Why You Can’t Shop Your Way to Sustainability
It’s a question I get asked often. I always know it’s coming, and just the anticipation of it makes my stomach turn. When people know that I am a sustainability professional focused on the fashion sector, they will invariably ask, “So, where do you shop?”
I hate the question, because I don’t, in fact, have a ready-made answer – a list of go to brands, materials, or companies to support.
The information I have gathered over the years is steeped in academic research on the environmental impacts of all of our fiber options and my experiences travelling around the world researching the industry. It’s taken me from cotton fields in Texas, to denim factories in China, to the second-hand markets of Africa (yes, that is very often where our clothes end up when we donate them or bring them to clothing giveback programs). In totality, everything that I’ve learned does nor accumulate in an easy elevator-pitch response. (Sorry, I know, that’s annoying, but read on, I promise not to leave us hanging.)
I have a hard time answering the question, because the premise of the question – that shopping is what solves sustainability – is off. Because of sustainability marketing, there has been this notion that has developed that clothing can be 100% sustainable, if just the right materials are chosen. Yet, the science tells us that this is wrong. To make a garment, even the most “sustainable” one, say made of recycled fibers, still has an enormous environmental (not to mention social) footprint.
Let us briefly walk through what goes into making even a simple cotton button down shirt: You have to grow the cotton (using a lot of water and pesticides/herbicides); you have to gin that cotton (which separates the seed from the fluffy white fiber); then that cotton fiber has to be transported to a mill (often this involves shipping across continents); then that muck of cotton fibers has to basically go through what amounts to a fiber version of a blow dry getting all of those fibers pointed in the same direction; then they have to be twisted into yarn; then that yarn has to be placed on a warping machine; then starch is added for strength; then the yarn is woven, now we finally have a textile; then that fabric is scored, meaning the starch is removed (that’s another chemical process); then the fabric is bleached and mercerized, (yet more chemical processes happening at hot temperatures); and then it’s dyed (fibers don’t just absorb dyes on contact, this also has to happen under high heat conditions). All of these weaving and heating machines require a lot of energy and most of our textiles are made in China, which relies on coal-based energy. So well, I think you’re beginning to get the picture, it amounts to an enormous environmental footprint.
If you have recycled fiber, you cut out the cotton growing bit but, in its place, you have another energy/chemical intense process to get the old fiber broken down and made into new yarn and then you still pick up the rest of those steps. (And if you want to really geek out, check out
It is all of these steps and the prodigious amount of clothing that we’re going through that has made the clothing industry account for nearly 10% of the world’s entire carbon footprint. And, if we do not change course, it is on a path to account for 25% of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. So, you see how I have a hard time with the question?
We will not shop our way into sustainability.
The better question, I think, to ask ourselves is: how should we get dressed? Wear nothing. Just kidding (the world is going through tough times, we must laugh to get through it). No, seriously, instead of shopping by brand, I spend much more time thinking about a style that feels like me. We look up to the french because of their style, and I think it’s in part because they are less trend focused and more focused on their individuality, curating their own less mutable style. Today, for instance, I am wearing jeans that I bought in college (yikes, that makes them about 15 years old) and a button down shirt made of japanese woven cotton from a wonderful emerging designer, Maheen Khan, from her label Monokrome in Bangladesh. She is trying to advance a sustainability conversation in a country that produces an enormous amount of damaging fast fashion. The shirt fits me perfectly, I will wear it for a long time, and it makes me happy as I have such a positive association from that trip.
I also realize that I am one in 7 billion people on the planet and we all wear clothes. While personal buying decisions are important modeling for what is normal (ie showing that we can still be stylish and not have new things all the time), the way we can make a significant impact is by having our voices heard by the companies that produce the most clothes.
It is for this purpose that we at New Standard Institute have launched a petition asking the largest fashion brands to analyse and disclose their environmental impact, set targets to reduce that impact, and demonstrate what they are doing to achieve those targets. You can help us in these efforts by signing on, here. It doesn’t take many people to get companies to listen and act. (And I would be remiss to point out that voting on environmental lines – like the NRA does for guns – is another way to have an outsize impact on the environment).
We live in deeply challenging times from the rise of nationalism and the rise of global temperatures, but there are actions we can take (and those we can withhold from) that will steer us in the right direction. Active citizenship is the true path to sustainability. So what and who are you wearing?
