James, Alana (2023 September 18) EXPERT COMMENT: Fashion industry’s environmental impact is largely unknown – here’s why. Northumbria University

https://newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk/pressreleases/fashion-industrys-environmental-impact-is-largely-unknown-heres-why-3273445/

This article discusses the issues with collecting data on fashion’s environmental impact. The article states that various metrics, labels, and certification schemes are inaccurate about fashion’s environmental impact. This is due to greenwashing, inconsistent data, and a lack of standards seen in these assessments. The article points towards examples like the Higg Materials Sustainability index, which the article mentions recently faced criticism for having a limited assessment scope and oversight of pollutants like microfibers. The article also mentions that consumers hold many misconceptions, like that cotton is more environmentally friendly than synthetics since it is more “natural,” which is helping harm the push for environmentally friendly clothing.

This article is another interesting perspective on fashion’s environmental impact. I never really thought to look at the sources of the data (not to say that any of the data is natively false). I don’t think that this article should focus so much on fashion’s environmental impact, but rather environmental impact in general, as these standards issues also apply to other industrial emitters. It’s obviously impossible to have perfect environmental assessments, but I think we should at least hold the studies to as high a bar as we do other companies for being honest with their emissions. But I guess we don’t hold a very high bar for these companies either, at least in reality, so I guess that explains the lack of standards for these measurements.

Roberts-IslamFast, Brooke (2023, October 12) Fashion Is The Industry’s Sustainability Scapegoat. Here’s Why That’s Wrong, And What Should Happen. Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brookerobertsislam/2023/10/12/fast-fashion-is-the-industrys-sustainability-scapegoat-heres-why-its-dangerous-and-what-should-happen/?sh=6bd445ec2431/

This article highlights the downside of focusing on Fast Fashion instead of other fashion sustainability issues. The author argues that high volume and low price do not automatically mean a product is unsustainable. The author argues the blame on “fast fashion” is ignoring various factors determining price, quantity, and quality, allowing luxury brands to evade responsibility for their environmental impacts. The article also mentions that Bangladesh fabric manufacturing is unfairly recognized as fast fashion despite making various environmental advancements. Bangladesh’s manufacturing is seen in this article as making unique advancements that puts it ahead of other manufactures and makes it one of the most sustainable manufacturers.

I appreciate this article’s alternative take on the focus on getting rid of fast fashion. I agree with most of its points, as fast fashion is honestly just a descriptor of bad environmental practices in fabric manufacturing. There are tons of other factors that should also be focused on to help reduce fashion’s environmental impact. In addition, we need to help create a different consumer environment to help stop a repeat of fast fashion, as setting certain laws will only create limits up to a certain point, and companies may soon find a workaround if the demand is there.

Duggan, Fergal & Bichet, Emma (2023, December 6) Provisional Agreement Reached on Groundbreaking New Products Law: EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. Cooley. https://products.cooley.com/2023/12/06/provisional-agreement-reached-on-groundbreaking-new-products-law-eu-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation/

This article helps demonstrate the EU Ecodesign law that was recently signed that affects fashion items (among many other items). The law was originally proposed in March 2022 to repeal and replace the existing Ecodesign Directive. This law will apply to everything sold on the EU market (food, fashion, motor vehicles, some medicine). All products under this law must be durable, reusable, repairable, and energy efficient. They are also releasing a digital EU passport (which can help reduce the use of paper). This law also bans the destruction of unsold goods such as clothing and requires companies to publish the amount of unsold goods they have produced each year.

This law (though not specifically focused on fashion) dramatically affects the fashion industry in the EU. The banning of destruction of overproduced items and mandated publishing of the amount of overproduced items will dramatically affect these business’s models if these anti-environmental actions are now put under the spotlight.  Hopefully business that are exposed by this law will be “canceled” and less supported by consumers due to their blatantly harmful environmental tactics. This is also one of the most aggressive environmental laws I have seen in recent years; I hope to see other countries follow suit.

Chan, Emily (2023, December 29). 6 Ways the Fashion Industry Can Become More Sustainable. Vogue. https://www.vogue.com/article/6-ways-the-fashion-industry-can-become-more-sustainable

This article covers six ways fashion can become more sustainable. The first method mentioned is legislation, which is seen in the EU’s ecodesign legislation that was recently passed. The second is stopping overproduction, which the author cites on-demand production as an alternative. The third is making dyes more eco-friendly, such as using bacterial dyes or dyes made from pollution. The fourth is using organic materials as fabric, such as seaweed. The fifth is making hybrid fabrics out of multiple materials to help recycle clothing, such as cotton and polyester blends. The sixth is paying clothing workers better as on demand models can put stress on workers and may lead them to quit.

I quite enjoy this article’s quick to the point method of showing methods to help the fashion industry be more sustainable. The provided solutions also seem quite nice, especially since the traditional sustainable fashion methods seem to be pretty played out. I think this will help anyone in the fashion industry or anyone involved in fashion get rid of the dooming state of mind that can come while looking at climate change, and have us all realize in fashion that there is a solution to help improve our climate.

McDonald, A., & Nicioli, T. (2023, 24 November). What is fast fashion, and why is it so controversial? CNN. https://www.cnn.com/style/what-is-fast-fashion-sustainable-fashion/index.html

This article covers the pitfalls of the industry trend called “Fast Fashion.” The authors call out brands like H&M, Zara, Shein as being fast fashion brands. All of these stores (except Shein) have in person stores and are growing in size. The article shows that Shein actually argues that their methods of quick production times actually “reduces overproduction” because they quickly can adjust to consumer demand. In addition, the article states how clothing production has almost doubled since 2000 yet consumers only wear clothes for half as long. The article also mentions sustainable fashion as an alternative, and tells readers to check if clothing is made from natural fibers, not polyester, so that the clothing can degrade naturally after being used for at least three generations.

