According to the UN Fashion Alliance, the fashion industry is responsible for an estimated 2% – 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. It consumes approximately 215 trillion litres of water a year. And textiles account for around 9% of annual microplastics that make their way into our oceans. The question is whether, and how, we could use a standard to steer fashion towards a more sustainable future?

Reflections from the Future of Sustainable Fashion Symposium keynote speech, panel discussions and roundtable workshops are summarized below: 

Sustainability is subjective

In his keynote speech, Patrick Grant, Scottish Fashion Designer and businessman, and known for his role in the BBC’s Sewing Bee, commented on the industry’s chequered perceptions around what it means to be sustainable.

In camp A, he believes, there are those who want to leverage technology to make the current fashion model less bad. While, in camp B, there are those who believe we need to structurally change the entire fashion life cycle – to drastically reduce the consumption of virgin material and make moves towards a circular ecosystem (Patrick sits firmly in camp B).

There is a challenge in developing a sustainable fashion standard when there is no singular definition of sustainability. The variety of opinions, in the room, made one thing abundantly clear: a standard could allow brands, manufacturers and consumers to make choices that reflect a shared definition of sustainable fashion.

The potential benefits of sustainable fashion standards

The question arose as to whether there was a need for one overarching standard that could provide a framework for organizations in the fashion sector to use to demonstrate their sustainability credentials. Or, if multiple standards may be needed to focus on differing aspects of sustainability (e.g. for circular fashion design, poverty alleviation throughout the supply chain or for ocean-safe textiles).

Standards can provide an approach that puts progress before perfection. Where fashion brands and manufacturers haven’t been able to achieve full-circle sustainability standards or certifications (e.g. B-Corp), they could still feel empowered to take positive steps. Standards might allow:

• Brands and manufacturers to adopt the standards that reflect their values and current capabilities to build a sustainability roadmap,

• Consumers to choose to buy from brands that share their values,

• Brands to choose to work with manufacturers that share their values,

• Businesses to slow down and make meaningful changes in one area of sustainability at a time.

Sustainability can’t exist without transparency

Despite many views around what it means to be sustainable, there was a unanimous call for more transparency in the fashion industry from the participants of the Future of Sustainable Fashion Symposium.

In the afternoon’s roundtable workshops, participants explored how standards could be developed to bring more transparency through various stages of a garment’s lifecycle.

Participants felt there could be real potential in the use of blockchain technology to provide product type, tracking and traceability data. What if a customer could scan a code on a clothing label or on a product page to access a public ledger that outlined each step in that product’s lifecycle?

They could see where it was made, the composition of the materials, who designed it and more. By building this into the blockchain, the information could not be deleted or changed by anyone, thus, ensuring transparency at every stage.

Environmental profit and loss accounting (EP&L) was discussed – where organizations publish annual reports that measure the environmental footprint of their supply chain and calculate its monetary value. An EP&L incorporates factors, such as, carbon emissions, water usage, air pollution, waste and more. These reports usually reach the desks of key decision makers in the business, but they could also be made publicly available, easy to access, and designed in a way that’s both digestible and engaging.

Many believed that, without transparency, real transparency, any sustainable standard or certification could quickly mutate into a tool for greenwashing.

Clothes have an emotional connection

Globally, we buy over 80 billion new pieces of clothing every year. This is over 400% more than we consumed just two decades ago. Overconsumption has drastically changed how we value our clothes.

Buying less is the most obvious solution. But first and foremost, it was argued that consumers need to reconnect with the clothes they own, and brands with the clothes they make.

Clothes are stories you can wear

Storytelling was a common thread throughout the workshop discussions and keynote speech from Patrick Grant – the idea being that certain clothes have more meaning to us; we keep clothes that contain memories and put more value on items that have a backstory (like vintage pieces, or something made by a local designer).

From a standards perspective, it’s another case for transparency. Fashion brands that overproduce are unable to share the stories of their clothes with consumers, because they don’t know the stories themselves. But, if brands choose to produce smaller collections and build relationships with their manufacturers, they could – through marketing or blockchain-powered tags – create value-enhancing narratives around their products.

Workshop discussions and findings

The most sustainable clothes are the ones that already exist

People don’t wear as much as 50% of the clothes in their wardrobe. This could be for a number of reasons. Clothes no longer fit or are “out of fashion”. Or simply, they’re tucked away in the attic and forgotten. When we have too many clothes, it’s difficult to keep track and be mindful of what’s in our wardrobes. This leads to more impulse shopping and, thus, the cycle continues.

