Western Consumerist Culture’s Quest for Sustainability in the Fashion Industry

What is sustainability? According to business writer John Elkington, sustainability is defined as the “triple bottom line”, (1) “The triple bottom line refers to the triad of profit, social responsibility, and stewardship of the environment in a business”. (2) These are the core components of sustainability. Due to the lack of attention attributed to social and environmental significance, fashion is a non-circular, unsustainable industry. As a result of its indifference, fashion is the second-largest polluter in the world (3) and a contributor of social injustice exhibited through poor labor policies and sweatshops. Ironically, even though fashion is a profit-driven industry, more than US$500 billion in value is lost every year because of discarded clothing. The industry’s growing pursuit of profit is made conspicuous with its remarkable speed; the speed of production, distribution, and sales. Speed in western consumer culture is the underlying agent of unsustainability in the fashion industry. To achieve sustainability, the industry must adopt slow practices by reforming society’s consumerist habits and changing the fashion industry’s business model.

From a consumerist perspective, the line between needs and wants is blurred. Our culture’s elementary goal is growth, expansion; more is better. (5) With the omnipresent scheme inciting consumers to buy material goods, it is hard to distinguish real needs between manufactured ones. (6) Herein lies the underlying issue resulting in unsustainability in the fashion industry; “wants” lead to impulsive and compulsive buying driving mass consumption and production of clothes at a fast pace. Fashion, namely fast fashion, participates in the consumption scheme of material goods by creating new trends as a result of producing new clothing collections every week, “… If the style is going to be dead in a year, why should I buy a piece that will last longer?”. (7) The industry is designed to make consumers feel fashionably outdated shortly after acquiring new garments, provoking the impulsive purchase of new clothes systematically to keep up with the latest trends. 

Due to consumer-driven mindsets and ignorance regarding social and environmental injustice in the industry, inciting change is a challenge. The notion of slowing our consumer activity challenges the premise on which Western culture is founded and the sense of self that people associate with material goods. (8) However, to truly attain sustainability in the fashion industry, as consumers, we must slow our consumption of clothing. 

Perhaps, rather than routinely buying new disposable garments every week, consumers should invest in luxury pieces. Luxury fashion is a symbol of wealth, exclusivity and status. (9) To middle-class consumers, having the means to purchase luxury clothing suggest a superior lifestyle: the dream. (10) Fast fashion allows middle-class consumer dreams to come true by mimicking luxury trends. However, if the average consumer was to invest in one luxury piece instead of five fast fashion pieces, not only will we be able to start slowing our consumption rate, but the said luxury piece will become sentimentally valued by the consumer.  

Apart from luxury pieces, vintage designer garments have become a symbol of status. (11) The new rising trend is no longer about novelty but rather antiquity; for example, social media demonstrates that 1993 Issey Miyake pants hold a greater rank than the latest Yeezys. Even designers creating new vintage-oriented collections could encourage consumers to wear their old clothes. Likewise, buying second-hand quality clothing could be a sustainable approach for the economically disadvantaged consumer unable to afford designer prices. Reestablishing our relationship with our clothes is the starting point for sustainable awareness in the fashion industry. 

Moreover, the industry sees speed as a permanent business model, but like anything accelerating rapidly, it can spin out of control and collapse. The fashion industry’s low-priced, fast produced product rouses pressure and competition between businesses; who can do it cheaper and faster, exploiting the consumer's desire for novelty. While changing fast fashion induced consumer behavior plays an important role in initiating a sustainable future, the fashion business model must be scrutinized to achieve true sustainability. How can fast fashion retailers incite a change in consumer behavior?  

