WHAT THE INDUSTRY IS DOING WITH REGARDS TO THE ENVIRONMENT
Recycling Fabric
More people are starting to care about where their garments are sourced, leading to better-informed consumer decisions. The realization that sustainability is pertinent to the overall health of the ecosystem has altered their shopping philosophy. Thrifting has grown in popularity, leading to a decline in shopping firsthand and posing a great threat to major fashion brands. The traditional practices of the textile industry do not have a great history of sourcing their fabrics from eco-friendly suppliers; in addition, a track record of using mills and factories that don’t treat their employees with proper care is a well-documented phenomenon in the industry. As the newly trending idea of “sustainability” becomes a reality, these brands are able to realize the deep hole they have created for themselves. Therefore, by either hiding their mistakes or explaining their problems, they are ultimately trying to keep their convenient practice of unsustainable and environmentally harmful manufacturing. I view sustainability in the textile industry in two ways: efforts being made to right historical wrongs, juxtaposed with overt greenwashing in an attempt to avoid such conflict or inconvenience that comes with sustainability.
Before a garment is put on the market, it goes through a long chain of trial and error in an attempt to create the perfect product. We can refer to the official office where everything happens as the “designer headquarters,” consisting of all the people that pull the brand together: the designers, production assistants, ateliers…
Fabric Swatches from Factories
In the “designer's headquarters,” brands receive packages consisting of fabric that factories are attempting to become the suppliers for.
Factories create fabrics of all sorts and send fabric swatches to brands. There are a few different situations in which swatches are sent: a factory advertising their fabric to a new brand, a factory sending new fabric swatches to brands they have previously worked with, or a brand requesting specific fabric swatches from production factories. Swatches are not sent individually; rather, they are sent out in entire boxes, usually for the purposes of examination and testing. The big issue that this cycle creates is that these fabric swatches end up not being used for the sample garment construction. Consequently, an accumulation of countless pounds of fabrics arriving at the office every week for it not to be used and discarded results in an inconceivable amount of garment waste. It can also be bothersome to many brands, receiving pounds of fabric from factories they won’t work with. In some instances, production and designers will request for these swatches to not be sent, but numerous factories won’t listen with the hope that maybe they will be chosen as the new fabric supplier.
Fortunately, one potential solution to the waste problem is fabric swatch books of 1-inch by 1-inch fabric swatches. Although it saves a lot of space and material, many designers opt out of these programs as they report that the smaller swatches are less useful in terms of visualization. Overall, the issue with fabric swatches is that they create an undue amount of unnecessary waste, albeit making it slightly more convenient for fashion designers.
Atelier
A brand's atelier is the first source in which a garment is constructed before the official piece is sent to a factory. In some ways, this saves on fabric, as a lot of factories have a MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) of how many garments can be minimally manufactured and purchased. When creating the garment, a lot of fabric is thrown out from the trial and error stage, and from fabric cutting that can’t be used anymore due to it being too small in size or too damaged. A lot of brands now have bins in the atelier for fabric to be sent to a recycling center.
Fit
When the garment is done being constructed in the atelier or a factory, it is demoed on a fit model. Fit models are used to see how the garment will look on customers and are necessary for visualizing mistakes and making arrangements. When mistakes and arrangements are made, typically whoever is working on the garment will request for a brand new one, with the alterations already made. The ones being marked up are not for use anymore. Typically, they will be thrown away. Brands won’t give these garments to people because it is private information for a possible upcoming product of theirs. This process does accumulate waste of unused clothing.
Recycled Fabric Sites
Fortunately, with fashion being a huge industry in New York and Philadelphia, there are fabric recycling centers, one notably called FabScrap. FabScrap is single-handedly saving fabric from being discarded in landfills and giving it a new home (1)(2)(3). This saves the soil from being exposed to harsh chemicals used to create the fabric, as well as reducing the production of new fabric by offering a second-hand alternative. When brands accumulate scraps, there are two bags in which you organize them: black and brown. FabScrap has volunteers sort what’s collected in the brown bags and sell it to the public or give five pounds of it to their volunteers. It is an entirely anonymous process, so people do not have access to which fabric comes from which brand. In the brown bag, there are other recyclables, other than fabric, that is a waste accumulators in the textile industry (i.e. paper). The black bags contain black and other thick leathers, faux leather, fur, and proprietary items which are products that the brand doesn’t want the public to access. In this case, it is put into a chopper for industrial use. This process is called downcycling. It is an incredibly circular way to reuse an item, but also supply material for industries that also have a big environmentally degrading impact. If there are small scraps of fabric in the brown bags that can’t really be used anymore, they will also get sent to the shredder. Most fabric swatches are attached to headers, and at FabScrap, they are put into their perspective recycling bins. FabScrap really has a solution for everything. At the end of the year, they will send the brand an updated report of how much said brand has recycled, as well as where it went. This is a great opportunity to see how much fabric the brands are throwing away, giving leeway to see how they can cut down on how much fabric they don’t use anymore.
