Sustainable fashion refers to actions taken in the fashion industry to lower harm to the environment, protect workers who make clothing, and care for animals. Sustainability in fashion includes many areas, such as reducing carbon dioxide emissions, solving overproduction, lessening pollution and waste, helping protect plants and animals, and making sure workers receive fair pay and work in safe conditions.
In 2020, it was discovered that efforts by large companies to improve textile manufacturing supply chains on their own to reduce environmental harm were mostly not effective. To make lasting changes in fashion production beyond just making promises, policies are needed to create and enforce clear rules and standards. These policies should also include controls on imported goods, financial support, and actions like eco-tariffs.
Background and history
In the early 1990s, around the same time as the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also called the Rio Earth Summit, topics related to protecting the environment, called "green issues" at the time, began appearing in fashion and textile magazines. These magazines included companies like Patagonia and ESPRIT. Doug Tompkins and Yvon Chouinard pointed out that very fast growth and use of resources cannot continue forever. In the late 1980s, they asked researchers to study the effects of materials used in their companies. Today, 30 years later, using and processing fibers and fabrics remains common in sustainable fashion.
In 1992, ESPRIT created the e-collection, designed by Lynda Grose, and sold it in stores. At the same time, research on sustainable fashion has been growing since the early 1990s. This work includes projects that aim to make current production methods more efficient.
Around 2005, staff at Northwestern University Library’s Art Collection started gathering materials related to fashion because many students and teachers were interested in fashion topics. Many books and resources about fashion had become more academic and scholarly.
In the European Union, the REACH regulations, introduced in 2007, required clothing makers and importers to identify and measure the chemicals used in their products. In 2012, the largest international meeting on fashion sustainability took place in Copenhagen, bringing together more than 1,000 important people in the fashion industry. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition also started the Higg Index, a tool for companies in the clothing and footwear industries to evaluate their own sustainability efforts.
In 2019, the UK Parliament’s Environment Audit Committee released a report and suggestions for improving fashion sustainability. The report recommended major changes, such as lowering taxes on clothing repair services.
Purpose
People who support sustainable fashion believe that businesses can be more environmentally responsible while still making money and growing. This movement encourages clothing companies to include environmental, social, and ethical improvements in their plans. These improvements might involve supporting local production, making materials last longer, and reducing waste. Another goal is to teach people how to make better choices for the environment by encouraging the idea of "green consumers," who buy products that are kind to the planet.
Recent studies show that when fashion brands explain how their products are made in ways that protect the environment, people tend to have more positive opinions about those brands. These people are also more likely to buy from them and pay more, especially if they already know the brand.
Some people question whether these efforts are truly effective. For example, after the Burberry report in 2018, which described the company burning unsold goods worth about £28.6 million (about $37.8 million), many people criticized the brand for creating too many products.
Production models
Fashion styles and what people like in clothing change over time, causing some clothing items to become outdated and reducing how long clothes are used. The fast fashion business model became popular in the 21st century, leading to more people buying inexpensive clothing. This model can encourage companies to produce less durable items. It also causes health and environmental problems, especially in developing countries and for workers in the clothing industry. The "slow" movement, such as slow food, has been suggested as a way to make fashion more sustainable.
The current state of the fashion industry is connected to how quickly new clothing appears in stores, often called "fast fashion." To follow the latest trends, fast fashion often sells large amounts of clothing quickly. The quality of clothing does not always mean people will use it for a long time. These trends are made worse by how quickly fashion styles change. For example, microtrends last about 3 years on average, which increases the need for new clothes.
Clothing consumption has reached 62 million tons each year and is expected to grow to 102 million tons by 2030. One company, Shein, produces over 6 million tons of greenhouse gases yearly from making polyester clothing and uses hundreds of gallons of water for each garment. The fashion industry is worth $3 trillion, which is 2% of the world's total economic value.
Many factories that make fast fashion pay workers low wages. Workers for Shein are reported to earn as little as 4 cents per garment and work 18-hour days with only one day off each month. Exploitative fast fashion production is common in countries like China, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.
Fast fashion is linked to climate change because the resources used to make clothing release many fossil fuels during production. It also creates a gap between people who can afford sustainable clothing and those who cannot. Companies often sell fast fashion to groups with less money, knowing these groups are more likely to buy clothing to fit into society's expectations. Some companies use vague or misleading statements to promote their products, making it unclear what they truly sell.