This article is great at covering the pitfalls of the modern fashion industry for casual readers. Great use of statistics and great alternatives provided. I hope most consumers can see through Shein’s argument that their methods are “more sustainable” because, they may avoid overproduction, but they don’t promote anti-consumerism at all, and pressure the buyer to buy things at “low prices” with fake sales and aggressive marketing. It’s a see through claim for anyone who is informed with the business of  Shein, that hopefully most people can see through.

Chan, Emily. “Global Fashion Summit 2023.” Vogue, 23 May 2023, https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/global-fashion-summit-2023/.

Top heads met at the Global Fashion Summit this year and discussed various environmental problems. Textile disposal still is a major issue on a majority of these companies’ boards, local textile producers in countries such as Ghana came to complain how they are hurt by these fast fashion companies. They also discussed how the European Parliament is attempting to pass bills to help “end fast fashion” (they have yet to do so, but it is clearly their intent to). Other advocates came to speak to brands and explain that they need to stop promoting overconsumption to speakers, but the reality is that these ideas will probably not stick with the companies, as overconsumption is what made them so successful in the first place.

I am glad there is a fashion summit at all where climate advocates can come together and lecture these companies on their fashion impacts, but it is clear that the companies still have a majority of the power of fashion’s environmental impact, and their power doesn’t seem to be going anywhere helpful for our Earth. Maybe one day this summit will lead to an impactful change for a major fashion company that helps the environment.

Hua, Mel & Chatterji, Mo. “Recycled material could solve most of fast fashion’s sustainability problems. Here’s how.” World Economic Forum, 6 June 2023, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/06/recycled-material-could-solve-most-of-fast-fashion-s-sustainability-problems-here-s-how/.

This article discusses how the fashion industry could move to the major use of recycled materials. The article mentions 3 steps to push the industry into recycled textiles. The first step is re-training and educating fashion designers on recycled materials, as many have biases against these materials for being “weaker” than other materials. The second step is to have governments push for material collection so companies can harvest them and recycle them properly. The third step is to invest in clothing recycling technologies so that companies can recycle clothing more efficiently.

I’m glad that there are realistic options to push for recycled clothing, but I don’t believe that consumers will actually be recycling their clothing if given the option. It reminds me of the issue involving recycling electronics, many consumers just straight up do not recycle their electronics and it ruins the environment, even though there is often an easy option to do so.

Demirel, Melik. “The Impact Of Climate Technologies On The Fashion Industry.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 19 May 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/05/19/the-impact-of-climate-technologies-on-the-fashion-industry/?sh=327e1bff7568.

Biomanufacturing offers a unique solution to a trying problem of trying to make fashion more sustainable. Using existing organisms such as bacteria and yeast, these organisms can be programmed to make clothing materials more efficiently and more ecologically-friendly in a controlled environment. Unfortunately, currently biomanufacturing is far from perfect, as it is having various troubles with labor, production output and energy consumption, but many scientists believe that there will soon be a day when many of these issues are overcome, and we will be able to manufacture many goods using Biology.

After reading this article, I feel hopeful for the future since these technologies don’t seem to out of reach for our current society. I just hope that this technology is not exploited and/or kept away from mass use, leaving our production methods the same.

Burstein, Mark. “Fashion Supply Chain Transparency Takes Center Stage.” Forbes, Forbes Technology Council, 7 Apr. 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/04/07/fashion-supply-chain-transparency-takes-center-stage/?sh=341291665d69.

Fashion supply chains have recently been put under pressure by fashion retailers to provide evidence of being ESG compliant. ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, and it is a set of standards that investors use to deem a company environmentally friendly (as well as not violating other human rights issues). The process of checking that a fashion supply chain is ESG certified is a lengthy process, and only happens so often, as only 350 companies were surveyed by CGS (a popular surveying company) in the last fourth of 2022.

I’m glad that companies are putting pressure onto their suppliers to be more eco-friendly, but it is clear that a lot of environmental impacts and working conditions are still being put under wraps by these suppliers, and I think they will continue to get away with doing so for a very long time. Companies need to be stricter with their suppliers, and need to be okay with taking the risk of maybe cutting off a big supplier if it means helping the environment.

Ponte, Camilla. “The H&M Greenwashing Scandal: Has Business Learned the Lesson?” Impakter, 27 Feb. 2023, https://impakter.com/hm-greenwashing-scandal-has-business-learned-the-lesson/.
The clothing giant H&M last year was caught “greenwashing,” essentially meaning that they were caught lying about being more eco-friendly than they actually are. A report by Quartz claimed that their Higg Material Sustainability Index cards were posing the company to be more environmentally friendly than reality, and following Quartz’s report, H&M removed these cards from their website. The company who provided these cards, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, temporarily axed all use of these cards, due to a complaint from the Norwegian Consumer Authority that brought to question the methods of Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s testing methods for these cards. After finally escaping a lawsuit that caught them confusing consumers about their environmental impacts, H&M recently declared themselves as going “net-zero” in emissions by 2040 this year.

This article to me is a classic example of cooperation consumer trickery, and I am glad that someone caught note of H&M bragging about these exaggerated eco-friendly moves that the company was claiming to be doing. After this article, I believe we should have more laws in check to make sure that these companies are 100% maintaining their ecological claims, and should be fined heavily if they are not doing so.