If you wear clothes (even just sometimes) this may interest you…

The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water and is responsible of 2-8% of global carbon emissions (Geneva Environment Network, April 2024). On top of that, 85% of all textiles are disposed each year (UNECE, 2018), and washing certain types of clothes delivers significant amount of microplastics into the ocean, due to the material compositions these clothes were made out of. A significant socioeconomic phenomenon commonly known as “fast fashion” is a major contributor to this.

Most of us who live in a developed country today are influenced by fast fashion, and most of us are aware that it has been leading major environmental and human costs around the world. In a nutshell, fast fashion can be defined as low-cost, trendy clothing rapidly produced by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends. The focus on fast fashion is affordability and convenience, though largely at the cost of people and the planet’s resources…

Anyhow, despite its current prevalence, fast fashion has not always been “on trend”. Once upon a time, from more than 20,000 years ago, when people began hang sewing using animal bones and horns as needles, up until the early 1800’s, where most people raised sheep or saved up to purchase wool to spin yarn to make their own clothing, adding garments to one’s closet was a slow, infrequent process driven by seasonal changes and growing pains. Then, in 1830 – during the Industrial Revolution in Europe – French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, invented a sewing machine that used a hooked needle and one thread to create a chain stitch (commonly used in denim jeans). The sewing machine enabled easier, quicker and cheaper production of clothes. As a result, clothing began to be made in bulk, in various sizes, rather than just being made to order. In the 1960s and 1970s, clothing became a form of personal expression. Young people were creating new trends and there was increasing demand for affordable clothing. Meanwhile, textile mills opened across the developing world and low-quality, mass-produced clothing took over, and shopping for new clothes became a hobby and a means of social status globally… It is not until in 1990, the term “fast fashion” was used for the first time in a New York Times article about a new fashion retailer with a mission to transform a garment – from an idea in the designer’s brain to being sold on racks in store – in only 15 days. Then, by the mid-1990s, online shopping took off, accelerating what was already an extraordinary rate of textile consumption, and marked the arrival of the “fast fashion” as we know it today.

As its history revealed, fast fashion is a relatively recent phenomenon in modern societies. In spite of that, however, its environmental and social footprints are already detrimental. To list a few examples:

• The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• Approximately 60% of all materials used by the fashion industry are made from plastic (UNEP, 2019)
• 500,000 tons of microfibers are released into the ocean each year from washing clothes — the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• If the fashion sector continues on its current trajectory, its share of the carbon budget could jump from 2-8% to 26% by 2050 (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• Each year, the textile value chain uses 215 trillion litres of water per year (the equivalent of 86 million Olympic-sized swimming pools ) (Quantis, 2018)
• Around 20% of industrial wastewater pollution worldwide originates from the fashion industry (Word Bank, 2020)
• Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing, resulting in over $100 billion in material value loss (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• An extra $20-30 billion annually is needed to make the textile value chain more sustainable, with 60% focused on energy, water, and waste issues alone (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• Textile workers, primarly women in developing countries, are often paid derisory wages and forced to work long hours in appalling conditions (UNEP, 2018; WRI, 2019). In many places, these conditions create infringements on human rights (Human Rights Watch).
• The use of chemicals in clothes production raise serious health concerns, both for the workers in the industry and consumers.

And yet, with 100 billion items of clothing being produced annually, contributing to a 50% growth in just 15 years, fast fashion shows little sign of slowing down. Thankfully, a growing number of companies in the clothing industry have started to take responsibilities to integrate environmental and social sustainability in their operation and production. On that note, I’m pleased to share with you my shortlisted terms of the Spring/Summer 2024 sustainability lingo in the fashion/clothing industry, and I hope they will help you navigate toward a more conscious consumption habit:

ESG

ESG stands for environmental, social and (corporate) governance. It is a set of practices and metrics used to evaluate whether a company or organization is being held to high environmental and social standards.

Source: bdc.ca

Fair Labor

Fair Labor is a label that promotes fair and non-discriminatory treatment of employees, with access to service, fair pay and overall healthy working conditions.

Source: fairlabor.org

Equity & Justice

Equity fairly distributes access to resources and tools based on individual needs, and justice refers to transforming the systems at the root of inequality so they can continuously support equity.

Source: bigcityhealth.org

Circular Economy

The circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended. In practice, it implies reducing waste to a minimum. When a product reaches the end of its life, its materials are kept within the economy wherever possible via recycling. The recycled materials can be productively used again and again, thereby creating further value.

The emergence of circular economy is is a departure from the traditional, linear economic model, which is based on a take-make-consume-throw away pattern. This model relies on large quantities of cheap, easily accessible materials and energy.

Source: europarl.europa.eu

Microfibre Pollution

Microfibre is a common clothing material that is a synthetic fabric consisting of ultra-fine fibres. Microfibre pollution refers to the result of the shedding of such synthic fabric when being washed, which produces miniscule plastic debris (also known as microplastic) that cannot be processed through water disposal systems gets discharged into the ocean, causing detrimental impacts on the ecosystems and beyond.