Slow fashion is a proposed alternative to fast fashion. The term was created by Kate Fletcher of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and was inspired by the "slow food" movement. It aims to challenge fast fashion's focus on mass production and global trends.
A slow-fashion garment is often made from strong materials, uses traditional methods, or is designed to be worn for many seasons. From an environmental perspective, supporters say it reduces waste from short-lived trends. The Anglo-Japanese brand People Tree was the first fashion company to receive the World Fair Trade Organization product label in 2013.
The idea of slow fashion has faced criticism. Stopping fast fashion consumption can be difficult for low-income people who rely on cheap clothing to follow trends. People with higher social status can afford to buy sustainable clothing, while others may feel forced to stay in lower positions.
In recent years, resale platforms like Depop, The RealReal, and Vestiaire Collective have increased interest in circular fashion by encouraging the reuse and resale of clothing among young shoppers.
The environmental impact of clothing depends on how often and how long a garment is used. With fast fashion, clothes are often used half as much as they were 15 years ago. It is estimated that about $172 million worth of clothing is discarded each year, with many items worn only once. Global per-person textile production has increased by 7.1 kg from 1975 to 2018.
A garment used daily over many years has less environmental impact than one used once and then discarded. Studies show that washing and drying a pair of jeans uses almost two-thirds of the energy over their lifetime, and for underwear, about 80% of energy use comes from laundry. Dyeing also contributes 15–20% of wastewater. To reduce energy and water use, techniques like using liquid carbon dioxide in dyeing are being tested. This process uses heat and pressure to turn carbon dioxide into a sustainable dye solvent.
Low-quality clothing that wears out quickly is less likely to create strong emotional connections between users and their clothing. A study by Irene Maldini found that keeping clothes longer does not always mean people buy fewer items.
Concerns
The fashion industry has a big effect on the environment. It causes problems like greenhouse gas emissions, uses a lot of water, creates chemical pollution, and produces a lot of waste.
Because of globalization, clothing can now be made more cheaply, which makes many people think of fashion as something they can throw away easily. Many developing countries make clothes for developed countries. In 2021, a report by the Changing Markets Foundation showed that synthetic fibers in clothing use 1.35% of the world’s oil. Fast fashion, which makes clothes quickly and in large amounts, leads to too much production, waste, and the use of synthetic materials made in factories that use oil and gas. These factories also face pressure to keep making new clothes, which can lead to low pay for workers and large amounts of clothing being made.
Each year, 79 billion cubic meters of fashion materials are used. Only about 20% of clothing is recycled or reused, and a lot ends up as waste. In the UK, about 350,000 tons of clothing are thrown into landfills yearly. The average American throws away about 70 pounds of clothing each year. About 5% of the world’s waste comes from the textile industry.
Microfibers are tiny threads that come off clothing. A study found that 34.8% of microplastics in oceans come from the textile industry, mostly from materials like polyester, polyethylene, acrylic, and elastane. Another study in 2020 found that there are more of these tiny particles than previously thought. Microfibers are released when clothes are worn or thrown away. If nothing changes, it is predicted that by 2050, there will be 850 metric tons more plastic waste in the ocean. Natural fibers, like cotton, also release microfibers during washing and disposal, which pollute land and water. Synthetic microfibers stay in the environment as plastic, while natural ones break down differently.
A major social issue in the fashion industry is labor. Most clothing is made in Asia, Central America, and North Africa, but some countries in Europe also have poor working conditions, such as in Leicester and parts of Eastern Europe. The industry has problems with inequality based on race, class, and gender. Many workers, mostly women, are in the garment industry and face dangerous conditions. They may be exposed to harmful chemicals, which can cause long-term health problems. Some companies claim their products are eco-friendly, but they use materials that pollute the environment. To help with this, Europe created a program called REACH to control harmful materials and inform consumers. Over 150 major brands now share information about their factories online. Every year, Fashion Revolution releases a report called the Fashion Transparency Index, which ranks companies based on how open they are about their practices.
Studies show that problems like low pay, unsafe conditions, and poor labor protections are linked to how the fashion industry is organized globally. Companies often push for low costs, and power imbalances between brands and factories make it hard for workers to improve conditions. Efforts to fix these issues are often part of larger plans by companies to act responsibly, rather than solving them only at the factory level.