The simple solution to fast fashion and the consumerism it provokes is slow fashion. Though fashion sustainability is more complex than simply reducing the speed of production; the concept of growth should be replaced by the notion of rebirth. One of the biggest components of unsustainability in the fashion industry is that fashion is a non-circular industry; at any level of quality, garments are bought and discarded. Retailers should consider designing for resale as a new business model. (12) This method suggests the manufacture of high-quality clothing to ensure long-lasting value and the prospect of being repurchased many times over. Rather then the disposal of functional garments, clothing made from high-quality textiles and production methods can be refabricated into new garments and sold as such. Furthermore, the fabrication of luxury clothing suggests sustainability in itself. Not only would it provide excellent refabrication materiel, but luxury clothing is more costly than fast produced garments. Higher price points encourage consumers to retain said garments and even maintain the garment's life cycle, reducing the frequency of clothes bought.  

Though, as mentioned, reducing the overall speed of the fashion industry is essential to attaining sustainability. While quality clothing is a more ethically sustainable option, the luxury sector of the fashion industry still produces around four collections a year: Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter, Resort, Pre-Fall. Compared to the weekly collections presented by fast fashion corporations, it may seem insignificant. However, annual fashion collections have doubled in recent years to maintain public exposure, resulting in a strain on resources. An important step that must be considered is the elimination of the Resort and Pre-fall collections by returning to the original two yearly fashion seasons: Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer. This step would be the hardest for fashion retailers to achieve, going directly against our society’s fundamental desire for growth and challenging precisely the fashion industry’s business model of speed by slowing production when consumers want more. 

While slow consumption of clothing may be the key to environmental sustainability, the production of fewer clothes would promote the loss of numerous jobs by decreasing the global revenue of the fashion industry. The loss of jobs would occur at every level of the supply chain; from cotton farmers forced to curtail cotton production to dismissing seamstresses at high-end fashion houses.

One component of sustainable textile production is producing garments locally. This prospect would reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by shipping and allow for closer control of environmental regulations. Though this may be beneficial in diminishing the carbon footprint of the fashion industry, it would completely disrupt third world country economies that depend on the garment industry as a key source of revenue. (13) Furthermore, the production of said clothes in consumer countries could disrupt the local environment if the same unsustainable practices are put in play. While the idea of sustainability is appealing, the adaptation of a single industry towards sustainability could create an imbalance in the world’s economy and social order. Global sustainability requires the participation of all major industries.

The exponential growth of the population since the industrial revolution has resulted in a surge in consumerism, as witnessed in the fashion industry. The sudden acceleration in the industry has resulted in unsustainability. Fashion touches everyone, whether they take pride in the way they dress or simply rifle through a sales rack for a cheap shirt. The world is in an environmentally precarious time. We can no longer continue exploiting our resources the way we do. For that reason, the fashion industry must slow down; consumers need to consume more consciously, while fashion corporations must aim for an overall sustainable production of clothes.

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Foot Notes

(1) Elkington, Cannibals with forks, 2002

(2) Definition of the “Triple Bottom Line” according to Ethics and the Triple Bottom Line, 2019

(3) Paraphrased from “Fast fashion is second only to oil as the world’s largest polluter.” UN, Putting the brakes on fast fashion, 2019

(4) Statistic from the UN article: Why fast fashion needs to slow down, 2019

(5) Fletcher, Grose, Fashion & sustainability, 2012

(6) Fletcher, Grose, Fashion & sustainability, 2012

(7) Koh, Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands, 2013

(8) Fletcher, Grose, Fashion & sustainability, 2012

(9) Koh, Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands, 2013

(10) Koh, Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands, 2013

(11) Cartner-Morley, So hot it hurts: London Fashion Week in the age of climate activism, 2019

(12) Fletcher, Grose, Fashion & sustainability, 2012

(13) Bangladesh garment industry represents 80% of total export revenue, Improving working conditions in the ready made garment industry: Progress and achievements, 2019.

Works Cited

Fletcher, K., Grose, L., & Hawken, P. (2012). Fashion & sustainability. London: L. King.

