Used clothes in a landfill in Chile’s Atacama desert. (Photo: Antonio Cosio/Depa)
Can you work with 85 clothes? It certainly seems achievable.
A new report from the Hot or Cool Institute, a think tank focused on sustainability, suggests that 85 items of clothing should last four seasons for a high-income country resident. This 85-cloth limit is the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Fashion is already the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. This is set to increase further as prices fall, consumption increases and the wear time of each garment decreases.
A transformation of the fashion industry is needed to prevent the worst climate impacts. This new research suggests that change can be achieved through equity: ensuring that everyone has enough clothing and enough income from clothing production to meet their needs.
Fair
The report, “Improper, Inequitable, Unfashionable: Transforming Fashion into Fair Consumption” focused on G20 countries and found that Australia has the highest fashion consumption footprint (503 kg CO.2 per year equivalent), Australians throw away as much clothing as they buy each year. In contrast, India is at the lowest level in the G20 (22 kg). In Indonesia, 74% do not have enough clothes.
Despite these enormous differences, the crucial issue is not just inequality between countries. Inequality within countries is also significant. As “irregular, unfair, unfashionable”, the fashion habits of middle- and high-income consumers in Indonesia, although these are few, are not compatible with the expectation of a 1.5°C temperature increase. Broadly speaking (and get ready for a 20 number attack here), the richest 20% of G20 countries have 20 times more wealth than the poorest 20%, on average.
There is a lot of classist snobbery about the spending habits of the rich. News reporters, for example, like to see the crowds lining up outside retail stores during sales. But apparently the very rich are doing too much damage to the environment.
Among the relatively good ones, there’s a simple fix that sustainability fans have been shouting from the rooftops for years. Buying less reduces the climate impact of producing, washing and disposing of clothes; And buying better helps redistribute profits into the hands of garment workers. Even if we remove the transmission, there is more than enough to go around.
Louis Akenji, Managing Director of the Hot or Cool Institute, emphasizes that the single best way for people in developed countries to reduce the impact of fashion on the climate is to buy new clothes. The other measures—like buying second-hand, choosing more durable fabrics, renting clothes, and doing laundry—are less important, but they pale in comparison to the sheer power of purchasing power.
For example, thrift stores are not drugs. “This does not replace the need to reduce consumption – and even more important to reduce production,” Akenji says. For one thing, there’s a well-known rebound effect where people feel justified in buying extra stuff because they think they can throw the profits at a thrift store later.
All that profit helps support the work of charities, it’s true. But there is a huge amount of unwanted clothes that end up in landfills and waterways and, and, the clothes contribute to low-income countries, asylum and investment in the domestic clothing industry.
Repairing a pair of jeans in Hong Kong. (Photo by Isaac Lawrence)
Enough
How many new clothes should people in rich countries give up? While some opinions go as high as 75%, “unfitting, unfair, unfashionable” suggests that an average 30% reduction in clothing purchases will hardly affect daily living standards (30% is the average portion of unused clothing in a German household). while meeting the 1.5 °C target. 30% may seem difficult, but it’s not really that big of a deal.
The report gave 74 clothes in a country with two seasons and 85 in a country with four seasons as “sufficient clothing” (how much clothing an average person needs). This includes shoes, but not accessories or underwear.
Statistics about fashion releases in general can feel sketchy. This is in contrast to the physically and emotionally satisfying experience of buying new clothes. Fashion media and advertisers feed off the idea that newness is essential to contentment—for now. Understanding that psychology is key to breaking the cycle of binge drinking.
He finds Alec Leach, who recovers the fashionista. The former streetwear editor left that game, and recently wrote a book that makes no sense The world is on fire but we’re still buying shoes.. Leach’s take on sustainable fashion? “Ask yourself what you want from your clothes.”
It can be a sense of ownership, the joy of the new, a statement of position, a display of creativity – the love of fashion doesn’t have to be a disease. And for certain groups, including women and gender-nonconforming people, expectations around appearance can be strongly linked to safety, security, and success.
But admitting that buying clothes is trying to fill a void is one step toward scratching that itch in a long-lasting way. According to Oxfam, a shopping spree lasts for just four outfits on average in the UK. It may seem like an unmissable goody-two-shoes, but making the shirt last longer by adding embroidery or other combinations can help extend its appeal.
Of course, consumption is the engine that drives waste from fashion, but policy is the main driver of change. To avoid all responsibility being placed on consumers, Leach notes that brands are responsible for supply chain and disposal. The EU has integrated this into its proposed Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy.
France is at the forefront of the law. There, until the purchase is made, it is illegal to destroy unsold fabrics, as a legal entity to increase the responsibility of manufacturers for the whole life of their products. This contributes to relatively low fashion-related emissions compared to other developed countries. Other European countries have similar laws in progress. The next step is to combat not only the use life, but also overproduction and overconsumption.
In the absence of comprehensive laws, some companies have taken steps to police themselves. A marketing site limits customer purchases to 12 per year, for example, and a design company is limiting production processes to prevent overspending. But these individual plans cannot make up for a broader lack of government oversight, including the widespread greenwashing of the fashion world.
Akenji believes that some sort of fashion ration or quota is inevitable. Although this may sound like an alarming prospect, he says that “rational logic has a wide range of possibilities” and includes the responsibility of both the producer and the consumer. For example, governments can determine the amount of resources allocated to producers or the amount of pollution they are allowed to produce during the production cycle. They may limit the number of new products launched by design firms or impose a tax on the regular purchase of clothing.
Clearly, there is much scope for re-imagining the role fashion plays in our lives. That’s a worthy goal for the creativity and ingenuity that characterizes so many fashion lovers.
