The environmental price of fast fashion

Jeg har tidligere gjort opmærksom på denne artikel; The environmental price of fast fashion. Men, jeg bliver simpelthen nød til at give den endnu en omgang!
Artiklen er fra det videnskabelige tidskrift Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, som virkelig ikke er at kimse af, og blev offentliggjort i april i år. Den er knivskarp, glas-klar og tankevækkende. 
Jeg kan kun opfordre til at man sætter sig ned og læser den, det bedste man kan!
Hvis det ikke lige er noget for éen, så lister jeg nedenfor en række citater fra artiklen; udvalgt med hård og subjektiv hånd;-) De vil måske kunne give en slags forståelse af hvor crazy det er område med tekstil og miljø er, og hvor stor forskel der er i interesserne på området; Industrien, der selvfølgelig er motiveret af økonomisk bæredygtighed, mens de globale udfordringer inkluderer de 2 andre bundlinjer også, den miljømæssige og den etiske. People, planet, profil.

Hermed – udvalgte citater:

“Instead of pursuing unlimited growth and, thereby, promoting unsustainable practices, degrowth of the global fashion industry — that is, a planned economic contraction associated with reduced production volume — is desperately needed.”

“60% of global fibre production is destined for the fashion industry, the rest being used for interiors, industrial textiles, geotextiles, agrotextiles and hygienic textiles, among other uses”

“Textile industry causes 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions” (p.192)

“The fashion industry uses large amounts of water, (…) averaging an estimated 200 tonnes of water usage during the production of one tonne of textile”

” …Fast fashion, a business model based on offering consumers frequent novelty in the form of low-priced trend-led products, Fast fashion relies on recurring consumption and impulse buying, instilling a sense of urgency when purchasing” (p. 189)

“it is clear and known that fashion companies look to save production costs through manufacturing in locations with lax environmental regulation and where pollution-mitigating technologies are not needed”. 

“Fashion brands are now producing almost twice the amount of clothing today compared with before the year 2000“

“more new clothes are bought per person per year, quantified as 14.5 kg in Italy, 16.7 kg in Germany, 26.7 kg in the UK and between 13 kg and 16 kg of textiles across Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland”

“despite an increase in the number of items owned, the average per person expenditure on clothing and footwear in the EU and UK has decreased from ~30% in the 1950s to 12% in 2009 and only 5% in 2020”

“it is essential that the industry as a whole (from fibre production to retail) takes responsibility for its environmental impacts, including water, energy and chemical use, CO2 emissions and waste production. Minimizing and mitigating these impacts, however, requires change, which businesses are often opposed to for a multitude of reasons, first and foremost being economic”

“Ultimately, the long-term stability of the fashion industry relies on the total abandonment of the fast-fashion model, linked to a decline in overproduction and overconsumption, and a corresponding decrease in material throughput”

“In the future, garments must be designed to be suitable for recycling and closing the material loop must be the norm, requiring systematic changes in the industry. Furthermore, extending the use time of garments and their waste should be integrated for a holistic garment life cycle model, thus, fostering a sustainable fashion industry”

“changes cannot come solely from the industry — consumer culture in which fashion is cheap entertainment with no consumer consequences must change”

“One of the most difficult challenges going forward will be to change consumer behaviour and the meaning of fashion. Consumers must under- stand fashion as more of a functional product rather than entertainment, and be ready to pay higher prices that account for the environmental impact of fashion”

“Successful changes in consumer behaviour, however, must be accompanied and supported by policies addressing the social organization of consumption at the social, cultural, economic and material levels”.