Why fast fashion needs to slow down. (2019). Retrieved 29 September 2019, from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/blogpost/why-fast-fashion-needs-slow-down 

Putting the brakes on fast fashion. (2019). Retrieved 29 September 2019, from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-fast-fashion 

Cartner-Morley, J. (2019). So hot it hurts: London Fashion Week in the age of climate activism. Retrieved 29 September 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/sep/17/so-hot-it-hurts-london-fashion-week-in-the-age-of-climate-activism 

Helmore, E. (2019). Can fashion keep its cool … and help save the planet?. Retrieved 29 September 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/aug/31/can-fashion-keep-its-cool-and-help-save-the-planet 

Koh, K. (2013). Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands[Ebook]. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/document/127369814/Fast-Fashion-Sustainability 

Morgan, A. (2015). The True Cost [Film]. Life Is My Movie Entertainment Bullfrog Films: Untold Creative Life Is My Movie Entertainment. 

Fashion industry may use quarter of world’s carbon budget by 2050. (2019). Retrieved 29 September 2019, from https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/fashion-industry-may-use-quarter-of-world-s-carbon-budget-by-2050-61183 

Elkington, J. (2002). Cannibals with forks. Oxford: Capstone. 

Ethics and the Triple Bottom Line - FMLink. (2019). Retrieved 17 December 2019, from https://fmlink.com/articles/ethics-and-the-triple-bottom-line/ 

Improving working conditions in the ready made garment industry: Progress and achievements. (2019). Retrieved 19 December 2019, from https://www.ilo.org/dhaka/Whatwedo/Projects/WCMS_240343/lang--en/index.htm 

Fast Fashion

This post aims to raise awareness of the consequences of the fast fashion industry’s profit pursuit driven by people and the effects this has on the planet.

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Big fast fashion names include:

Why do we shop at fast fashion retailers?

• Affordability

• Regular wardrobe updates

• Staying on trend

“Just recently I purchased a cocktail dress for my friend’s wedding party. I saw a similar dress at Marc Jacobs—a velvet beaded dress—but I bought this one at Zara for a fraction of the price. It may not be premium quality, but it is a trendy piece and very affordable! ... The trendy items allow me to update my wardrobe more regularly than before. If the style is going to be dead in a year, why should I buy a piece that will last longer? In a nutshell, it is affordable pricing and acceptable quality.”

- Fashion Theory Journal; Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands

- quoted by Linda, Hong Kong student

Consumerism

Fast fashion dispensability resides in the cheap value of the clothes. These bargain-basement priced garments have changed the way we buy our clothes. According to the University of Queensland in Australia, globally, 80 billion pieces of clothing are bought each year increasing our clothing purchases by 400% in the last 20 years. According to a 2017 research in the Global Fashion Agenda, our clothing consumption is expected to rise by 63% in the year 2030, averaging to about 102 million tons worth of clothes.

The rise in our clothing consumption is also a result of the continual transition of new collections in stores. The typical two seasons a year collections: fall/winter and spring/summer, have increased to 50 or so micro-collections a year. Micro-collections are replacing different trends every week. Consequently, to be "trendy" consumers must regularly update their clothes.

World Ressource Institute, 2013

The fast fashion industry has been growing exponentially in recent years causing massive social and environmental issues which the majority of consumers are unaware of.

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Social Injustice

Our Good Brands

The reason that fast fashion clothing is so affordable is that fast fashion retailers outsource all their production to developing countries such as China, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, etc. where labor policies are practically non-existent and the fast fashion industry can exploit their workers.

Take H&M for example:

Average annual revenue of H&M according to Owler: $39.2 billion

According to, H&M employs 1.6 million garment workers the majority of which are in Bangladesh.

Average annual income of a garment worker in Bangladesh according to the Guardian: $2,028

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Minimum Wage vs. Liveable Wage

Bangladesh is the second-largest exporter of clothing next only to China and houses the world’s cheapest garment workers.

After countless strikes and protests, garment workers minimum wage in Bangladesh had been raised by $42 a month in December of 2018, making the new minimum wage of $169 month as stated in the Guardian. Yet this new minimum wage is far from a liveable wage. The garment workers are still grossly underpaid.

