Journalism: Sustainable Fashion, the movement placing consumers at the forefront of change

  • Helen Schultheis
Sustainable Fashion: the movement placing consumers at the forefront of change
It started with kale, trendy smoothies, and friends going “paleo.” In the past ten years, the entire way the American middle class thinks about and consumes food has changed. Some might say a similar revolution is right around the corner for clothing.
Though not broadly publicized, a global dilemma is at hand starring consumerism gone awry. The rate at which we buy cheap clothing and then quickly discard it now threatens our planet, and the people making our clothes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 84 percent of unwanted clothes in the United States went into either a landfill or an incinerator in 2012.
Environmentalist and sustainability expert Nadine Farang says, “Just like fast food is unhealthy for the body, fast fashion is unhealthy for the environment. And both are highly popular and consumed by billions of people. The challenge is educating the vast majority of the population on the negative environmental impact surrounding fast fashion and addictive consumerism.”
Meet the sustainable fashion movement, one of the solutions to this crisis offering a ray of hope in a darkened consumerist reality. A small yet growing number of companies are attempting to rock the retail, e-commerce, and supply chain world, offering garments that are ethically made, and environmentally friendly. This is a story of energetic entrepreneurs and designers looking to better the world, one t-shirt at a time.
Let’s backup for a minute though. Up until the past few decades, humans regarded clothing with more care; repairing used clothing and utilizing hand-me-downs were more common, and shopping for new clothes was more expensive.
Fashion Revolution, a non-profit group campaigning for fashion industry reform states, “A century ago, we spent more than half our money on food and clothes, today we spend less than a fifth. As a society we purchase 400 percent more clothing today than we did just 20 years ago.” That sudden change in consumerist behavior is shocking.
For many of us, where and how we buy our clothing is based on a fairly new concept that clothes are disposable. I too have been ensnared by the bright lights of fast fashion retail: a vibrant array of $10 floral sundresses, a $30 black “leather” jacket, and oh those glossy accessories! Zara stores are adorned by flashy gold 60% off signs, and H&M boasts a $5 sale section. It all seems too good to be true. But that’s the thing with things that are too good to be true. They usually aren’t.
In 2013, the media widely covered the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh, which killed 1,138 people. The collapse was the fourth largest industrial disaster in history. The tragedy at Rana Plaza was just one in a string of factory catastrophes in Bangladesh and neighboring countries.
Many of the third world workers who create fast fashion work in crowded, unsanitary conditions, suffer abuse, and are severely underpaid. The 2017 Copenhagen Fashion Summit’s Pulse of the Fashion Industry report states, “Minimum wages in the industry are half of what can be considered a living wage.” Regarding employee health and safety, the numbers are also bleak, “If business continues as usual, the recorded injuries in the industry is projected to reach 1.6 million by 2030 compared to 1.4 million today.”
If we are only paying $10 for a sundress, then how much are workers in Bangladesh being compensated to sew that dress? All signs point to third world workers paying a painful price for our bargains.
Sadly, all of this stems from the push to create a higher volume of merchandise, to ensure retailers make a profit. The Fashion Revolution nonprofit offers an explanation for this conundrum: “For the past decade, apparel companies have seen rising costs, driven by rising labor, raw material and energy prices. Yet despite the higher cost of making clothes, the price we pay for our clothing is cheaper than ever before. This system isn’t working.”
Rachel Bare, a former e-commerce stylist at Sandbox Studios in New York City, mentions that on photoshoots, “our amount of merchandise only kept growing bigger. It became less about quality and more about quantity and this I something I have seen across the board in most aspects of the industry.”
And we haven’t even gotten to the environmental ramifications. Another finding of the Copenhagen report summarizes that the strain of an expanding environmental footprint can be observed in a number of impact areas, specifically water use, CO2 emissions, use of chemicals, and generation and disposal of waste. Fashion Revolution points out that “chemicals used to grow, dye and launder our clothes end up polluting rivers.”
If education is the harbinger of change, there are several organizations now providing guidelines to sustainability standards, and demanding transparency from brands. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the Global Organic Textile Standard, The SA8000, and The United Nations Global Compact are some of the trailblazers in this movement.
Lillian Liu, Manager of Partnerships at United Nations Global Compact, works with companies to encourage principle based business; they sign up to the UNGC to adhere to a set of UNGC principles and to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The UN sheds light on the realization that fashion production and consumption needs to be viewed on a global scale. Basically, those jeans you bought at the mall the other day had another life before they met you, and traveled a long journey before even arriving at the mall.
“Fashion is one of the most polluting industries in the world and it is something that affects us all,” Lui said. As the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, Liu describes the UNGC’s mission: “We are really looking at sustainability from a holistic perspective, encompassing the full spectrum of human rights, labor, environment, supply chain, anti-corruption, the circular economy and product innovation.”
Fortunately, well-known brands have started leading the pack with sustainability initiatives. Eileen Fisher has rebranded with a renowned eco-friendly campaign called Vision 2020. Their vision includes investing in alternative energy for their supply chain, using organic fibers, and less water overall. According to the Copenhagen report, Nike has created a novel dyeing process that is safer for the environment, Patagonia offers a repair service, and Levi’s has changed its entire product development process to become more sustainable.
Cory Sargeant runs her own PR firm in LA, and represents several sustainable brands. Sargeant is pleased with the major steps companies are taking to promote change on a global scale. For example, retailers such as H&M are promoting new ethical clothing lines like the Conscious collection, and garment collecting initiatives (clothing recycling) in stores worldwide. Cory notes that there are smaller brands that are staying competitive in the sustainable space as well, and for the financial success of these brands she advises, “It's important that sustainable fashion brands keep up with current trends to have staying power in the industry.”
Consequently, it’s consumers who can have a larger role in changing retail business models by demanding brands follow more ethical practices. “I think more than ever, consumers are looking for transparency, authenticity and to connect more deeply with brands... I love working with eco-friendly brands because you get to tell a deeper story and connect consumers with the artisans making their products giving more meaning to their purchases,” says Sargeant.
She’s not alone in this mindset, the e-commerce stylist and sustainability devotee Rachel Bare agrees: “when we vote with our wallet that we will not stand for things not made ethically and sustainably, changes will happen.”
Millennial entrepreneurs Kris Cody and Liam Mahoney (both still pursuing undergrad degrees) have started a company based on that same ideal, after finding the perfect alpaca sweater on a visit to Peru. Their company called PAKA apparel, employs women weavers in Peru, keeping their ancient tradition alive. Cody describes their process thus far: “We know every material that goes into our sweaters, sourcing everything from the outskirts of Cusco. Our local women knit sweaters (priced at around $130), send over the Andes Mountains to Lima, fly by plane to the States, and individually send out.”
Cody believes in the privilege and power we have as consumers to choose our clothing, commenting, “We have more access to understanding the depth of our purchase more than ever. You can click a button and tangibly impact someone's life a thousand miles away. As globalization increases, I believe that more people will be exposed to and conscious of issues outside their immediate locations.”
Rachel Bare, our e-commerce stylist who has now left the fashion industry to run a wellness collective in Manhattan concludes, “Can you imagine a world where every brand had to meet ethical standards and no waste could be expected? It is something I dream of daily… we do not need all this ‘stuff’, it is not serving us or the environment.”
Authors Note: Through writing this article it became clear to me that each of us has a choice as a consumer every time we make a purchase. We can positively impact people around the world and the health of our planet by making informed purchases, and questioning the ethics of the brands we buy from. I can surely say that the bright lights of fast fashion will no longer be beckoning me. There is a price to pay for fast fashion, and now I know who’s paying it.

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