China is the biggest exporter of fast fashion, making up 30% of the world’s clothing exports. It sends about $159 billion worth of clothing to other countries each year. However, some workers in China earn as little as 12–18 cents per hour and work in poor conditions. In the U.S., about 1 billion clothing items are bought each year that are made in China.
In the 1980s, China and Vietnam opened their economies to private and foreign investments to improve living standards and grow their economies. In the U.S. and Western Europe, companies like Walmart, Target, and Nike stopped making clothes themselves and instead outsourced production to factories in countries like China. Countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh also send large amounts of clothing to the U.S. every year.
Business models
There are many new ways businesses operate. Patagonia is an example of excellence in corporate responsibility. They are a certified B-Corp, repair clothing through their Worn Wear program, use recycled materials often, and support environmental causes strongly.
Studies on fashion and luxury business models show challenges between goals for sustainability and current industry methods. Research shows that while companies increasingly include sustainability in their plans, it often conflicts with models that focus on quickly making new products, exclusivity, or constant new designs. In both fast fashion and luxury industries, sustainability efforts are often influenced by marketing needs, leading to differences between public promises and real changes in supply chains. Scholars argue that sustainability in fashion is not only about materials or design but also a business decision that needs to match branding, production, and long-term value.
Some models are called "circular fashion," based on the idea of a circular economy. Work on circular fashion builds on ideas from the 1990s and later by scholars like Lynda Grose, Kate Fletcher, Rebecca Earley, Mathilda Tham, and Timo Rissanen. These ideas focus on how clothes are used and reused, "zero waste" production, and the entire life of garments.
In a circular economy, waste is returned to the economy or reused efficiently, keeping material value as long as possible. In a circular fashion economy, products are used until their highest value is reached. Products are designed to last, and after being thrown away, they become raw materials for new items. This creates a loop through methods like renting, repairing, recycling, and selling second-hand.
The "cradle-to-cradle" model, a circular system named after a 2002 book by Michael Braungart and William McDonough, is a popular example of circular fashion. Most textile fibers in consumer fashion are made from a mix of materials to achieve flexibility or style, which makes them less ideal for reuse. Although many use textile waste as raw material, it often comes from before products are sold, as this is easier to sort and process. On March 30, 2022, the European Commission released the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles.
Closed-loop supply chain management is now a key part of sustainable fashion. Instead of throwing away unsold or damaged items, these systems reuse, rebuild, and recycle products to create value and reduce harm to the environment.
Research shows that fast-fashion brands have adopted some of these models due to consumer pressure and environmental rules. They now use methods like rebuilding items and reducing carbon emissions in production and sourcing.
Fashion rental and clothing swapping are models known as collaborative fashion consumption. Their environmental impact and pollution reduction are debated. Moving clothes between users, storage, dry-cleaning, and repackaging cause more environmental harm than reselling or passing clothes down. As Levänen et al. (2021) note, the least environmental impact comes from reducing consumption, followed by reusing and recycling. Tailored couture is another approach, where custom-made clothing reduces mass production. Open-source content involves sharing clothing patterns, materials, and production techniques.
The most sustainable fibers in fashion are those people already own. To reuse old clothes, new models focus on reselling, reviving, and recirculating used, second-hand, or vintage clothing. Other resale models also include upcycling and repairs.
Some businesses have shifted to circular models through digital platforms that serve online shoppers. These sites let users donate or resell clothing by listing items for others to buy. "Thrift" fashion has helped increase purchases of second-hand goods on these platforms, promoting sustainable fashion.
Processes
Each year, a large number of clothing items are thrown away and placed in landfills. Charity shops keep only a small part of the clothing donated to them. Recycling technology for textiles has been available for many years, but only about 1% of recycled clothing is made into new items. This is because it is difficult and expensive to separate mixed or blended fabrics. Most discarded clothing is used for other purposes, such as insulation in buildings or making carpets.
Textile recycling companies process about 70% of donated clothing into materials used in industries, such as rags or cleaning cloths. About 20–25% of second-hand clothing is sold in international markets. For example, used jeans from America are sometimes sold to people in Africa at low prices. However, most of these items still end up in landfills because the average size of a customer in the United States is larger than the global average.
