Time for sustainable fashion
We can no longer ignore the environmental and ethical impacts of the fashion industry, writes Nadiah Rosli
HOW many of us have bought clothes that we don’t really want or need, which we only wear once (some never worn) because it was irresistibly cheap and often obtained with just a click of a button?
Trend-heavy clothing and cheap prices are kings in the fashion industry today, and the marketing and commercialisation of fashion have transformed the market into a US$3 trillion (about RM12 trillion) global industry.
Clothing production has doubled from 2000 to 2014, and 100 billion garments are made every year, which is 13 times the global population. Not only is it a lucrative business, the fashion business is also one of the dirtiest.
It’s the second largest industrial polluter, second only to oil — polluting freshwater resources and contributing about three per cent of the global production of carbon dioxide emission.
Moreover, the fashion industry today is characterised by overconsumption, with devastating impact on our planet.
Consumers’ insatiable demand for the latest trends have come at an environmental cost, an alarming trend which needs to be reversed, according to Sasibai Kimis.
The Malaysian social entrepreneur started luxury craftsmanship brand Earth Heir in 2013, which aims to preserve disappearing heritage art forms in Malaysia.
She’s also country coordinator for the Fashion Revolution, a global movement advocating ethical and fair fashion.
Along with other local designers and social entrepreneurs, Sasibai champions robust ethical and sustainable standards in the industry which are defined by these important elements: people, material, the environment and the end-to-end supply chain.
“There should be an urgent return to the low-volume method of fashion consumption which values high-quality, good value products over cheap, throwaway ones,” says Sasibai emphatically.
FABULOUSLY UNSUSTAINABLE
So why should we care about how our clothes are produced, sourced and consumed?
Speaking at the Fashion Revolution Week event in Kuala Lumpur recently, Sasibai states that the term “revolution” is about understanding the true human and environmental costs of fast fashion, and subsequently taking action.
“We need to ask questions like ‘Who made my clothes?’ and how is fashion impacting our planet and people?”
She adds that there’s still low awareness amongst Malaysian consumers — purchases are made on cheap prices or brands, and most consumers are indifferent towards its impacts on the environment.
This type of consumer culture is largely attributed to the explosion of fast fashion. A phenomenon in the industry which started in 2000, fast fashion refers to the high volume and low-cost model utilised by the fashion industry.
Shoppers respond to lower prices and new trends, and these companies expedite the variety of clothing on the market as quickly and cheaply as possible. This addiction to fast fashion has taken a toll on the environment: both on the resources required to produce short-lasting clothes, and in terms of the waste generated.
A piece of clothing that ends up on store shelves goes through a long and complicated journey. It involves various supply chains of production, harvesting and processing of raw materials, manufacturing of textiles and the garments, shipping, sales, usage and disposal of the clothing.
For example, to produce just one pair of denims or jeans (the most widely used garment in the world) requires close to four litres of water and energy equivalent to leaving the computer on for 556 hours. Another example: The carbon footprint of making one T-shirt is approximately 015kg. Apart from abundant resource consumption which leads to freshwater shortages and high energy use, a huge amount of chemicals are used globally in the textile industries.
In countries such as Bangladesh and China which are involved in the chemically intensive processes of tanning and dyeing clothing, polluted rivers flow with toxic colours and cancer-causing ingredients like chromium and potassium permanganate.
Most often untreated, this wastewater ultimately enters the sea and the food chain.
TODAY’S TREND, TOMORROW’S TRASH
In order to meet the high demand, short-cuts are not only carried out on environmental practices in the fashion industry.
Synthetic, cheap and man-made fibres such as nylon, acrylic and polyester have substituted natural ones and are highly polluting.
Shockingly, synthetic fabric fibres have shown up as a major ocean pollutant. As much as 85 per cent of human-made materials found on the shoreline were microfibres that matched a variety of clothing material, such as nylon and acrylic.
Additionally, polyester produces three times more emissions than cotton, and is the most commonly used fibre in our clothing today.
Seventy million barrels of oil are used each year to make the world’s global supply, and this materials take more than 200 years to decompose. Other clothing also don’t degrade easily: cotton T-shirts take six years, leather shoes 25 to 40 years, and shoes 1,000 years!
With the accumulation of clothes in landfills, textile waste is becoming a growing
environmental concern.
In Malaysia, it was recorded that in 2013, textile waste constitute four per cent of the total solid waste, which is approximately two million kilogrammes of textile waste produced per day. The number is growing.
To address the waste issue in the fashion industry, Natasha Navin’s passion for vibrant, natural fabrics and carefully crafted clothes culminated in her apparel line for children called Koshboo.
Says Natasha: “I wanted to ensure that my products didn’t use any synthetic fabrics and materials. All of Koshboo’s pieces are biodegradable, and safe for the children and the environment.”
