Are we failing to go green in the name of fast fashion?

Fashion has undeniably become part of people’s daily lives with the appeal to be nicely presentable in environments engaged in. There is nothing wrong with the intention to keep up with this social evolution I have to say until the clothes we wear became one of the prominent contributors to the climate crisis. The fashion industry alone accounts for 8-10 per cent of global emissions annually, according to the United Nations, and that outperformed all international aviation and maritime shipping combined. 

What’s wrong with fast fashion?

The significant growth of the fashion industry kicked off in the early 21st century and brought employment opportunities to over 75 million people globally. The market development comes at a price to the planet, and thereby the idea of fast fashion is shaped by the mass production of clothes at low prices with the high-speed turnover to keep up with the latest fashion trends, which ultimately motivates the overconsumption of clothes. 

The perception of ‘newness’ largely influences the obsession with fast fashion as people normally tend to think that they have to follow the latest trends and buy new clothes to look chic and fashionable while it could be done sustainably without considering their personal needs for fashion and its durability. Mass production will basically continue as we – consumers unconsciously keep buying new clothes that will sooner or later end up in landfills and cause lasting environmental impacts.

A responsible clothes consumption

An illustration that helps us understand vividly the bigger picture of what resources go into clothing production. It requires 2,700 litres of water just for a single T-shirt, which is equivalent to two-and-half years of drinking water for a person and no wonder the fashion industry is responsible for 20 per cent of the world’s wastewater. Approximately 9 per cent of annual microplastic losses to the ocean are also the direct impact of textiles, and aside from its environmental impact, the fashion industry has a proven linkage with poverty, labour and gender issues on a large scale. 

Having these facts in mind, it would be unwise if we are not buying clothes in a responsible manner otherwise our conscious ignorance will pose a substantial risk to the planet’s survival. It is imperative to shift how we see fashion and come to a point where it serves more than to ‘looking good’ but ‘feeling good’ about what we wear daily contributes to fashion footprint reduction.

However, the majority of consumers might be thinking that clothes are recyclable, just like fashion companies have been stressing to back their negative impacts up for ages. Truth be told, less than 1 per cent of clothes goes to the recycling process for new garments due to several challenges in practice – high costs and limited infrastructure are two of those. 

Less is ENOUGH

When it comes to sustainable fashion, the idea of overconsumption to look chic in the room is no longer fashionable and consumers, therefore, ought to be taking responsibility through collective actions, starting with ditching fast fashion. People need to ensure clothing they own stays in use for a longer time to gradually reduce their impact on the planet, and the same goes for buying new items when they have to, as consequences should never be ignored.

Throw-away Culture is one of the barriers to going green in fashion that should be halted for good. People generally dispose of clothes in perfect condition just as they do not want those anymore, and this is presumably because outfit repetition was/is not a fancy idea in societies, which should be immediately normalized in the age of ‘more’ – more designs, more collections.

Consumers, without a doubt, are in the right position to end fast fashion, which is not healthy for the planet as they drove the trend with higher demand in the first place and revolutionize the fashion industry to go sustainably. This is the time for fashion companies as well to genuinely demonstrate their interest for the better and earn consumers’ trust through action over words.

Important to note that the change will not happen overnight, nor handful of consumers who are desperately working for it, but the strong will and collective actions of consumers and fashion firms will lead to something called sustainable fashion.

Wai Yan Lin
Wai Yan Lin
Wai Yan Lin is a human resource professional from Burma and he is currently taking up MBA in Sustainability Management at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia.