How to Promote Sustainability Through Your Practice

Industry professionals and consumers alike are making a conscious effort to minimise their ecological footprint, whether through their creative practice or purchasing power.

Written by Maya Avram

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While fashion’s exact ranking among the world’s most polluting industries is heatedly debated, what is undeniable is that it is one of the least sustainable industries in the world. According to the European Parliament, textile production nearly doubled over the past 20 years, despite the fact that the fashion cycle has now exceeded human potential, meaning that ironically, there are not enough people to wear what we make. From fast fashion’s head-spinning pace of production and prolific use of imperishable materials, to luxury’s overproduction and consequential destruction of unsold goods — ailments plague every corner of the business.

Of course, we all know what needs to happen to mitigate the destructive effect of this on the planet — for example, prohibiting the use of fossil-fuel derivatives, mending or repurposing used/unsold products and reverting consumption culture —  but such systematic changes will require fashion’s top executives, investors and decision-makers to overhaul their business models completely, which is only likely to happen as a result of legislative reform (luckily, that is imminent).

“Textile production nearly doubled in the past 20 years, although ironically, the fashion cycle has now exceeded human potential”

Still, industry professionals and consumers alike are making a conscious effort to minimise their ecological footprint, whether through their creative practice or purchasing power. At the tail end of Earth Month, below are suggestions on how you can harness your practice to promote sustainability.

Educate Yourself, and Others

As governments around the world and consumer sentiment pressure fashion to revise its practices to be more sustainable and eco-conscious, newly acquired data and technological developments drive innovation to common practice. Therefore, the first step to taking action is to stay up to date with legislation, research and the news.

Educate yourself about sustainable practices; subscribe to expert publications that cover these topics; attend relevant events and conventions; join peer networks in your university or workplace to foster relationships with other sustainability advocates where you can support and inspire each other.

Showing initiative is valuable to all parts of the business, requiring professionals across functions to think about their roles and output critically. However, there is a special emphasis on design, where The State of Fashion Report indicates that up to 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined, baked into materials and dyes. Whether that is opting for circular design, whereby a garment or accessory accounts for its end-of-life from the very beginning, to reconsidering the size of your collections, or getting creative with resourcing, preferring upcycled textiles or biomaterials.

Elsewhere, in marketing, think about how you can employ your storytelling skills to communicate the current state of affairs and promote responsible consumption.

Update Your Process, Constantly

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, globally, 73% of clothing material is landfilled or burnt at end-of-life, while less than 1% of old clothing is repurposed to make new clothes. Considering that between 80-150 billion garments are made every year, as reported by Vox Media, the urgency to act cannot be stressed enough.

In addition to the sheer volume of textile waste, another major issue is that in order to turn textile waste into new fibre to create new clothes or other textile products — fibre-to-fibre recycling — garments must be made from pure, naturally degrading fibres such as cotton, linen or silk and meticulously sorted in specialised facilities. The time-consuming, arduous process prevents this solution from achieving scalability, despite the fact that the market for it is projected to reach €1.5 billion to €2.2 billion annual profit pool by 2030, according to McKinsey & Co.

On the bright side, there is significant investment in this space, and so as manufacturers, procurement managers and designers, you must be on the lookout for new startups that can make your sourcing more sustainable.

Be Transparent

As young professionals, it is easy to feel inundated by the magnitude of the task at hand, inherited from previous generations who lacked the awareness (or motivation) to push for real change. Emerging talent ought to remember that they are not expected to set a perfect example of sustainable practice when they lack the resources and influence major industry players do. What you are expected to do, though, is be honest and transparent about your environmental impact and efforts to mitigate it.

In recent years, greenwashing has been the pinnacle of consumer and regulatory agendas, with brands such as H&M and Asos prosecuted for their vague or misleading marketing. In the next 12-18 months, the new EU Green Claims Directive will set a new communication standard that requires brands to ensure their sustainability-related statements are specific, backed by evidence, verified by independent bodies and communicated clearly. France has already taken the first step, requiring large companies to put carbon labels on all clothing sold in the country.

“What you are expected to do is be honest and transparent about your environmental impact and efforts to mitigate it”

But aside from regulation, by closing the information gap, brands could drive around a third of consumers to purchase sustainability, per Bain & Company. This means that marketing and copywriters must ensure that all communications, from in-store displays to product descriptions, are clear, easily available, and reliable. Best-in-class brands even include supply chain and partner information, material descriptions, and stories about the communities involved in the making of their clothing. Informing consumers of their production processes drives organic engagement.

Other brands have adapted their communication to “lean into the curve”, opting for radical transparency about the limitations and challenges of being sustainable. Ganni, for example, went as far as using the tagline “We’re Not Sustainable” in 2021 to communicate its sustainability efforts and shortcomings.