For yardage amounts of fabrics that are not needed by the brand anymore, there are centers like MOOD fabric that sell the discarded fabrics to individuals or other brands. These are helpful stores to have so that designers can feel different fabrics in an organized setting, rather than ordering samples of fabric that they might not even use.
Carbon Footprint
Carbon footprint is an approximate calculation of the total amount of greenhouse gasses (GHG) an individual or company emits. The emissions are put into different groups based on where they come from: scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 (4).
“Scope 1” calculates the owned sources/assets that are directly controlled/made by an individual or company that emits greenhouse gasses.
“Scope 2” is the indirect sources of greenhouse gas emissions an individual/company makes. A major example of this is the use of electricity for heating and cooling purposes, produced by a third party.
The largest scope for a company is “scope 3.” These are the indirect emissions produced outside of the organization for the use of the business. For example: a brand doesn’t forage for the fiber, but they do need it for the creation of their garments; so, they supply fiber from a third-party source. The brand is not in direct control of the third parties' decisions on how they go about the foraging, but they can choose who to use, making them part of the business cycle. Basically, an outside source is doing the company's dirty work.
In some areas, calculating scopes 1 and 2 is mandatory. A significant side effect of company production is the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. For context, such emissions include carbon dioxide, methane, sulfur, nitrous oxide, and various other gases. In certain production practices, the amount of greenhouse gas secretions are extensively increased, but this should by no means shield the emissions produced in other exercises. To briefly provide background, the sun emits electromagnetic radiation (EMR). The surface of the earth then absorbs this energy and releases it in the form of infrared radiation. With the increase of greenhouse gases (ghg), the emission of infrared radiation is unfortunately mitigated, thus proving how these gases absorb infrared radiation. Consequently, this unfortunately results in the heightened heating of the earth. This is a clear representation of global warming, which is one of the key factors of climate change. The textile industry is known to emit loads of emissions, marking it as a top three climate change contributing enterprise.
Scope 3 is where things get tricky. Recently, more brands have been coming out with their yearly carbon footprint in an attempt to show consumers that they are aware of their environmental impact, and potentially share a goal carbon footprint emission number that they are trying to reach by a certain year (most commonly between 2030 and 2050). In these reports, usually only scope 1 and 2 are shared. What a lot of people misunderstand, is how many different sectors make up the textile industry. Scope 1 and 2 make up a very small percentage of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions a company is emitting. The product a brand releases is not made within the company’s headquarters, it is made in third-party areas with third-party materials, something the brand does not have full control over. These brands greenlight these third-party companies, basically letting them do whatever needs to be done to make the physical product. That is where most of the destruction happens: more forced labor, an increase in the growth of commercial fiber, more drilling for petroleum, more deforestation, and larger quantities of emissions. Even though it's the third party that is directly emitting, it is these higher-ups fueling it with direction and money. Because many individuals are unaware of these practices, they believe that because a brand is sourced in New York, and thus deemed local, it is sustainable. This is completely incorrect, as the emissions related to the product can be traced to scope 3, greenlighting all the environmental destruction. The carbon footprint number gives a sense of transparency while giving leeway for greenwashing when not being fully transparent of all scope information.
It will be shared in the final number (most of the time) which scopes were included in this conduction. The greenwashing that is heavily placed on Scope 1 and 2’s performance is so distracting to consumers, that Scope 3 isn’t even thought about.
What’s so great about the carbon footprint number is that it gives brands the opportunity to understand from a numerical perspective their impact on the environment without having to be scientifically educated. Hopefully, these numbers will influence a brand's decision-making in the world of textiles.