Upcycling in fashion is the process of reusing unwanted or discarded materials to create new products without reducing their quality or value. Textile waste includes materials wasted during production, before they are used by customers, and after they are used by customers. Biomimicry is a concept that focuses on learning from nature’s cycles. It encourages industries to use materials that work with natural processes. These materials should be biocompatible, meaning they can break down safely in the environment. This can involve using biodegradable fibers and processes like fermentation and gasification. Biofabrication is the process of using microorganisms to create materials used by humans.
Consumption and communication strategies
For some products, the harm to the environment during their use can be greater than during their creation. This has led to suggestions, such as washing clothes less. Most consumers rarely take action to care for their clothing, like fixing, exchanging, or learning about better practices. Designers are testing new ideas, often inspired by Alvin Toffler's idea of the "prosumer," which combines the roles of a producer and a consumer. New technology, such as virtual try-ons for online clothing purchases, may help create more sustainable fashion by reducing wasted clothes and lowering costs related to shipping and making products.
Recent studies show that fashion brands that clearly share their eco-friendly practices and build trust with customers tend to increase the likelihood that people will buy sustainable clothing.
A study comparing university teachers and students found that teachers usually showed stronger support for using clothing for a long time and buying ethically made items.
No fashion brand is considered completely sustainable by environmental experts. There is debate about whether the idea of sustainability can be applied to fashion, or if terms like "slow fashion" and "sustainable fashion" are contradictory. Some websites compare fashion brands based on their efforts to be sustainable.
Materials
In 2013, cotton and polyester made up about 85% of all fibers used. Many fibers in finished clothing are mixed to achieve certain qualities, such as how clothes hang, move, or stretch.
Natural fibers are materials found in nature and are not made from petroleum. These fibers can be divided into two groups: plant-based fibers (cellulose) and animal-based fibers (protein). Natural fibers are used in many products, including buttons and sunglasses. Other than cotton, common plant-based fibers include jute, flax, hemp, ramie, abaca, soy, maize, banana, and pineapple. Scientists are testing bacterial cellulose as a new type of fiber.
Cotton is a major source of clothing fiber. It makes up over 50% of all clothing made worldwide, making it the most widely used clothing fiber. More than 1 billion people globally depend on the cotton industry, including 100 million small farmers. Cotton uses a lot of chemicals, but farmers in California have reduced their use. Traditional cotton farming uses about 25% of the world’s insecticides and over 10% of the world’s pesticides. For every pound of cotton harvested, a farmer uses about one-third of a pound of chemical fertilizer.
Cotton grows naturally in many colors, such as mauve, red, yellow, and orange. Historically, naturally colored cotton was not widely used because it was cheaper to make white cotton during the Industrial Revolution. Naturally colored cotton fabrics are harder to fade than synthetic dyes. However, manufacturers often bleach cotton to make it white and add chemicals to make it easier to dye. Formaldehyde resins are also used to create "easy care" cotton fabric.
Some cotton is grown without genetic modifications, fertilizers, pesticides, or other chemicals. In the United States, all cotton labeled as "organic" must meet strict rules about how it is grown. Organic cotton uses 88% less water and 62% less energy than traditional cotton.
Scientists have created genetically modified (GMO) cotton that resists pests. These plants use a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which makes them toxic to insects. Bt cotton does not need insecticides, and insects that eat it stop feeding and die. This reduces pesticide costs by $25 to $65 per acre. Bt cotton also produces 5% more cotton than traditional crops and lowers the price of cotton by 0.8 cents per pound. However, some insects, like the cotton bollworm in Mississippi and Arkansas, have developed resistance to Bt. Most other pests remain affected by Bt.
Soy fabrics are made from soybean hulls, a byproduct of soy production. Soy fabrics can be blended with other materials or made entirely from soy fibers. Soy clothing is mostly biodegradable. It is softer and more elastic than cotton or hemp but less durable. Soy fabric is sometimes called "vegetable cashmere" because it feels light and silky. It absorbs moisture, resists bacteria, and blocks UV light. However, soy fabric became less popular during World War II when rayon, nylon, and cotton became more common.
Bamboo fabrics are made from pulped bamboo grass. Growing bamboo requires fewer pesticides than cotton. Like cotton, bamboo is naturally yellowish and is bleached white during processing. Before 2010, most bamboo textiles were actually rayon made from bamboo. Now, products must be labeled as "rayon from bamboo."
Hemp, like bamboo, is a sustainable crop. It needs little water and is resistant to pests and diseases. Hemp fibers come in two types: primary and secondary bast fibers. Hemp is strong enough for construction and has about 8 times the tensile strength and 4 times the durability of cotton.
With support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Professor Young-A Lee and her team created a gel-like film made from cellulose fiber, a byproduct of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) found in kombucha. When dried, this material looks and feels like leather. It is biodegradable and can be reused. It takes about three to four weeks to grow in a lab. Tests showed that absorbing moisture softens the material, making it less durable. Cold temperatures also make it brittle.
Protein fibers come from animals and are made of protein molecules. These molecules contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Wool production uses pesticides, but in smaller amounts. Most silk is made by feeding worms mulberry leaves and extracting fibers after killing the chrysalis with steam. Silk is expensive and used in limited amounts. The silk industry employs millions of people in rural China.
Cashmere comes from the soft undercoat of cashmere goats. Four goats are needed to make one sweater. The cashmere industry has faced criticism for poor working conditions and low pay for farmers. In 2021, Oxfam, Burberry Foundation, and PUR Projet worked with Afghan farmers to improve sustainable cashmere production.
Manufactured fibers are divided into three groups: cellulosic fibers, synthetic fibers, and protein fibers (e.g., azlon). Cellulosic fibers include rayon (from bamboo or wood), lyocell (Tencel), and polylactic acid. Lyocell is popular in sustainable fashion because it recycles water and solvents. Synthetic fibers include polyester, nylon, spandex, acrylic, polyethylene, and polypropylene.
Other biodegradable fibers being developed include leather alternatives from pineapple leaves, coconut parts, and banana stalks. Rayon, made from cellulose, is used in fast fashion because it is cheap to produce.
Clothing can be made from plastic. About 70% of plastic-based fabrics are polyester, often made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). PET clothing comes from recycled plastic bottles, which are labeled with a recycling code of 1. These bottles are compressed, shipped, chopped into flakes, and melted into small white pellets for fabric.
Development
Zero-waste design in fashion is an idea that helps reduce waste when making clothes and other items. This idea has been around for many years. Zero-waste pattern making creates patterns for clothes in a way that no fabric is wasted when pieces are cut. One method uses a different way to dye fabric instead of traditional water dyeing. An example is supercritical carbon dioxide dyeing. This process is also called Drydye and Colordry.
3D seamless knitting is a technology that makes an entire piece of clothing in one step. This technology creates the whole garment without needing to sew pieces together. Designers use special 3D software to create the clothing patterns. Shima Seiki and Stoll are the main companies that make this technology. This technology uses solar energy, and companies like Max Mara are using it.
Controversies
The growing interest in environmental issues among people in Western countries is encouraging companies to use ideas about sustainability and the environment to sell more products. Because environmental and sustainability topics are complicated, it is easy for companies to trick customers. Some businesses use the idea of sustainability as a "marketing trick," which is called greenwashing. Greenwashing happens when companies use eco-friendly ideas in their marketing to improve their image or make more money.
A big problem in sustainable fashion is the way the "green" idea is used to hide serious issues like unfair treatment of workers, lack of opportunities for people in society, and harm to the environment. This is also called greenwashing. In this situation, companies focus on selling more products to stay profitable, even if they claim to care about the environment. As a result, many efforts to solve environmental and social problems may still cause harm. A 2017 report said that the total amount of clothing people use worldwide is expected to increase by 63%, from 62 million tons today to 102 million tons by 2030.
Some designers promote bamboo fiber as a better choice than regular cotton, saying it absorbs carbon dioxide during its growth and needs no pesticides. However, the process of turning bamboo into fabric is the same as making rayon, which uses harmful chemicals. The Federal Trade Commission decided that labels for bamboo fabric must say "rayon from bamboo" instead of "bamboo fiber." Making bamboo fabric can harm the environment because of the chemicals used to soften the material.
In Tanzania, secondhand clothing is sold in markets called Mitumba, which means "bundles" in Swahili. Most of this clothing comes from the United States. However, there are concerns that selling used clothes in African countries might stop local clothing businesses from growing, even though it creates jobs. While reusing clothes helps save resources, there are worries that the large amount of cheap used clothing might hurt local textile and clothing industries.