufacturers, such as Synergy Clothing, Blue Canoe, and Hanna Anderson are offering organic and naturally dyed clothing options[7]. There are several companies making or selling eco-friendly accessories as well. By adding transparency about their production process and educating consumers about the craft of making clothing, these companies hope that consumers will begin to understand what is required for producing a well-made garment, and will be willing to pay a premium for that.
Transparency across the entire value chain will put pressure on companies such as Inditex and their suppliers to comply with ethical standards and working rules in an effort to protect and improve their brand image. It hasn’t been long time since Nike was being publicly shamed for its labor practices, hurting badly the company’s image and sales. Ultimately, consumers are those who have the purchasing power and the drive has to come from them. Thus, it is critical that consumers become aware of the whole process, from design through production through use and through the potential to reuse.
The most significant effort that embraces these “eco” and “ethical” values is ‘Slow Fashion’, a movement of designing, creating, and buying garments for quality and longevity. It encourages slower production schedules, fair wages, lower carbon footprints, and (ideally) zero waste. Carl Honore, author of “In Praise of Slowness”, says that this ‘slow approach’ intervenes as a revolutionary process in the contemporary world because it encourages taking time to ensure quality production, to give value to the product, and contemplate the connection with the environment.” [8]
The current fashion business model is finite. It is not sustainable and, whether or not we decide to fix it, it is not going to last.
References
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/12/03/making-climate-change-fashionable-the-garment-industry-takes-on-global-warming/#2b74f9b379e4
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-morgan/a-new-future-for-fashion_b_7120694.html
[3] CNN’s story “Trade rules and cheap Bangladeshi clothes” https://youtu.be/RKXdLIr4GtE
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/12/03/making-climate-change-fashionable-the-garment-industry-takes-on-global-warming/#2b74f9b379e4
[5] http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/toxics/Water%202012/ToxicThreads01.pdf
[6] http://wwd.com/business-news/business-features/climate-change-impact-fashion-apparel-10525390/
[7] http://www.businesspundit.com/how-the-fashion-industry-is-becoming-more-sustainable/
[8] https://slowfactory.com/blogs/news/9032951-the-slow-fashion-movement
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This article is interesting and in the end it poses a question: Is being the industry role model for speed and efficiency has to come at the cost of waste? If Inditex adopt the slow fashion movement, how will it change its competitiveness to own speed, flexibility and cost advantage in the industry. The fashion industry as a whole needs to find disruptive way to recycle the textile waste, and think about how to make it the latest trend in town.
It seems that the future of this industry is in the hands of the consumers who can dictate the course of Inditex by insisting on ethical and eco-friendly fashion.
Also, I think the fashion industry is a great place as well to consider the different ways the C2C model can be implemented.
Strategic partnerships between renewable technology providers, subject matter experts and the apparel industry, is what can help implement the C2C model. For example, H&M is in partnership with WWF to develop tools and strategies to address the issues of climate change, water scarcity and sustainability in this industry.
http://about.hm.com/en/sustainability/sustainability-highlights-2016-en.html
Consumer consciousness has certainly triggered change to some extend in the fashion industry but at the same time companies like primark keep conquering consumer demand rapidly with similarly unsustainable business models. In the end, price and fashionable products seem to be the “only” real determinants of of sales in this target group. Everyone acts outraged, when they hear about the environmental impacts and production environments in developed countries, but the next day end up shopping at the exact same stores again.
This poses the question if we need to actively steer consumer behavior for example by starting to price the environmental and social impacts that these firms have.
I would have to agree with this argument. While we would hope that the change will actually be triggered by the consumer, it is unlikely to do so on a large scale. Why? Because consumers, particularly the ones that Zara, H&M, etc. target are price conscious.
At the same time there are limited incentives for such companies to adapt much more sustainable policies. Most of these changes will likely increase the production costs of the companies and if their competitors aren’t changing, or having to change at the same time, this will challenge the companies competitiveness in the market.
I would argue that the change would need to be brought about through regulation. This seems to be one of the only ways to ensure that the entire industry adapts to the changing environment and becomes more sustainable.
Building on the previous comments two points became quite clear to me when reading this interesting blog:
First, I completely agree with the previous comments. In the end it comes down to the consumers and that they can shape the industry with their purchasing decisions. As long as consumers still prefer to ignore all the negative environmental and social aspects of purchases at brands such as H&M, Zara & Co only regulatory interventions seem to work.
Second, I also wonder if there is any effective way to recycle all the garment that is being produced and/or to find different way to use recyclable materials. For instance in the outdoor industry multiple companies have started to use PET and PE from plastic bottles for jackets and other clothes, which proved to be very successful with consumers (of course acknowledging that typical consumers in this industry are more environmental conscious anyhow).
Great article. Thanks.
I fully agree with Annika’ s comment. It has been years since the Nike scandal happened, and years that we talk about bad practices in garment industry, however the consumers have not changed behaviors yet, and Zara & H&M are more successful than ever.
Why is it so hard to strengthen regulations? I really wonder what prevents legislator to do so? Lobbying? or difficulty in controlling what is done in producing countries?
One company famous for ‘slowing’ down the process and making long-lasting, good quality clothing is Patagonia. I think that their journey around using organic cotton (http://www.patagonia.com/organic-cotton.html) for their clothes, together with how they tell the story to their consumers can be a best practice we look to when we think about the environmental issues regarding this industry.
As such eco-friendly methods can increase costs and ultimately increase price, the bottleneck here would be to show the importance of tackling this issue without jeopardising customer traction.
Interesting article. Didn’t know the fashion industry is such a big polluter on our planet. However, after all it is the consumer who can drive the change in this market. The NGOs in this area should try to use the social media method more to spread out the words and we should not only try to see the changes in the small brands, but also try to drive the changes in the big brands to set the trend.
The ‘Slow Fashion’ concept is very interesting and relevant. I am skeptical about fast fashion industries developing sustainable practices which might marginally reduce the negative impact but their success only adds additional burden to the environment.
Slow Fashion is the ideal way forward to achieve meaningful sustainability. Raising awareness among buyers about its importance in minimizing environmental impact and improving the working conditions is crucial for customers to embrace the higher prices. It should become a lifestyle choice for consumers.
It would be great if we can find ways to recycle unused clothes in a cost effective manner.