Why Our Garment Industry is Wasteful by Design - And How We Can Fix It
Our garment industry is wasteful by design! This is indeed a problem that can be solved by collaborative consumption and a circular economy.
Many of us are guilty of not thinking too hard about what happens to our clothes after we have bought them and worn them out. It's not something we really give much thought to, especially if we don't consider ourselves particularly eco-conscious consumers. We may donate clothing to charity or even sell it on eBay or in secondhand stores, but it's rare to know the history of our clothing once it has left the store where we bought it. As a result, our garment industry is wasteful by design! This is indeed a problem that can be solved by collaborative consumption and a circular economy.
Waste in Fashion
The world's fashion industry has long been deemed wasteful and non-environmentally friendly. Yet, according to Deloitte's 2020 State of Fashion report, fashion's environmental impact is growing at twice the rate of its contribution to global GDP.Â
Waste creation in apparel manufacturing takes several forms; two prominent examples are samples and returns. The overwhelming majority of brands create expensive, limited-edition runs of garment styles for sample sale season, which run for about a month before production commences (for mid-range brands) or six months before mass production (high-end). All these garments inevitably get shipped back from stores after their debut seasons due to a lack of space to store them and the cancellation of styles that didn't sell well. This sample waste problem is further exacerbated by trends such as fast fashion, where consumers expect new designs every week. This results in an increasing number of short-lived product lines being created each year. In fact, only around 1% of clothing ever produced gets recycled into new products. Moreover, many companies do not have dedicated waste management plans and outsource post-consumer textile recycling to third parties with varying degrees of expertise in handling textiles.
Solution 1: Collaborative Consumption
Collaborative consumption harnesses network effects to enable people to consume and share resources like cars and apartments. Sharing clothes isn't a new idea. In fact, there are several startups that allow users to rent or sell their designer duds. These services offer potential solutions to reducing fashion waste through secondhand purchasing—but they're not without their own problems. For example, using Poshmark—an online app that allows people to resell used clothes—requires both buyers and sellers to pay for shipping costs.
Additionally, many of these companies only accept high-end brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. This creates an unfair playing field in which those who can afford expensive designer clothing have access to more options than those who can't. But what if we could use technology to make it easier for everyone to participate in collaborative consumption? What if we could create an open marketplace where anyone could buy or sell secondhand clothing? That's exactly what one startup is trying to do with Swap Society. The company is fun, and a new way to shop is to swap. Swap Society uses a point system to give you equal value for your clothes. Swapping is economical, ethical, and cool
From Awareness to Action
Awareness is crucial, but it can't stop there. Putting all your energy into raising awareness without taking concrete steps to address a problem can actually do more harm than good. Now that you know about these issues, what will you do about them? What does a circular economy for fashion look like? What can an individual do to turn her closet into a circular system of trade and repair? We need real answers—not just awareness. I hope we can figure out how to make our garment industry less wasteful by design.
Virtual 3D sampling is the future.
In a perfect world, fashion retailers and brands would keep all of their products in stock at all times. But that's not realistic. The truth is, they only need to hold an item in inventory if they believe they can sell it; if they're going to be stuck with an unsold product at year-end, there's no point in paying for storage. That means that garment manufacturers must make several sizes of every design, resulting in excess inventory sitting on shelves—and ultimately going into a landfill—while buyers are constantly trying to get retailers to order fewer pieces per style because the last thing we need right now is more Xs. Using 3D body scans and virtual fitting rooms during production planning can help eliminate much of that wasteful overproduction.
Navigating the highly complex and fragmented industry where processes can only happen one after another is pretty chaotic. Luckily, startups like VOOR can be the solution. Voor's mission is to advance the fashion landscape towards true sustainability by giving brands their virtual identity and future-proofing businesses.
Solution 2: A Circular Economy
What if clothing brands could reduce waste from their production and distribution processes? What if they could design products that had minimal impact on water resources, landfills, or our oceans? By using a circular economy—one that emphasizes reusability and zero waste—brands can design garments that break down into reusable raw materials. Brands can then use those materials to create new products. Creating fewer garments in-house helps cut waste during production and decrease reliance on goods produced overseas. This solution also has a positive social impact: it creates jobs for local workers who are trained to repair clothes. These repairs would be done locally so as not to add unnecessary transportation costs and pollution.Â
This solution also keeps money circulating within local communities instead of flowing out of them through imports (and thus creating jobs outside of your community).
Vera
I really hope you're enjoying The Sustainability Pulse, my weekly newsletter looking at sustainability in the fashion industry. If you find the tips and insights useful, please share these articles to help spread the word.
Anyone can subscribe for free here.