There are ways to help the environment through our clothing choices
By Steve Trent
We’re learning to make more
climate-friendly decisions about what we eat, how we power our homes and how we
get around.
We don’t often look at what we’re wearing, though. And we
should.
The textile industry pumps between 1.22 and 2.93 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere every year. The result is that, by some estimates, the life
cycle of textiles (including laundering) accounts for 6.7% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s the equivalent of every person on the planet taking a 2,500-mile flight
every year.
And the problem is poised to get worse, as both textile
production and consumption are increasing drastically.
Since 1975 the global production of textile fibers has almost
tripled: 107 million metric tons were
produced in 2018, a figure that’s expected to reach 145 million tons by 2030.
And the “churn” of fast fashion gets quicker each year. Some
labels now release as many as 24 collections in a 12-month period, and clothes
are often sold at pocket-money prices. Outsourcing labor to countries where
wages are pitifully low yields cheap finished products.
This has triggered huge consumption. In the United States
consumers make at least one purchase every week,
which means they’re buying five times more clothing than they did in 1980. The
United States has the highest demand for textiles,
followed closely by Europe and then China.
The vast majority of textiles consumed in Europe and the United States are also imported. That makes clothing a key component of “carbon leakage,” in which the benefit of emissions-reductions in one country is offset by the tendency to burn hydrocarbons in another.
In China
43% of greenhouse gas emissions from apparel production are induced by foreign
final demand. Similarly, supplying overseas clothing markets accounts for 44%
of India’s cotton-related emissions. We’re importing pollution when we purchase
so many clothes.
Materials Matter
The quantity of textile production isn’t the only problem. What
clothes are made out of matters, too.
Unfortunately the use of unsustainable fabrics is on the rise.
The quantity of polyester in our garments has doubled since 2000, and now over half of all global fiber production is made from petroleum. It takes around 342 million barrels of oil every year to meet demand for plastic-based fibers.
When those clothes are laundered
or tossed, it results in even more pollution. The disintegration of synthetic
fibers like polyester, nylon and acrylic is responsible for between 20% and 35% of all microplastics in the
marine environment.
Another increasingly common fiber is viscose, which is derived
from wood pulp. But that too is problematic: 150 million trees are cleared annually to
produce the wood pulp required to manufacture viscose. With 138 million acres
of forest lost in the last two decades, a fiber based on felling trees hardly
seems sustainable.
Natural fibers, biodegradable as they are, would seem a better
option. Hemp, jute and flax (linen) are all an improvement and have important environmental advantages. But they make
much less versatile fabrics. Hemp is considered “scratchy” by many consumers,
and jute is mainly used only for twines, packaging and carpets. There’s also a
problem of scaling up those fibers to make any difference. Hemp, for example,
currently accounts for a tiny 0.06% of global fiber production.
The best option may in fact be the one that’s right in front of
us: cotton. Although it too has problems.
About three-quarters of cotton is now genetically modified and
farmed using industrial quantities of pesticides and fertilizers. Cotton
accounts for only around 2.3% of the world’s arable land, but it
uses over 16% of global insecticides and relies on a higher
percentage than any other agricultural crop of what the World Health
Organization considers “highly hazardous pesticides.”
Between pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, the global cotton crop uses 8.2 million metric tons of chemicals. Those inputs impoverish the soil, pollute waterways, decimate biodiversity and often poison people, too.
They also mean that the carbon footprint of cotton is
extraordinarily high. Globally cotton cultivation accounts for 220 million
metric tons of CO2 per year. It’s also a fiber that’s
notoriously thirsty. The global water footprint of cotton is around 8.2 trillion cubic feet a year,
the same as 238 bathtubs of water per person annually.
Go Organic
There is, however, a way of cultivating cotton which drastically
reduces its environmental harm. Compared to conventionally cultivated
cotton, organic cotton has 40%
less “global warming potential” and offers a 91% reduction in freshwater
withdrawal from lakes, rivers and aquifers. The yields of organic cotton tend
to be marginally smaller, but because the input costs are far lower, profit
margins are actually greater — between 4% and 30%.
This form of cultivation has repeatedly been shown to promote gender equality, community bonds, biodiversity, improved soils and human health. Rather than becoming individually indebted to corporations for seeds and chemicals, organic farmers form cooperatives and “buying clubs.”
The long
and opaque supply chains of conventional cotton become short and transparent,
with cutthroat practices replaced by a sense of common purpose.
Organic cotton cultivation makes cotton farmers resilient rather than vulnerable. There’s safety in relationships that are based on reputation, trust and longevity. The practice of crop rotation and diversification offers insulation against fluctuating cotton prices.
Farmers’ soils, too, are more
resilient in the face of the climate crisis — not immune to drought, but far
better placed to survive it because healthy soils retain water and nutrients.
These advantages explain why organic cotton is rapidly growing. Production increased by 56% in the 2017-18 growing season, and by 31% — to 239,787 metric tons of fiber — in 2018-19. Globally there are now a million acres of land dedicated to organic cotton, with another 138,000 acres in conversion.
The two major certification
bodies for organic textiles — the Organic Contents Standard and the Global
Organic Textile Standard — increased their number of recognized organic
facilities by 48% and 35% respectively between 2018
and 2019. Farmers, retailers and consumers are all realizing that,
in an industry marked by environmental degradation, organic cotton is the moral
fiber.
But even that ethical choice is insufficient, by itself, to make
a significant dent in the greenhouse gas emissions related to textiles. Cotton
now has only a 24.4% share the global fiber market.
Most of us are wearing clothes made from trees and, predominantly, petrol.
Those clothes are invariably produced in factories, and transported thousands
of miles by sea and air, using fossil fuels.
Buying products made with organic cotton is part of the
solution, but as consumers we can do more by choosing quality, throwing away
less, repairing more and buying secondhand.
But it’s not just about consumer choices; the industry needs to
do better, too.
We can pressure retailers to become signatories to the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action and
demand to know what progress they are making toward net-zero emissions. The
retailers themselves should read the writing on the wall and begin ridding
their shelves and supply chains of polluting, carbon-intensive goods and
practices.
Because until there’s a radical shift in how we clothe
ourselves, we’ll keep on stripping the planet bare.
Steve Trent is executive director
and co-founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation and has
more than 30 years experience in environmental and human rights campaigning. He
also co-founded WildAid serving as president for over a decade, and leading
WildAid’s work in China and India. https://ejfoundation.org