Circularity is key

The workshops discussed potential solutions to post-consumer disposal. Participants proposed terms that could shift brands from the current cradle-to-gate model (from resource extraction to the factory gate), to a more circular ecosystem, such as:

• Sending zero returns to landfill,

• A zero-incineration rule,

• Reselling or renting returns on their website,

• Making a percentage of their collection available to rent to proactively reduce post-consumer disposal before it happens.

The right (and means) to repair

A study has shown that 25% of people choose not to mend clothes because ‘it’s easier just to buy something new’. And in some cases -when brands are selling items for as little as 8p - it’s cheaper too. This only fortifies our current throwaway culture.

Younger generations are losing the skills they need to repair their own clothes because they’ve never had the opportunity to learn – especially now that home economics has been scrapped from the UK school curriculum. As a society, it was argued, we have to reignite these skills and rebuild a new generation of repair shops for tech-savvy consumers.

The workshops considered standards that would empower fashion brands to be responsible for extending the lifespan of their products. Patagonia, for example, offers a free repair service and provides DIY tutorials for customers to repair their items at home. We want to help more brands do the same.

"Some fashion lasts. Some fashion's fast"

Bill McRaith who held various senior roles at the likes of Victoria’s Secret, Walmart and PVH, challenged the idea that big brands would be willing to reduce their output and stagnate their growth, even for the sake of the planet. He suggested that, if we want these brands to voluntarily adopt standards (that when applied by organizations of their size, could drastically impact fashion’s environmental footprint for the better) we may need to meet them halfway.

“To develop standards, we need to think about clothes that are “single use”, and clothes that are1,000 uses”, he said. “Clothes that are meant to last 1,000+ uses, should be designed to be repairable. And fast fashion should be designed to be recyclable.”

Fast fashion is often painted as the enemy, and in a lot of ways, it is. But often it provides a product at a price point that meets the needs of consumers who can’t afford to pay more.

There were challenges from others in the workshop to this. Ideally, everyone would be able to stock their wardrobes with well-made clothes that are designed to last 1,000+ uses, but until everyone comes around to the concept of renting or buying second hand, fast fashion is still a lifeline for a lot of people looking for affordability in the face of economic pressures.

Whilst support for accessibility and affordability of more sustainable options would help towards the goal of a more sustainable industry, it could also be helpful to provide best practice support for ‘fast’ fashion options (e.g., around design for easy recycling and/or reuse).

The future of sustainable fashion is open source

“We need standards that almost force us, as an industry, to collaborate, collude and conspire against fashion’s current environmental impact” commented Sasha MacFarlane – a supply chain consultant and the former Director of Strategic Initiatives at PVH.

There’s a race for brands to be the first with a successful resale program, or the first with a collection made with the highest percentage of recycled materials. Some argued that this mentality is stopping organizations from making meaningful change and that, if sustainability is seen as the goal, and not simply a competitive advantage, the fashion industry has to work together.

Building demand for sustainable solutions

“People have to realize that unless we collaborate, there’s not going to be enough demand for a shift to happen” said Sasha MacFarlane. “Some of the brands I’ve worked for are big global brands [e.g. Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger] but here in the UK, for example, we still don’t have enough demand or appetite from consumers to create an infrastructure for on-demand manufacturing.”

A current lack of demand from consumers means that organizations often don’t see the business case for investing in more sustainable solutions, and could even lose money by building their own infrastructure. But, if brands worked together, shared the cost and made a collective effort to increase market demand for sustainable options, they could succeed in making sustainability go mainstream.

Standards could reference existing legislation

“What the British fashion industry is calling for, is a set of standards that coordinates and centralizes what sustainability actually means for the UK: A starting point might be based on current legislation like the US Fashion Act… and based on what the EU are doing. Take that, plus science-based targets, the sustainable development goals, greenhouse gas protocols and more, and condense down and extract the best of all of it to give the UK fashion industry a roadmap and a set of baselines by which they can move forward." Mary Fellowes, GreenWith Studio.

Collective transparency

For those in the fashion industry to shift from seeing each other as competition, and instead, view themselves as a community of problem solvers, knowledge and resource sharing is key to transparency. In order for this to be most effective, it was suggested that the industry needs to be open about:

• Best practices,
• Sustainable suppliers,
• Standardized terminology to mitigate greenwashing,
• Standardized sizing,
• Detailed process outlines and guidance.

It was further suggested, during the discussions throughout the day, that potentially a standard on peer-to-peer transparency could help to eradicate some of the inconsistencies within the fashion industry and accelerate change through collaboration.