Fashion businesses now need to adopt Sustainable practices to win the trust of stakeholders and ensure a viable run on a long-term basis. 

So, there has been a consistent and continuous shift in how clothes are made and distributed with the help of advanced techniques and technologies. 

It’s time we delve deeper into the concept of Sustainable Fashion, understand its various aspects, and adapt it efficiently. 

What Is Sustainable Fashion?

Sustainable fashion is an umbrella term referring to practices that help build a “carbon-neutral” fashion ecosystem. It is also about inclusivity with certain goals to achieve.

Sustainable practices in fashion aim to establish social justice, pay equality, environmental wellness, and animal welfare. To achieve these things, business organizations need to take care of the following aspects.

• Products that help to achieve these aims
• Ethical practices and activities
• Policies that support sustainable practices
• Including stakeholders like consumers, financers, and government in the process

Further, sustainable clothes or fashion essentials are much beyond the products and the materials used in them. It is about the entire lifecycle of a product involving manufacturing, distribution, consumption, and disposal. Proper disposal is very important to reduce landfills and pollution.

Brands making sustainable products use durable materials to make them long-lasting. Also, these brands do not produce clothes that adhere to seasonal trends. This is where sustainability in fashion is a nobler practice than fast fashion. 

Brands like Christy Dawn and Wholesome Culture are promoting sustainable practices. Other brands making their mark in this sector are:

• Stella McCartney
• MATE the label
• Cotopaxi 
• Patagonia
• Outerknown

Did You Know?

A Statista survey conducted in 2022 suggests that 35% of consumers in the USA would like to pay more to procure clothes and fashion essentials that are ethically produced. 

Why Is Sustainable Fashion Important?

Leading brand loggerheads in the fast-paced fashion market may not find it easy to switch to sustainable practices. So, despite rapid advancements and willingness to adopt sustainability, profitability still remains a major concern. Brands like Shein and Zara still produce multiple collections a year to optimize their sales. 

A Harvard Business Review report of 2022 says, 

“The sad truth however is that all this experimentation and supposed “innovation” in the fashion industry over the past 25 years have failed to lessen its planetary impact — a loud wake up call for those who hope that voluntary efforts can successfully address climate change and other major challenges facing society.”

So, it’s time we understand the benefits of following sustainable practices in fashion.

It Reduces Environmental Impact By Reducing Carbon Dioxide And Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Sustainable clothes and products have recycled or natural materials. You don’t need to use chemical fertilizers or pesticides to grow these materials. Further, the use of water and energy drastically decreases while these products are being produced. 

By following these practices, you can curtail the emission of carbon dioxide and harmful greenhouse gases. 

Minimizes Waste Generation

Did you know that solid waste generation in the world can go up to “3.4 billion metric tons by 2050?” Doesn’t the December 2018 Statista report sound shocking?

There are some major factors that boost solid waste generation. Those factors are:

• Increase in population
• Urbanization
• Irresponsible shopping practices and patterns of the consumers

To reduce waste generation, sustainable brands stay away from producing multiple collections in a year. They come up with clothes that have premium materials and are long-lasting. When you can wear these clothes for years, there will be fewer requirements for disposal. 

Promotes Animal Welfare

Vegan fashion is an important aspect of sustainable fashion. Leading platforms like Vogue are now talking about the possibility of making the fashion ecosystem completely free of animal cruelty. 

Further, even if the fashion industry cannot always find alternatives to animal-derived products, they must stick to ethical practices. There should be more awareness about commercial animal farming and the exploitation of animals.

Establishes A Fair Wage Practice And Good Work Environment 

Fast fashion companies sell cheap clothes. So, these brands focus on mass production. Further, most of these clothes are procured from developing nations. 

Workers in those setups work for longer hours and in unhealthy working conditions. Further, they are underpaid. In addition, the curse of child labor is still there in those working setups.

Sustainable fashion brands, on the other hand, produce seasonal clothes, and they believe in fair working practices and pay parity. 

What Are The Five Rs of Sustainable Fashion?

If you want to delve deeper into sustainable fashion, you have to understand the 5 Rs of sustainable practices. Knowing the 5 Rs is important to boost consumer awareness and keep a check on their spending patterns. 

So, let’s briefly discuss these 5 Rs.

Reduce

Have you watched Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix? She is one of the most popular faces in recent times to promote reducing your expenditure in buying clothes. Further, she encourages you to keep your closet clutter-free. This practice helps you have clarity about the things you already own. 

As a result, the chances of spending more on new clothes are minimized. 

Rewear

Rewearing or repeating clothes is the simplest thing you can do to practice sustainable fashion. So, hone your creative skills and do some mix and match so that you can wear the same clothes for different occasions across all seasons. 

