For example, last year, Britain’s Stella McCartney teamed up with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to launch a report on redesigning fashion’s future.
“Most fashion retailers now are doing something about sustainability and have some initiatives focused on reducing fashion’s negative impact on the environment,” says Patsy Perry, senior lecturer in fashion marketing at the University of Manchester. But with consumers increasingly demanding change, the fashion world is finally responding with A-listers, like Duchess Meghan Markle, leading the way with their clothing choices and designers looking to break the take-make-waste model. Then there is the human cost: textile workers are often paid derisory wages and forced to work long hours in appalling conditions. Textiles are also estimated to account for approximately 9% of annual microplastic losses to the ocean. If nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. Textile dyeing is also the second largest polluter of water globally and it takes around 2,000 gallons of water to make a typical pair of jeans.Įvery second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. The fashion industry produces between 2 to 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. Fashion revolves around the latest trends but is the industry behind the curve on the only trend that ultimately matters - the need to radically alter our patterns of consumption to ensure the survival of the planet.