Despite the advances the fashion industry has made in the area of sustainability, it is difficult to define. This is mainly due to the fact that important key figures are missing. The current definitions are too narrow and do not take into account the impact on the entire value chain.
In the report ‘The Great Green Washing Machine Part 1: Back to The Roots Of Sustainability’, the authors argue that sustainability claims in the fashion industry are based only on its alleged environmental impact, while the impact on farmers is not or only imprecisely recorded. In their second report, ‘The Use And Misuse of Sustainability Metrics In Fashion’, authors Veronica Bates-Kassatly, Dorothee Baumann-Pauly and the Geneva Center For Business and Human Rights (GCBHR) show that even the environmental impact of fashion is misjudged will.
“The leading brands and the initiatives they fund are focused on the wrong thing. They look at the impact at the factory gate, although impact per garment matters. They confuse sustainability with environmental impact, when climate justice must be about human rights first and foremost. And the one thing they pay attention to – the environmental impact – they don’t even measure properly,” Bates Kassatly told FashionUnited.
Current assessments are largely wrong for two reasons. Firstly, because the measurement is ‘cradle to gate’ rather than ‘cradle to grave’, thus ignoring the harmful effects of use and disposal of some garments. And secondly, because the impact is calculated per kilo, when what really matters is the impact per wear.
Clothing is meant to be worn multiple times and if garments made from certain fabrics are worn much more often than others – and this seems to be the case – then this should be factored into sustainability calculations. If a dress “costs” 12, whether it’s US dollars or an ecological unit, and it’s worn once, the cost is 12 per wear.
If another dress “costs” 1,200 and is worn 100 times, the cost is also 12 per wear. The difference is that at the end of these “100 times” there are 100 clothes to be discarded in the first case, but only one in the second case.
For each concern, this report provides a corresponding action point for policymakers and businesses to ensure that businesses that meet the needs of the present do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
“We need to conduct the debate about sustainable fashion in a scientifically sound manner. As long as fashion brands’ sustainability claims are not supported by data from independent scientific studies, they should not be published to provide guidance to consumers, investors and policy makers,” Dorothee Baumann-Pauly told FashionUnited.
Distinguish fact from fiction when making claims about organic fibers
When it comes to cotton, fashion brands are increasingly promoting organic cotton garments, claiming that organic cotton farming uses less water. In fact, organic cotton uses 10 percent more water per tonne of seed than conventional production.
Despite this, brands like H&M have recently claimed on their websites that organic cotton clothing uses 87 to 88 percent less water than conventional cotton clothing – based on the Higg MSI. The Great Green Washing Machine report notes that this claim is misleading because it states that the difference in water use is due to the organic production system, when in fact it is just rain.
Fashion is promoting organic farming as a solution to many of the problems plaguing the industry. However, switching to organic farming means lower yields and therefore higher prices: more land must be made available for growing crops and for the livestock needed to produce organic fertilizer. More acreage means a decrease in biodiversity.
Another issue that is overlooked in organic farming is animal manure, which is often used as fertilizer. In fact, manure – that is, animal manure used to fertilize the soil – is an important aspect that is overlooked in most calculations of what makes different fibers sustainable.
The report states that it is unacceptable that sustainable fashion simply glosses over the negative impacts of using animal manure in organic cotton farming and pushes farmers to convert to organic systems without ever examining how such farming negatively impacts cotton sustainable development goals.
The study argues that sustainability is complex and multifaceted, and that sustainability in the fashion industry is currently neither comprehensively nor scientifically measured. Only the environmental impacts are examined, and even that is not accurately recorded. The current, simplified, system only takes one aspect of sustainability into account and assumes that everything that is either produced “organically” or has the prefix “re” from the English words recycling, reselling, rental, is automatically more sustainable . However, there is no data to support these claims and the reality is much more nuanced.
The easiest and quickest way to reduce the negative impact of fashion would be to increase the number of garments worn per production. Currently, no system takes this into account, and it is clear: if people believe that they can wear as many different clothes as before, as long as they rent them, buy them used or only choose “sustainable” fibers, the improvements will be at best be marginal (loan items worn more than 40 times are not an improvement over the average of 80 items worn per owner).
On the way to meaningful criteria for measuring sustainability, the authors make five recommendations:
- Fashion groups and policy makers need to assess the socio-economic impact of fiber production and prioritize it in all sustainability claims, rankings and labels.
- The legal framework must provide for living wages. It is unscientific and illogical to claim that a garment is “sustainable” based on the choice of fibers when that garment was made by workers who did not receive a living wage.
- Governments must require fashion brands to provide comprehensive, accurate and verified sustainability information. It must not be the case that private companies decide unilaterally on the effects of different fibres.
- Global resources need to be better managed to encourage the use of fibers and agricultural by-products.
- The use of plastic fibers must be reduced.
Article Source: The Big Green Washing Machine Part 2: The Use and Abuse of Sustainability Metrics in Fashion
This article was previously published on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ.