For the longest time, fashion has remained a cultural entity for humans. As it keeps evolving, so does the cost of production become detrimental to the environment. Fashion has classified people into various identification patterns depending on whomever they want to be. As it stands, fast fashion, vintage, retro styling, and more have, in one way or another other, contributed negatively to the world’s ecological situation.
Firstly, what is fashion? Fashion is a form of expression with clothes, shoes, jewellery and hairstyles to form a means of identification. For fashion to be sustainable, it has to be practised in an environmentally friendly manner. Behind the glamour, the fashion industry has made the eco-system bleed, and the majority of its consumers are lackadaisical about the situation. From skinning animals, which increases the extinction rate, to releasing toxic material into the ocean, land spaces and even the atmosphere, have all contributed to global decadence. Sometimes chemical toxins used to create prints, and other designs have cost chemists their health, increasing the mortality rate. Also, these diseases are transferrable, especially respiratory diseases, capable of causing a global pandemic. As it stands, fashion contributes to about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Another instance is the cost of production for clothes. The United Nations derived the cost of production for a pair of denim jeans to be a kilogram of cotton, needing about 7,500 to 10,000 litres of water to get this kilogram due to the environmental attributes equating to 10 years of drinking water for a person. In terms of energy, the production of a pair of denim jeans tends to be higher than the average cost of fuel to sustain a family for a day.
The sustainable fashion industry is highly underrated. This is so because some have argued that the constant nature of change has made humans unable to stick to a particular style. In contrast, some argued that sustainable fashion could only be possible through the influence of its determinants (style influencers, celebrities, legendary designer brands and social politics). But to kick off a good innovation of sustainable fashion, there is a need for a mental, social and environmental reorientation. People must understand that the cost of their looks could harm the sustenance and availability of resources for the coming generation.
Production of materials like polyester fibre costs at least a 70million barrels of oil annually, and with carbon being its end product, there is a high contribution of carbon emission poisoning the atmosphere. A polyester shirt is said to have more than double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5 kg CO2e vs 2.1 kg CO2e). Levi Strauss also dropped statistics of the energy and environmental cost of its productions and going by these, the world’s atmospheric sustainability is under significant threat.
Imbibing sustainable fashion habits might not seem easy, but here are some steps:
- Sensitisation:
Sensitisation on sustainable fashion would help people create mental alertness on how they can be whomever they want to be while protecting the climate and saving energy. This could include recycling clothes, healthy laundry behaviours, and shopping habits. At the electricity hub, one of our goals is to educate people on managing energy. We chant, “save more to use more”, to create mental alertness. This doesn’t apply only to energy savings but entirely to healthy and responsible consumption.
- Implementing Responsible Production and Consumption Policy:
As much as individuals’ appearances might not concern the government, it is very much in their hands to protect the environment. The government would need to implement policies that promote responsible production and consumption with productive punitive methods for those who deter. This could include accepting payments or environmentally constructive measures like planting trees.
- Promoting Sustainable Fashion Brands:
With the urgency of climate protection, brands are investing their creativity for sustainable social impacts. Government, private institutions and individuals could support these brands by prioritising sustainable fashion brands and helping them with more loans, opportunities, investments, and incentives.
As much as we love to look good, we should also have it in our minds that looking good might either mar or make our environmentally sustainable. We ought to practice sustainable fashion to ensure the longevity of our entire well-being.