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Hazardous Working Conditions

In addition to a terrible minimum wage, garment workers are forced to work in dangerous conditions. Typically a garment worker will work 10-12 hours a day on average and 16-18 hours when there is a production deadline looming. For many of the women, physical and verbal abuse is a daily occurrence, especially when they demand labor justice. Due to these excessive working hours, the women can’t look after their children. In these situations, children are often brought to the factories. However, these factories are unsafe and are full of toxic chemicals that are very harmful to young children. These working mothers are also faced with the option to send their children away to be raised by their extended family. Often, these mothers will only get to see their children a couple of times a year.

The factories themselves are also extremely hazardous and unsafe due to the number of people working in typically large, confined spaces. This has caused dozens of factory fires killing over 400 workers and injuring thousands more in recent years.

Fire Kills 112 Workers Making Clothes for US Brands

- ABC News

124 killed in Dhaka garment factory fire in Bangladesh

- India Today

Bangladesh Factory Fire Kills at Least 24, Injures Dozens

- Benar News

The worst factory fire in history took place in Karachi, a city in Pakistan on September 11th, 2012 where 289 garment workers were killed.

At least 289 killed as fire in Pakistani garment factory rages

- CNN

All of these disasters have gone relatively unnoticed. But one tragedy grabbed the whole world’s attention. It was this accident that woke the western culture to the reality of where our clothing comes from.

This was the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 24th, 2013.

1,134 garment workers were killed and around 2,500 were injured.

The 8 story building collapse is the worst garment factory disaster in history. The collapse was due to structural failure. Some of the workers had reported cracks in the building’s infrastructure to the factory owner. The owner nonetheless forced the workers to work the next day.

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Not Taking Responsibility

“The H&M group does not own any factories. ”

— H&M

This quote was taken directly from the H&M website, declaring that they cannot be held accountable for the injustice and abuse of the garment workers that supply to them. Although garment factories are not owned by these big fast fashion corporations, they are employed by them.

These corporations look for the cheapest labor possible. Therefore, there is competition in the garment factories. Due to the high demand for cheap labour, factory owners are barely able to pay their workers, let alone maintain the structure of the building.

After the Rana Plaza collapse, a lot of children became orphans and the companies that employed the Rana Plaza factory, like Children’s Place, did not compensate for the victims.

There are roughly 40 million garment workers employed worldwide. The vast majority of them do not share the same rights of the world’s western population.

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Garment Workers Fight Back

There have been countless strikes and protests over the last few years to change the workers living wages and conditions.

Cambodia

In January 2014, there was a massive protest to increase the minimum wage of garment workers to $160 a month in the capital of Cambodia; Phnom Penh. The protest became violent when the police officers opened fire on the protesters. The riot lasted 2 days killing 5 protesters, injuring 40 and 23 protesters were arrested according to BBC. Cambodia garment industry hosts 500,000 garment workers, being a key source of income for the country.

Bangladesh

In January 2019, 5,000 thousand Bangladeshi garment workers went on strike and protested for the increase of their living wages. To disperse the crowds, the police used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons, resulting in one death and 50 injured as stated in the Guardian.

According to the Asia Foundation, 5,000 garment factories occupy Bangladesh, of which 3.5 million workers are employed. The garment industry is the most profitable industry for the country, representing 80% of its total export revenue. In 2016-2017, the country generated $37.2 billion from the garment industry alone. Yet the average pay of their workers is only $169/month. According to researchers, a minimum living wage in Bangladesh that can provide a small family with necessities such as food, shelter, and education would be $248/month, as reported by the Guardian.

Due to these protests, almost all the workers who protested lost their jobs.

Garment worker homes in Bangladesh:

Garment worker injustice is only one aspect of social injustice in the fast fashion industry.

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Cotton

If we track the production process to the growth of the fibers that create our garments, we can observe a massive social injustice and environmental crisis related to cotton farming, notably in the cotton farming regions of India.

