Sustainable fashion may be poorly understood, but it is also misunderstood in many ways.
Here, we address some of the biggest misconceptions about sustainable fashion.
Fact: “Sustainable” and other “greenwashing” buzzwords can be misused to attract customers eager to reduce their impact on the planet.
Fashion search engine Lyst reported last year that sustainability-related search terms increased 75 percent in 2019 from the previous year.
“Objective criteria for sustainable fashion are missing,” Saskia Heydrich of consulting firm McKinsey told CNN.
Fact: “Sustainable” and other “greenwashing” buzzwords can be misused to attract customers eager to reduce their impact on the planet.
Fashion search engine Lyst reported last year that sustainability-related search terms increased 75 percent in 2019 from the previous year.
“Objective criteria for sustainable fashion are missing,” Saskia Heydrich of consulting firm McKinsey told CNN.
Fact: Clothes can be difficult to recycle, in part because of how they are made.
First of all, many of the fabrics are cotton/polyester or other blends, and if you want to make new clothes from these fabrics, you have to separate the various materials.
In the United States, less than 14 percent of clothes and shoes thrown away end up being recycled.
But “recycling” can broadly be divided into “downstream” and “upstream” cycles, and the distinction is important.
Clothes that circulate downstream often become fibers used in home insulation or carpets.
In Europe, less than 1% of clothes collected are actually recycled and made into new clothes, according to the Circular Economy group.
Fact: Repairing an item of clothing may mean that it costs as much to repair as it does to buy it, but recycling the same item of clothing is the best way to reduce your carbon footprint.
You can also learn how to make small repairs at home to save money, including changing buttons, fixing zippers, stitching open seams and curling pants.
Fact: The clothes you return may end up burning or in a landfill.
It often costs companies more to inspect and repackage returned clothing than to dispose of it.
Brands may also be reluctant to donate returned clothing for fear of weakening the brand’s value or damaging its uniqueness.
A 2019 report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation highlighted this behavior, noting that online returns have increased 95% over the past five years.
Fact: Your clothes may have been stitched in that country, but the label doesn’t reveal the complex chain of labor involved in making them.
The Fashion Revolution report, How to Make a Fashion Revolution, states: “Your clothing label does not tell you where in the world the cotton used for the material was grown, where the fibre was spun into yarn, where the yarn was woven into the fabric, or where the fabric was dyed or printed.
It doesn’t tell you where the yarn, the dye, the zippers, the buttons, the beading or any other embellishments came from.”
To encourage supply-chain transparency on labels, Fashion Revolution has been campaigning: Who made my clothes?
The hashtag asks users to post clothing tags and brand names on their selfies.
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