Financial Times, NOVEMBER 13 2020
Sustainable fashion? There’s no such thing
by Lauren Indvik
The breathless email was all too familiar. It was from Levi’s, the
company I buy most of my denim from, telling me about a new product: its
“most sustainable jeans ever”. Made of “high quality recycled denim” and
hemp, these jeans were “positive impact” and “negative waste”, the
copywriters pledged.
There are some phrases so well-worn, we become numb to their meaning.
For me, “sustainable fashion” is one of those phrases. It is a term now
so ubiquitous in PR and marketing, so liberally applied to any brand
that uses organic cotton or manufactures its goods locally, that its
fundamental definition has become obscured.
I am not alone. “I barely even know what the word ‘sustainable’ means
any more,” said the designer Stella McCartney, who has been speaking out
against the industry’s record on the environment and human rights since
the 1990s, as she unveiled her spring/summer 2021 collection last month.
“The majority of people who say they’re doing a sustainable thing, if
you ask one question, it will pretty much fall down at the first
hurdle . . . It’s a bit tiring to see people’s overuse of these terms
and really not have any substance to back it up.”
During the past four years, the number of clothes and accessories
described as “sustainable” has quadrupled among online retailers in the
US and UK, according to Edited, a London-based retail analytics company.
Corresponding terms such as “vegan”, “conscious” and “eco” have also
seen their usage multiply, the company said.
Where there is progress, brands are quick to shout about it. Organic and
recycled fibres, once a rarity, can now be found in designer collections
and in H&M. Yarn spun from recycled ocean plastic has become a major
ingredient in everything from Adidas track pants to Prada nylon
backpacks. High-end labels such as Balenciaga and Burberry now tout not
only the luxuriousness of their materials, but also whether they meet
certain environmental certifications. More importantly, companies over
the past decade have begun to quantify the impact across their full
supply chain and take strides to reduce it.
But there’s a problem. Not only is fashion not sustainable, it is
becoming less so every moment. A report published by the Global Fashion
Agenda in Copenhagen and the Boston Consulting Group last year revealed
that the apparel and footwear industries’ progress on everything from
carbon reduction to ensuring living wages for workers was 30 per cent
slower in 2019 than the year before. The sector is also growing so
rapidly that its impact on the planet is actually worsening. The volume
of apparel and footwear being produced is forecast to increase by 81 per
cent to 102m tons by 2030, according to the report.
It isn’t just fast fashion at fault. Even Gucci parent Kering, which has
one of the most advanced and transparent environmental policies in the
luxury sector, has struggled to reduce its footprint because its brands
are growing so quickly.
And yet the good news keeps coming: in a deluge of emails promising
products that are “carbon neutral”, “negative waste” or even “positive
impact” — as if the making of a new garment could actually be a good
thing for the planet. No wonder many of us are confused. “There is this
vast array of icons and language and terminology, all of which feed a
dynamic where customers don’t question a purchase, it reinforces a
purchase,” says Alex Weller, European marketing director at Patagonia, a
US outdoor clothing company whose public mission is “to save our home
planet”. The company donates 1 per cent of gross sales to environmental
projects and doesn’t use the word “sustainable” to describe itself or
any of its products.
“It’s a bunch of coded language so that we think, yeah I’m comfortable
with that, I can buy that,” Weller continues. “Versus trying to help the
customer make a smart decision.”
As recently as a decade ago, few fashion brands wanted to be described
as “sustainable”. When Yael Aflalo launched Reformation, a Los
Angeles-based label known for its flirty, floral-print dresses, in 2009,
she didn’t talk about how many of her garments were made from upcycled
vintage or deadstock fabrics because her publicist told her it was “not
going to resonate with fashion consumers”, she told me in a 2016
interview. “But we had seen the change in the automotive industry, seen
the change in the food industry,” the founder and former chief executive
said. “And [we knew] fashion was going to be next.”
Today, many of us are starting to feel pretty guilty about the
environmental and social costs of our wardrobes. Surveys of US and UK
shoppers repeatedly show that we would prefer to buy more “sustainable
products”, and would even pay slightly more for them. But most of us
have no idea what that entails. We don’t know our own carbon footprints,
much less that of a creamy Mongolian cashmere jumper or pair of
calf-leather ankle boots we might be lusting after.
There is this vast array of icons and language and terminology, all of
which feed a dynamic where customers don’t question a purchase, it
reinforces a purchase
“We’ve gotten to a place where citizens know sustainability is something
they should care about, but they are not informed enough to know what it
means to be sustainable,” says Maxine Bédat, founder of New York-based
New Standard Institute, a research and advocacy group focused on the
relationship between fashion and climate change.
