What is the true cost of fashion? How mindful do we have to be? The fashion industry is responsible for immense waste, pollution, and exploitation. The constant desire to keep up has led to a cycle of overproduction and overconsumption. Forcing us to be conscious about the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their own needs. Often, by using resources carefully to avoid long-term harm to the environment and society.
Circular economy is a regenerative system that reduces the input of resources, emissions, and waste of energy. This is achieved through reusing, repairing, refurbishing, recycling, and creating long-lasting designs for products and materials, ensuring they can maximize the value of the product or material. As Gwilt (2014) explains “design decisions made at the beginning of a garments life can determine up to 80% of its environmental impact”. The circular economy is not a new concept; it has been developed from ideas such as sustainable growth, Product life cycle, sustainable growth, etc. CE supports the economy by creating new jobs for repair, refurbishing products and materials, supporting businesses, improving quality of clothing, and their brand image. However, CE is often considered an impractical theory, as products and materials lose quality as they get repaired, refurbished and often use other sources of energy in the process. Often the theory of a Circular Economy is viewed through a management way without looking at how CE affects society. “Why this depolitization occurs is attributed to the circular economy being “presented as a managerial and technocratic, matter-of-fact issue” (Niskanen et al., 2020, p. 7 cited in Corvellec, Stowell and Johansson, 2021).
A sustainable development goal is one of the 17 global goals decided upon by all the United Nations members in 2015. These goals are a call to action to address upending problems faced by the world, such as poverty, environment, peace, and prosperity. One of the UN SDGs is responsible consumption and production, which focuses on the CE. As CE is seen as a solution to achieving SCP goals, specifically targeting waste of resources and minimizing waste. This was also identified by Martin Charter “At a high level, CE can be seen as part of sustainable development and touches on a number of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular Responsible Consumption and Production.” (Charter,M 2018, p. 33).
The Fashion industry has a large environmental footprint due to overconsumption, overproduction, leading to waste. The CE acts as a business model used to address these systemic issues. Moreover addresses the key issues- scale of waste. “Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, McKinsey & Company reported. “The consultancy also estimates that 40% of all items produced by the sector are sold at a markdown, and tackling overproduction could reduce carbon emissions by 158 million tonnes a year.” (Drapers, 2022) By tackling overproduction, there could be a potential decrease of “carbon emissions by 158 million tonnes a year”(Drapers, 2022)
References
Dillon, S. (2018) Fashion entrepreneurship and management
Charter, M. (ed.) (2018) Designing for the Circular Economy.
Drapers (2022) Collaborating for Change: Sustainability Report 2022.
Gwilt, A. (2020) A practical guide to sustainable fashion. London: Fairchild Books.