Can the Fashion Industry Truly Walk the Walk When It Comes to Environment?
Green is in this year.
Some of the fashion and apparel world’s biggest names are jumping onboard an Amazon-led decarbonization initiative to scale up production of more sustainable materials and keep material supply chains out of the world’s endangered and ancient forests.
Is it real commitment realized down the road or just a runway for virtue signaling? Time will tell if the trend holds.
Designer Stella McCartney and sustainable clothing advocate Canopy joined online giant Amazon in launching The Climate Pledge Fashion Coalition which will span numerous industries touching the apparel sector at multiple levels. The original Climate Pledge is an initiative which includes some 600 companies globally publicizing commitments to reducing carbon emissions and environmental impacts in the coming decades.
“Fashion has no shortage of ambition on sustainability. People are already looking for more sustainable options when they shop, and now the industry needs to deliver at scale,” said Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer at Amazon, in a statement. “Through The Climate Pledge, we're bringing together more than 60 fashion and retail brands, manufacturers, and innovators to help make that happen.”
The Carbon Pledge Fashion Coalition adds some 60 signatories. Other companies and designers signing on include Anna Sui, Another Tomorrow, Bananatex, BioFluff, Brooks Running, Christopher Esber, Circ, Ciucani, Collina Strada, DL1961, E.L.V Denim, Faherty, Mother Denim, Pure.Tech, Selfridges, unspun, and Vestiaire Collective.
The clothing, apparel and “fast fashion” industries may account for nearly a tenth of all global industrial greenhouse gas emissions. This adds up to perhaps 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere annually, according to the Center for Biological Diversity and other reports.
This also includes nearly 80 trillion liters of water in producing fabric and other materials, according to the Climate Pledge. The textile waste adds to about 92 million metric tons per year.
“Making sustainable materials the default rather than the premium choice requires entire value chains to move together,“ said Clemence Schmid, head of Circular Economy Transformation and director of Global Plastic Action Partnership at World Economic Forum. “The Climate Pledge Fashion Coalition is designed to enable that alignment to ultimately increase the confidence that can unlock investment to scale. This is how we can accelerate adoption today, not a decade from now.”
The World Economic Forum is supporting the Climate Pledge Fashion effort. Despite the high-profile sustainability pledges in the past few years, the fashion industry reportedly has achieved no measurable gains in decarbonizing or reducing waste, according to a recent story in Women’s Wear Daily which indicated that fashions emissions have risen for at least the last two years in a row.
Clothing and apparel supply chains touch across several high-emission sectors, including energy, manufacturing, agriculture and industrial processes. Plus, waste contributes to landfills which account for several percentage points of global methane emissions.
Amazon may be the world’s biggest outlet for clothing and apparel with some $67 billion in sales connecting via its third-party vendors. Fast fashion brands such as Shein and Zara do not sell directly via Amazon although some transactions are made through third-party sellers.
About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing EditorRod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.