Unlike food labels such as “organic” or “free range”, which are
regulated by western governments and can result in fines or even
imprisonment when misappropriated, “sustainable” is not a regulated
term, leaving brands free to attach it “to literally almost anything”,
says Bédat.
She would know; she used to apply the label to her own apparel brand,
Zady. Founded in 2014 as an ecommerce site that championed small batch,
organic, and transparently made clothing and lifestyle goods, it soon
launched its own label, which was celebrated for being among the first
to trace the organic cotton of its T-shirts or the wool of its jumpers
from farm to finish — and then make that information available to
consumers. Such transparency remains rare.
Maxine Bédat, founder of the New Standard Institute, an advocacy group
focused on the relationship between fashion and climate change © Getty
Images
It wasn’t easy. “I remember thinking, huh, how do you Google search
this?” Bédat recalls of building the supply chain for Zady. “I thought,
if we could find a ranch that is doing things the right way, and see who
they send their product to, that would be a start. But even once we
found our rancher in Oregon, at the beginning she didn’t want to connect
us with the people she worked with.
“It very much became this investigation of what all the steps were, who
was doing the steps in the supply chain in the right way, and what did
it mean to do things in the right way.”
It wasn’t always so complicated. Apparel and footwear brands used to
manufacture their own goods; they owned their factories, and some spun
their own yarns. But decades of globalisation and trade policy have
encouraged brands to outsource production, and with it they have lost
oversight and ownership of their supply chains.
Mapping today’s supply chains is an arduous journey that can take years.
Companies such as H&M employ more than a thousand factories across the
world, many of which subcontract that work out to other factories brands
have no knowledge of. Often factory owners are unwilling to reveal who
their textile suppliers are, who in turn do not want to reveal the
secrets of their fibre supply, for fear of being undercut.
Persuading third-party suppliers to become greener — to power their
machines with solar power, say, or to begin sourcing and working with
lower-impact materials that could require new sources and equipment —
requires persistence, patience and investment.
“What the media have got wrong, is that they want [sustainability] now,
even though there’s no realistic way of getting it now,” Jonathan
Anderson, creative director of LVMH-owned Loewe and JW Anderson, and a
longtime collaborator with Uniqlo, tells me. He began implementing
“massive product changes” across the labels four-and-a-half years ago —
making clothing out of recycled plastic bottles, finding less toxic ways
of galvanising hardware, working on denims with Uniqlo that require 80
per cent less water — but has kept relatively quiet about them.
“There’s a lot of people who love to use a moment like this, a PR
moment, to say we’re doing this [sustainable] collection,” he says.
“That’s not sustainable. That’s just going with the public zeitgeist.
“It’s a 10-year strategy to do right,” he adds. “And your whole team has
to want to do it.”
In 2018, Bédat shut down Zady. Last year she founded the New Standard
Institute as a resource centre for brands, journalists and citizens to
educate themselves about fashion’s environmental and social costs, and
what it will take for the industry “to exist within planetary boundaries
in which people and the planet can thrive”, she says.
Brands have been leading the discussion on sustainability, creating a
glut of misinformation, she explains. Until journalists and citizens are
better educated and demand greater transparency and regulation, brands
will be able to say whatever they want, and legislators will prioritise
other issues.
“Clothing will always have an impact. What we need is for brands to
speak about what they’re doing to reduce impact and be honest and
transparent about how far they are going and where they need to go.
“No company can be perfect,” she continues. “But don’t call something
sustainable if it isn’t.”
In some ways, the pandemic has been good for the sustainability
movement. Global clothing and footwear sales are expected to fall 27 to
30 per cent this year, according to McKinsey analysts, and brands have
cut back on production.
At fashion weeks, concepts and methods that were once the exclusive
domain of young, fringe designers — using deadstock fabric, for example,
or cutting up and refashioning last season’s unsold garments into
something new — are now being adopted by large mainstream brands such as
Louis Vuitton and Maison Margiela.
“Carbon-neutral” shows, in which brands offset the carbon emissions they
can’t eliminate by donating to forest restoration projects, for example,
are becoming standard. Executives are better informed about their
company’s sustainability policies than they used to be. Many, such as
Timberland owner VF Corp and Chanel, have set aggressive targets to
reduce and offset their carbon output. In September the latter committed
$35m to install solar panels on the roofs of low-income families in
California — which will generate enough renewable electricity to power
the company’s entire operations in North America.
“When I started at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the number of
sustainable apparel fashion professionals could fit in one room,” says
its former chief executive Jason Kibbey, who now leads Higg Co, which
helps brands and retailers evaluate the environmental impact of the
materials they use. “Now there are thousands.”
