Fashion’s Environmental Footprint

Fashion is among the world’s most polluting industries: it requires enormous quantities of raw materials, creates considerable levels of pollution, leaves a significant carbon footprint, and generates alarming levels of waste. According to the World Wildlife Fund (2019), 20,000 liters of water are required to produce one kilogram of cotton. Further, the textile industry produces enormous amounts of industrial waste, with some estimates suggesting that the industry contributes 17–20% of global industrial water pollution (Kant 2012). Additionally, industrial waste water from the textile industry often contains high levels of dangerous dyes and other chemicals, which may be toxic to aquatic wildlife and harmful to human health, particularly as a number of dyes are known to contain carcinogens that have been shown to cause several cancers (Ghaly et al. 2014).

Beyond its harmful impact on water supplies, the global fashion industry accounts for 10% of the world’s carbon emissions, with significant emissions through both production and its supply chain (Conca 2015). In the production of fibers and textiles, the industry produced an estimated 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse emissions in 2015, exceeding the combined carbon footprint of international flights and maritime shipping (Ellen Macarthur Foundation 2017). Further, reliance on complicated supply chains spanning the globe and “just-in-time” production cycles means that fashion companies drive a high-carbon transport network in which raw materials travel from one country to another as they evolve into the garments that ultimately end up in shops around the world.

In addition to the detrimental impact of manufacturing and transporting products, our disused and unwanted clothing is creating ever larger rubbish heaps, as society is consuming, hoarding, and discarding new garments at unprecedented levels. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recently available estimates indicate that 11.9 million tons of clothing and footwear were discarded in 2015, of which 8.2 million tons ended up in landfills (Environmental Protection Agency 2019). Moreover, several large fashion companies such as Burberry have been accused of disposing of large quantities of new merchandise (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019), not only contributing to high levels of waste but also raising serious concerns about the ethical, social, and environmental aspects of such practices. As customers and other stakeholders more fully understand the adverse environmental impact of our throw-away clothing culture, they are increasingly demanding that companies modify their behavior to minimize their damage to the environment, with research suggesting that greater knowledge of unsustainable practices by companies influences customer behavior and judgments (Grappi et al. 2017).

Unlike natural fibers such as cotton or wool, synthetic fibers such as polyester, rayon, or nylon may take up to 200 years (or more as explained below) to decompose. The scale of devastation caused by microfibers or tiny synthetic fiber used in clothing, upholstery, and other materials is staggering, with scientists estimating that microfibers make up 85% of human-made debris on ocean shorelines (Browne 2011). Moreover, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), commonly called polyester in the textile industry and the largest segment of the synthetic fiber sector, has a particularly slow rate of decomposition, with some scholars suggesting a single PET bottle may take approximately 800–1000 years to decompose in natural conditions (Zengin et al. 2016). As the textile industry consumes the majority of PET globally (more than plastic bottles and other PET products combined) (Shen et al. 2012), this source of microfibers is particularly harmful to the environment. Indeed, an increasing body of literature suggests that microfibers have now entered the human food chain not only through the consumption of fish and other aquatic life but more disturbingly through drinking water as well (Henry and Klepp 2019). The fashion industry’s consumption of enormous quantities of raw materials, production of dangerous levels of pollution, creation of a significant carbon footprint, and generation of alarming levels of waste all pose particular problems to environmental sustainability.

Implicit in the fashion paradox is the contradiction between fashion’s imperative to be “in style” with constant changes and new seasons versus sustainability and responsibility. The desire of consumers to remain “in fashion” requires a constant supply of new styles since once a new fashion goes mainstream, it becomes obsolete, losing its allure and encouraging trendsetters to search for the next new fad. Whether through globalization propelling ever-faster production cycles, the proliferation of online social media featuring the latest styles, internet influencers generating interest in new products, the burgeoning number of fashion shows internationally, or simply global economic growth, the public’s addiction to ever-changing fashion fuels demand for higher carbon-producing modes of transport such as air freight, which often replace less polluting forms of transport such as shipping. Ultimately, the modern fashion cycle consumes massive quantities of raw materials and contributes an enormous carbon footprint through energy-intensive production methods and global supply chains.