Cotton statistics according to the True Cost:

• 85% of men’s clothing is cotton-based

• 60% of women’s clothing is cotton-based

• India is the second-largest exporter of cotton accounting for 14% of global cotton production

• 80% of the world’s cotton is GMO (BT cotton)

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BT Cotton

Definition: BT stands for Bacillus Thuringiensis. It is a soil bacterium gene added to regular cotton to create molecules toxic to certain bugs.

BT cotton was created by the agrochemical company Monsanto as an alternative to pesticides. Monsanto began introducing the genetically modified seeds in the U.S in 1996 followed by its introduction in India in 2003.

Though created to replace pesticides, BT cotton has caused numerous issues, especially in India. For one, BT cotton seeds are much more expensive than regular cotton seeds. Furthermore, the bacterium gene is only effective on certain pests. As a result, farmers still need to purchase pesticides to augment the limited effectiveness of the BT cotton seed creating a further debt burden on farmers already struggling to survive.

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Harmful Effects of BT Cotton

Besides the financial burden, the use of these pesticides has had massive health repercussions on the communities in the cotton farming regions. Since the introduction of BT cotton, there has been a rise in birth deformations, cancers and mental illnesses amongst children. On average, 70 - 80 kids per village in these regions suffer from severe mental disorders and physical handicaps, as reported by the True Cost.

Due to substantial financial debts, cotton farmers are unable to afford even basic medical treatments resulting in the deaths of their children at a very young age.

To make matters worse, Monsanto will take ownership of the farmer’s land when these farmers find themselves in default of their debt obligations. Ultimately, for many a cotton farmer, these stresses are too much to bear, with many taking their own lives.

Indian cotton farmer suicides are the largest wave of suicides in history: 250,000 suicides in the last 16 years.

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Leather and Water Pollution

In a different region of India, the city of Kanpur has over 400 tanneries producing leather goods, making it the leather export capital of India. As with pesticides, the chemicals used in the tanning process are extremely harmful to the environment and the health of the people living in the region.

The Kanpur leather industry dumps 50 million litres of toxic wastewater every day polluting the environment, soil and water sources leaving the region’s agricultural soil and drinking water contaminated with toxins.

With Kanpur situated on the banks of the Ganges river, the main water source for 800 million these contaminations can be catastrophic.

Health problems:

• Cancer

• Jaundice

• Limb numbness

• Boils

• Rashes

• Skin discolouration

“Fast fashion is second only to oil as the world’s largest polluter.”

— United Nations Environment Programme

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“Consumptionism”

From social media to ads on the sides of buses, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements trying to sell us products. In the case of fashion, industry ads portray the quintessential image of beauty through the acquisition of a fashion product.

With the constant fluctuation of new collections and trends in stores every week, the fast fashion business model is designed to make you feel out of style within a few weeks of your purchase.

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… To Landfill

The amount of clothing that gets thrown away before the garment’s life cycle has ended is astonishing. The average North American, being the largest consumer of textiles, wears a garment 6 times before discarding it, amounting to around 80 pounds of textiles per year per person, according to The Balance.

In the US,15 million tones of textiles end up in landfills every year and will probably be there for at least another 200 years since the majority of textiles are made from non-biodegradable synthetic fibres.

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Generally speaking, there are two types of consumer products:

• things that we use like cars and washing machines,

• and things that we use up like gum and napkins.

Clothes have transformed from something we use to something we use up.

- Interpretation of the paraphrased line in the True Cost documentary by
Dr. Richard D. Wolff from the article “Consumptionism” by Earnest Elmo Calkins.

The fast fashion industry promotes impulsive and unsustainable consumer behaviour. As a result of this phenomenon, we ignorantly support social and environmental injustice by purchasing the merchandise of fast fashion retailers.

While awareness around the fashion industry’s poor environmental and social profile has increased in recent years, it is imperative that we continue to push for sustainability and equality in the fashion industry, by rejecting “fast fashion” retailing and the consumer habits it promotes.