But it has also put more price pressure on mass-market brands that are
thinking harder about the bottom line.
“When I’ve spoken with brands that are positioned with lower-priced
products, I haven’t heard them push back and say that they don’t want to
be more sustainable,” says Brian Ehrig, a retail and sustainability
specialist at US consulting firm Kearney. “I’ve heard them push back and
say it’s going to make my product more expensive. Right now, with the
global recession we’re in, trying to get consumers to pay more for a
garment or a pair of shoes seems very unlikely.”
In April, Allbirds, the unicorn footwear start-up whose merino-wool,
sugarcane-soled trainers have become ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, began
labelling every one of its items with its carbon footprint. The
company’s average product emits 7.6kg CO2e, which is roughly the
equivalent of driving 19 miles in a car, or running five loads of
laundry in the dryer.
“Our hope is that carbon becomes a unifying metric and north star for
the fashion industry, and all other entities and organisations,” says
Tim Brown, Allbirds’ co-founder and a former captain of New Zealand’s
football team.
Carbon isn’t the be-all end-all metric for measuring a product’s
environmental impact, in the same way that calories don’t fully capture
a food’s nutritional benefits. “But it can help you make healthier
choices,” argues Brown.
“Part of the challenge is that ‘sustainability’ means 10 different
things to 10 different people — microplastics, air quality,
recyclability, biodiversity,” he continues. “Some of those factors have
competing incentives, so it can be confusing in terms of what is the
right thing to do. What we’re doing is coming to the conclusion that all
things matter, but all line up to carbon.”
Retailers are also beginning to earmark products that meet certain
environmental criteria — and stop carrying those that don’t. “[German
etailer] Zalando is a good example. They’re basically going to get rid
of companies not engaged in sustainability,” says Higg Co’s Kibbey.
“We’re going to see more and more platforms do the same, using
high-quality data to decide what products are going to be sold to most
consumers. That will shape the industry quickly.”
In August, luxury department store group Selfridges expanded a labelling
system as part of its Project Earth initiative that highlights products
that are organic, forest-friendly or vegan. Under the hood, these
products are rigorously vetted for certifications and accreditations,
Daniella Vega, group sustainability director of Selfridges, says. The
retailer has also given brands targets to ensure that the nine most
environmentally impactful materials used in their products come from
“certified, sustainable sources” by 2025, she adds. Luxury etailers
Net-a-Porter and MatchesFashion have introduced similar labels.
As a consumer, it can be tempting to leave the responsibility for
lowering fashion’s impact to businesses. “It’s important to remember
that consumers have a role in this too,” says Kearney’s Ehrig. “They
have to change their behaviours as well.”
As a shopper, I’m aware that I am part of the problem. I’ve stopped
buying virgin leather, and I try to find whatever jumper or jacket I’m
in pursuit of on a second-hand site before I buy it new. And yet I place
at least one order on a luxury ecommerce site every month. I reason that
I’m buying well-made products that I can eventually pass on or re-sell.
But still, I buy more than I need.
How do we break out of these habits of consumption? Patagonia’s Weller
likens it to “reprogramming”.
“I grew up in the 90s, which is probably the period of time when a lot
of us were groomed to consume,” he says. “There was for my peers a
moment of reckoning, of realisation that this boundless consumption was
ridiculous. Of course everybody instinctively knows that. You just have
to block cognitive dissonance for a second to know that this is
completely excessive.”
When I fess up about my own shopping habits, Weller’s reply is measured:
“It is an iterative journey for everybody. You need to truly engage and
invest in everything you own and take responsibility for it. Not just as
a transaction and item, but as a useful, meaningful possession that
you’re going to take care of. That’s a mindset shift. That requires
people to think differently about stuff.”
Words to live, and shop, by.
How to reduce the environmental footprint of your wardrobe
1. Buy less and wear your clothes for longer. This is the simplest and
most impactful thing you can do.
2. Buy second-hand. Local charity shops are your best option.
Consignment platforms such as The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective and
eBay are good destinations for pre-owned luxury products, although they
require packaging and transport.
3. Research before you buy new. Websites such as GoodOnYou.eco rate
brands based on environmental impact, labour conditions and animal
welfare. Read up on brands’ sustainability policies on their websites,
and check for certifications such as B Corp and Bluesign. Avoid
synthetic fabrics derived from fossil fuels, such as acrylic and
polyester, which cannot be recycled at scale.
4. Wash your clothes in cold water, and less often.
5. Think about what will happen to a product at the end of its life
cycle. Is it valuable enough that someone would purchase it second-hand?
Is the fabric recyclable? Repair broken zippers or missing buttons on
items before donation — damaged items will automatically head to a landfill.
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