Source: storyofstuff.org

B Corp Certification

B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. In order to achieve certification, a company must demonstrate high social and environmental performance via the B Impact Assessment; make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders and; to exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards to be publicly available on the B Corp portfolio on B Lab’s website. Ultimately, a certified company must meet the utmost standard in five categories: workers, governance, community, environment and customers.

Source: bcorporation.net

Recycled vs Recyclable vs Repurposed

When a product claims that it’s recycled, it usually signifies that it’s made from recycled materials. When a material or product is recyclable, it only signifies that it can be recycled and not that it is made from recycled or repurposed materials. When a product is repurposed, the product is reused as something it wasn’t originally intended for.

Source: sustainable-packaging.org; theunderswell.com

Traceability

Traceability is the ability to track back elements of a production line, from raw materials at the manufacturer all the way to the consumer’s hands.

Source: inspection.canada.ca

Transparency

Transparency is to what degree high-level information is being shared with the public or other stakeholders in the company. Examples of these information may be facility locations, carbon emissions or other sustainable topics.

Source: transparency-one.com

Upcycling/Upcycled/Downcycled

Before products are sold, raw materials first have to be extracted, refined into something more useful, then assembled into components, and finally into products. Every step along the supply chain requires natural resources, energy, labor, and time. Every step might require transportation, and every step might come with environmental impacts. The sum of these efforts is stored or embodied in a product. Every product has embodied energy, embodied impacts, etc. When a product is discarded at the end of its life cycle, all the effort and value that went into it is destroyed along with it. All forms of recycling are an attempt to preserve some of that embodied value.

Downcycling begins the same way as recycling: products are broken down into their constituent materials and remade into something new. When those new products have less value than the original product, this is referred to as “downcycling”. For example, a variety of clothing made of composite fabrics may be collected and processed and made into a simpler product such as a door mat. On the other hand, upcycling generally means to turn a low-value product into a high-value product. For example, vintage fabrics, fabric off-cuts and deadstock garments may be upcycled into materials for new garments.

Source: metabolic.nl

RDS (Responsible Down Standard)

The Responsible Down Standard is a certification that ensures the ethical and humane treatment of down animals during their life-cycle. It’s also a way to inform consumers on the high-standard practices of their jacket contents.

Source: textileex-change.org

RWS (Responsible Wool Standard)

The Responsible Wool Standard is a social, environmental and animal welfare certification ensuring the ethical treatment of wool animals and sustainable land management practices.

Source: textileexchange.org

OEKO-TEX®

Founded in 1992, OEKO-TEX sets itself apart by independently testing textile and leather prducts in laboratories over 70 countries. Among their numerous certifiable labels, their most known may be the OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100, which checks for harmful chemicals in every article, including even buttons, zippers and threads, so that the customers know what they are wearing is human safe at every stage.

Source: oeko-tex.com

Scope 1,2,3 Emissions

Scope 1,2,3 Emissions is a way for measuring and categorizing the type of geenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) a company creates directly or indirectly. For example, a scope 1 emissions would be the amount of fuel being burnt from tranportation vehicles delivering goods. A scope 2 emission is an indirect emission such as heating, electricity, or cooling. This is considered indirect because these sources of GHGs are generated off-site despite being purchased by the company. Finally, scope 3 emissions are every other indirect emissions that are related to the company, but not controlled by them, such as (but not limited to) employee commutes or consumer disposal practices.

Source: ghgprotocol.org; Sustain Life YouTube

bluedesign®

bluedesign is an organization that partners with brands, manufacturers and chemical suppliers to reduce the environmental impacts of the textile value chain. Products that are buluesign certified go through rigorous on-site assessments, input stream management and chemical inventory verifications, measuring that they are of the highest level of safety for people and the planet. The certification evaluates not only the fabrics, but also the practice throughout the whole production process.

Source: blue-sign.com

PFCs & PFAs

Also known as “forever chemicals”, PFCs and PFAs are composed of toxic fluorinated chemicals that have been contaminating essentially everything from the oceans to the air.

PFCs are referred to as perfluorochemicals or perfluorocarbons interchangeably. However, it is important to note that the term “perfluorochemicals” is used when referring to a group of toxic chemicals, which include PFAs, whilst “perfluorocarbons”, though share similar environmentally toxic features with PFAs, are not toxic to humans, but to the planet, and are one of the biggest contributors to GHG emissions.

PFAs (pre- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a set of man-made toxic chemicals that can sometimes be found in waterproofing materials. They have contaminated many aspects of the environment and a small trace have even been found in humans, which can lead to potential health problems. Studies are still being conducted on their health impacts. Source: epa.gov

Have I missed a statement sustainability lingo of SS2024 that you’d like to share?

Tell us in the comment section below!