Colour, style, personality – fashion exudes a feel-good factor. It draws consumers, myself included, online and into stores in search of the next confidence-boosting outfit or the perfect cosy winter-knit. It is fuelled by a creativity and cultural vibrancy that has ensured the industry’s evolution into one of the largest global commodity sectors. Now cash-rich, with leading brands winning billions of pounds worth of consumer spend each year, ever more pioneering designers are emerging to take a slice of the pie with a vanguard of innovation.
Yet, despite its palpable aesthetic and its wealth, fashion is also the second most polluting industry after fossil fuels. It is the third biggest consumer of water. And, in the UK alone, around 300,000 tonnes of clothing are sent to landfill every year. This unbelievable truth seems incongruous with the glamour and flare of the industry. But it is a reality that is gradually coming into focus, not least in the BBC’s recently aired investigative documentary, Fashion’s Dirty Secrets.
Exposed
Stacey Dooley’s coverage of this topic is nothing short of engrossing. And, as a journalist covering the textile and apparel sector, I can say that whilst the picture painted by the documentary is perhaps simplified for impact, it is certainly fair.
Fashion’s Dirty Secrets depicts an industry approaching a watershed moment. It highlights the catastrophic impact that cotton production has had on Central Asia’s Aral Sea, the devastation textile finishing is inflicting on manufacturing societies, and, unfortunately, the refusal of most major fashion brands to pass comment let alone force change.
The piece does include a future-minded response from sustainable innovation forerunner Levi’s but even its spokesperson concedes that “there will have to be a regulatory solution” to the problem for change to occur in the industry. I believe this is quite accurate. However, it is not necessarily a reflection of an inconsiderate industry but rather the sector’s complexity.
Each individual and every business operating in the fashion industry works with the sustainability agenda hanging over them like a grim reaper. The rhetoric is constant. However, whilst awareness of environmental issues is high, addressing the problem is something of an enigma.
The dilemma
Change requires complete disruption of the established supply chain, challenges globalised ways of working, brings price-points into question and necessitates vast investment from an industry which is fragmented. Moreover, environmental action must be balanced with socio-economic responsibility and these areas don’t always coalesce.
Perhaps this sounds like I’m offering excuses on behalf of the industry. But in fact, I wholeheartedly support Dooley’s call for brands to take more responsibility for change. We see many sustainable initiatives from the major players but little in the way of a complete overhaul of business practices. This makes the gestures towards green enterprise seem highly superficial. Rather than brands doing ethical things in addition to business as usual, they must work towards all business practices being undertaken ethically.
Unfortunately, the brands are in a quandary. One of the consumers interviewed by Dooley comments that the fashion industry’s role in the environmental crisis is “hidden under the carpet, it’s not in plain sight at all.” This opacity is felt not only by the consumer but also by the industry itself. Supply chain transparency is a major issue for brands. Past their first-tier suppliers, most brands do not have a clear perspective of who is making the component parts of their garments.
This is compounded by the clothing industry’s history; its journey from personal tailoring to globalised mass-production. Its evolution process has resulted in an industry rife with middle-men and sub-contracting practices. Many will woefully remember the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 and the subsequent admission by prominent brands that they were unaware their products were being produced at that location; they were blindly culpable.
This impaired vision is not uncommon and is the first thing that needs to be addressed for the industry to answer the call for complete sustainability, both socio-economic and environmental. These three factors make up the triple bottom line of a sustainable business and they are extremely difficult to achieve.
Enabling change
Emerging technologies support a triple bottom line agenda. Internet of Things (IoT) platforms that facilitate connectivity in the industry, for example, provide a basis for improved communication and business relationships, as well as facilitating better informed sourcing decisions. While adoption in this area is still relatively low it has significant potential.
While new technologies provide a means for change in the textile and apparel sector, change can really only occur if a collaborative, sharing economy is created. This not only requires transparency, it also necessitates investment.
Though it is true that the fashion industry nets trillions of pounds each year, much of this wealth is retained by the brands. Affluence rarely filters upstream into the supply chain to support regeneration of global production facilities and sustainable initiatives. This is because whilst the sustainable business mantra of ‘people, planet, profit’ seeks balance, it is evident that economics eclipses all other agendas.
Combating this singularity requires external pressure, or perhaps we should look at it as support. Consumers, governments and brand stakeholders must take shared responsibility for enacting change whilst maintaining a stable industry.
If we, the consumers of a developed economy, lobby government to impose new regulations, we should expect and accept that we may need to bear the brunt of increased clothing price-tags. Emerging economies cannot bear the same burden.
Globally active high-street brands should also ensure their clothing is affordable in the emerging economies they operate in as well as for low-income households in developed nations. In order to do this, they need to accept a hit to their profit margins for long-term sustainable success, finding the aforementioned balance.
Whilst many brands have started to make ethical changes, ethics tend to start where the law ends. National, regional and global laws thus need to catch up to enforce these ethics and catalyse complete industrial change. Governments should not only empower the public and fashion businesses to make more conscientious purchasing and manufacturing decisions, respectively, but they should also legislate for positive change. Making sustainable actions compulsory for businesses of all sizes in the industry should be the first item on the regulatory agenda.
Change has to start somewhere and Dooley’s investigation into the fashion industry is certainly exposing. We all need to ensure this exposure now catalyses progress.