Use of Sustainable Fibers
A lot of major brands have been using sustainable fiber (pre/post-consumer or sustainably grown), which superficially appears to be a great alternative to sourcing unsustainable materials. However, incorporating sustainable materials in the fashion industry is by no means environmentally helpful. From one perspective, it promotes sustainability, while on the other hand, adds more clothing options to an already inflated market. Therefore, it catalyzes a major possibility of greenwashing a brand. As a result, many customers will analyze a brand and deem such as “sustainable” merely from reading “eco-friendly” on the clothing item’s brand. This, unfortunately, shifts away from the environmentally harmful actions that the company is doing with its other clothing that is not credited as “eco-friendly.” In other words, what is essentially happening is that a brand is taking part in eco-friendly production for some products, which develops a false rhetoric for their entire clothing line to be environmentally friendly, when in fact, a majority of the brand is environmentally harmful. Essentially, this allows companies to continue with unethical practices, as the mass audience is completely propagated into believing the opposite.
I would briefly like to add that just because a brand is including eco-friendly material (while continuing to use commercial material) it can also represent a transition. We need to be mindful of the fact that turning an entire line of clothing is inconvenient for the brand in the way that it takes an undue amount of work and costs a substantial amount of money. We need to be cognizant of this small change of incorporating sustainable material in the first place. As most of this selection exposes the negative, I wanted to share this key piece of information to highlight the brands that are intentionally desire sustainable change and advocacy. The necessary change is without question occurring, but such difference needs to be scaled faster and to larger corporations, with the hope of helping the greater good.
Packaging
An easy way for a brand to practice environmentally conscious decision-making is through packaging. There are many different eco-friendly packaging alternatives, whether made of recycled and/or compostable material. This is a great way for companies to practice circularity, by using items made from pre and post-consumer material, rather than created from brand-new material. For example, UPS has recently created a mailer that is 100% biodegradable (5).
A lot of packaging is hard to decompose because they are made with adhesives that are incredibly hard to break down. The adhesives also prevent you from recycling the mailers, which wastes the big chunk of paper or cardboard that it’s made out of. A lot of mailers are made with mixed material which a lot of recycling centers cannot handle.
DPP
The new and up-and-coming form of transparency of a garment is in the appearance of a QR code called a Digital Product Passport (DPP). The DPP is essentially the digital identification of the garment. You will mainly see this with brands that are making the switch or very deep into the process of becoming sustainable. It shows that a brand is making an effort towards more environmentally friendly practices.
This is very helpful to know where your garment comes from, what fibers it is made of, the practices used in the mills and factories, if the garment has any certifications, and so on. It provides the opportunity for that information to be relayed to whoever the garment is passed on to, whether it is another consumer who got it secondhand, a landfill sight, a recycling center, someone who is looking to upcycle, or a mill who turns pre and post-consumer material into a new thread.
Re-selling products from the customers
For a more circular option, brands are offering consumers the ability to buy and sell said branded clothing to resellers (i.e. ThredUp) for a discount. This can be mistaken again for greenwashing because it is taking away the attention from the brand's unsustainable practices and more towards sustainable actions. I can’t be mad at this because it still does good and prevents clothing from going into landfills. Some examples are H&M collaborating with ThredUp, called “H&M PRE-LOVED.” They sell H&M pieces through Thred-up on the H&M website. The effort is what is going to ultimately count.
WORK CITED
1. FABSCRAP annual report - squarespace. FabScrap. (2021). https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56aff2e3d51cd44dd1c364ee/t/624742579bc82f7b1bdd4a11/1648837215316/FABSCRAP_ANNUALREPORT_2021_LR.pdf
2. Fabscrap. FABSCRAP. (n.d.-a). https://fabscrap.org/
3. Recycle. FABSCRAP. (n.d.). https://fabscrap.org/recycle
4. YouTube. (2023, February 23). Greenhouse gas emissions - scope 1, 2 and 3. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkG8i_4mdCM&ab_channel=ESGBase
5. UPS introduces biodegradable packaging in China. About UPS-SG. (2022, July 31). https://about.ups.com/sg/en/our-impact/sustainability/ups-introduces-biodegradable-packaging-in-china.html