However, sourcing for eco-friendly materials in this country is a challenge. Her sentiment is echoed by another fashion social entrepreneur, Maryam Shamsuddin, whosays: “My business model revolves around using natural materials and dyes, and we work with underprivileged communities. From the designing process of our batik in Terengganu to the final product, we aim to reduce waste as much as possible.”
Another local initiative that has joined the cause for zero waste fashion in Malaysia is Kloth Lifestyle — the first and only socially responsible company in Malaysia awarded with the MyHijau Mark certification issued by Malaysian Green Technology Corporation under the textiles and waste sector category.
The company has been marketing Waste2Wear, a brand by Shanghai-based Vision Textiles which produces high quality 100 per cent recycled polyester yarns made from plastic bottles.
Recycled polyester uses 70 per cent less energy and 65 per cent less carbon emissions compared to the production of virgin polyester.
These yarns are then used to produce high quality fabrics, including tactical fabrics, bags, school uniforms, medical uniforms, sportswear, headscarves and more. Several companies in Malaysia using Waste2Wear’s products include GreenTech Malaysia, Sime Darby and Agrobank.
“Recycling one tonne of plastic bottles saves 453 litres of oil and three square metres of landfill space. Donning a piece of our ‘Green Hijab’ will help to save 5.5 plastic bottles that end up in our ocean or landfill,” explains Kloth Lifestyle executive director Nik Suzila Nik Hassan.
She also describes how their company is creating an integrated fabric recycling initiative to keep perfectly good clothes out of landfills.
“In 2017, we collected more than 5,500 kg of old fabrics. This year, we aim for more than 20,000kg to give a new life for wearable excess products such as turning textile scraps into cleaning cloths and blending unwanted textiles scraps with other materials to produce engineered fuel for cement kiln.”
CHANGING ADDICTION TO AWARENESS
When some clothes literally fall apart only after the first wear, it’s no surprise that research in several countries have shown that many consumers have thrown away clothing after wearing it just once.
For example, Singaporeans buy 34 clothes, shoes and bags, and throw out 27 items a year.
The fast fashion culture has changed consumers’ perception on fashion and the culture of valuing clothes. Instead of caring, repairing and rewearing them, consumers tend to keep their clothes for under a year before getting bored and discarding them.
Sasibai remarks that this attitude should be as passè as fast fashion trends. “I always hear people telling me that ethnofashion (i.e. Earth Heir products) is more expensive. Of course, it is — fashion needs to reflect the true cost of the people who design and make these products as well as the natural resources utilised.”
But she, together with Natasha and Maryam, attest that the awareness has been increasing over the years as more people appreciate the skills, craftsmanship and materials involved in making sustainable fashion. The challenge is to inform the public that purchasing sustainable fashion is choosing an environmentally-conscious lifestyle and value-added goods.
Another challenge is to gain the support of more diverse sales channels in order to make these products more affordable and accessible to the public.
Nik Suzila believes that there should be more public and private partnerships for sustainable fashion products.
She also hopes that the brick and mortar retail outlets and e-commerce portals will consider promoting these products through a special package and lower rate for sales commissions.
“The government under the green government procurement (led by the Ministry of Finance) initiative has set a quota for every ministry to procure at least a certain percentage of eco-friendly products. The marketing and promotions strategy to promote certified eco-friendly products must also be treated differently as these are products with high value.”
She adds that online retailers play a big role to communicate why sustainable products should matter to consumers.
“They should partake in the selling of certified green products with less profit margin or to promote this at another level — create a dedicated thematic campaigns for this.”
Structural changes coming through the system are also important. The Fashion Revolution Week in Malaysia partnered with FIBERS — a regional collaborative effort with the mission to gather aspiring and current fashion social entrepreneurs from Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
A fashion boot camp was carried out to develop their fashion enterprises based on the triple bottom line framework — for the planet, for the people, and for profit to provide sustainable alternatives for consumers of the fashion industry.
In addition, big fashion chains have begun to assess their own sustainability score card, and to vote positively for the environment.
H&M for instance, has set up a recycling initiative to deal with its end-of-life clothing more effectively. In 2017, its garment collecting initiative collected 17,771 tonnes of textiles worldwide, a 12 per cent increase from 2016.
At present, the Malaysian chapter of the Fashion Revolution movement is still missing influential voices from the industry.
Sasibai hopes to initiate the sustainable fashion dialogue with local fashion designers, producers and makers, as Malaysia has the potential to be the hub for ethical manufacturing.
“We would also like to establish a list of local ethical brands that can guide consumer action. We should buy less, for better quality,” she says, chuckling, fully aware that this is a counter-intuitive thing to say for an entrepreneur.
“At the end of the day, our love of fashion doesn’t need to exploit the planet or the people who make them.”