Planet Blog
The fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest contributors to climate change and pollution. In order for the industry to continue thriving whilst also protecting the planet it must take into account the triple bottom line. This is a term coined by John Elkington, he describes it as “focusing on economic prosperity, environmental quality and – the element which businesses prefer to overlook – social justice.” (Elkington,1997). These are also known as the three pillars and are crucial to sustainability in an industry. The environmental pillar, also known as the planet pillar, focuses on creating and developing an industry which does not negatively affect the planet. In order to help the UN developed 17 sustainable development goals (SDG’s) in 2015, these are described by the UN as “a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet.” (United Nations, n.d,). A key SDG is responsible consumption and production, goal 12. This goal is about ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, which is key to sustain the livelihoods of current and future generations. (United nations, n.d). This requires the industry to consider waste and the impacts of fast fashion and a linear economy. These aspects of the fashion industry are harmful as they lead to large amounts of textile products being disposed of in landfills. However, the Industry did once follow this goal. Linda Welters shows that in the 1600-1700s consumers were far more conscious about responsible consumption and production due to textile materials being scarce and labour being expensive. Therefore, consumers would mend and reuse clothing items rather than disposing of them (Welter, 2015). This approach is far more in line with the sustainability goal.
Sustainability is the idea of meeting the needs of the current generation without negatively affect the ability of future generations to meet their needs. In fashion this means the industry needs to make changes in the way it functions. It needs to embrace new methods in order to reduce the waste it produces. Gwilt states, the industry is attempting to keep up with society’s obsession for consuming fashion goods which leads to an enormous growth in mass-produced fashion, in particular fast fashion. (Gwilt A,2020). This leads to an increase in textile waste going into landfill and producing greenhouse gases as it decomposes. In order for the fashion industry to be considered sustainability it needs to develop and embrace techniques such as the circular economy.
A circular economy is an alternative to a linear economy, in which resources are kept in use for as long as possible. This limits the amount of textile waste going into landfill as items of clothing are kept in use and not disposed of as frequently. This decreases the the idea of fast fashion as consumers buy less and brands produce less. Therefore, limiting both pollutions produced by making the clothing items as well as the pollution produced from it decomposing.
References
Elkington, J. (1997). The triple bottom line. Environmental management: Readings and cases, 2, 49-66.
UN. (n.d). Sustainable development goals. Retrieved October 7, 2023, fromhttps://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/
UN. (n.d).Responsible consumption and production. Retrieved October 7, 2023, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-consumption-production/
Welters, L. (2015). Sustainable Fashion: What’s Next? A Conversation about Issues, Practices and Possibilities, chapter 1.
Gwilt, A. (2020). A practical guide to sustainable fashion, pgs 10-21