From Michelle Obama to Kate Middleton, many popular icons repeat their clothes with a sustainable approach to fashion. Take some cues from them. 

Recycle 

Fashion changes every season. So, many of us consider changing our wardrobe essentials after every three or four months.

Instead of throwing old clothes away, you can choose to recycle. Nike has a program called “Reuse-A-Shoe.” Also, there is Knickey, which recycles used undergarments to make insulation or rug pads. 

Repair

Making an outfit wearable or usable for a few more years is something that has been in our culture for the longest time. 

Repairing can involve a lot of activities. It can be about stitching the torn parts, adding patches, or doing some embroidery work to make an outfit more suitable for further use.

So, learning some basic sewing skills and having a sewing kit ready will always help you. 

Resell 

Much before sustainable fashion became so big, fashion aesthetics like punk promoted the “thrift store” culture. In today’s scenario, selling and buying second-hand clothes are becoming more popular, with many online platforms getting into it.

If you have not checked out the options yet, you can explore platforms like eBay, Gumtree, and Facebook Marketplace.

By reselling clothes on these forums or through physical stalls, you can reduce clothing production and reduce wastage and landfills. 

Did You Know?

The World Bank says that the fashion industry alone is responsible for 1 to 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in a year. 

Also, the fashion industry consumes 93 billion cubic meters of water a year. The amount is suitable for meeting the requirements of 5 billion people. 

How To Practise Sustainable Fashion In Your Everyday Life?

Sustainable fashion will reach nowhere if we don’t play our part right as consumers. So, it is important to know how we can adopt sustainable practices in our choices and fashion habits. 

Let us discuss briefly how we can adopt sustainable practices in our daily lives. 

Know The Materials Of The Outfits And Products You Use

This is the first thing you need to do when you are buying an outfit, shoes, or any other fashion essentials. Make sure that you are using products made with recycled or naturally sourced fibers.

The use of these fibers ensures minimal impact on the environment. As an aware consumer, you must avoid the use of clothes made of synthetic fibers. Though cheap and widely available, these clothes make massive use of fossil fuels. 

Sustainable materials, like organic cotton, consume very little water and energy. Also, no harmful pesticides are used to make organic cotton fibers and clothes. 

Do Not Get Fooled By Greenwashing

Many brands today are making sustainable fashion practices a part of their marketing gimmick. Consumers are more aware these days. So, brands know how to reach out to them with the right use of words in marketing.

This is the concept of greenwashing, and you need to stay away from it. So, don’t get fooled by the words “conscious, “responsible,” “eco-friendly,” etc. Make sure that you are investigating correctly and that the brand you have chosen has a sound, sustainable fashion policy in place. 

Get The Right Awareness About Vegan Fashion 

Yes, vegan fashion is an important part of sustainable fashion. But all that glitters is not gold. So, by choosing plant-based materials instead of animal-derived ingredients, you are promoting animal wellness. 

However, some synthetic products used in the name of vegan fashion can be harmful to us as well as to the environment. Also, sometimes, harmful chemicals are used to make a vegan product suitable for our use.

So, get a thorough understanding of vegan fashion before you adopt it completely. 

Focus On The 5R Practices

I have just discussed the 5R practices of fashion. Reduce the number of clothes you buy every season, re-wear or repeat the clothes, recycle, repair, and resell them to reduce environmental impact.

When a significant section of consumers choose to recycle and repair, fast fashion companies may feel less motivated to launch multiple collections a year. The concept of fast fashion may not exist at all. 

However, these are ideal situations. Today, we can be a part of the sustainable process in fashion by focusing on these 5Rs. 

Take Proper Care Of Your Clothes

Sustainable fashion brands make clothes with premium materials, ensuring their long shelf-life. However, by taking proper care of your clothes, you can also make them last longer.

Avoid overwashing your clothes. This practice will also yield environmental benefits by cutting down the use of water and reducing carbon emissions. 

Also, if there are minor wear and tear, you can always repair them. If some clothes do not fit you anymore but are in good condition, you can always donate or resell them. 

Watch Out For The Use Of Chemicals 

As a follower of sustainable practices in fashion, you have to be really aware of certain things. Knowing the core materials used in a particular outfit or product is never enough. You have to find out the chemicals used in them.

Always look for labels like “ Made in Green by OEKO-TEX” or certificates from Bluesign to know that all the norms and standards are adhered to while making the outfits, shoes, or any other essentials you have chosen. 

Did You Know? 

The “OEKO-TEX® MADE IN GREEN” certification means that the product you are using has been tested for the use of harmful materials. It is now approved as a product free of perilous substances. 

Bluesign ensures that the use of harmful materials or chemicals is eliminated at the beginning of the textile supply chain. 

Rent Clothes 

Is there an event around the corner, and you need a stylish outfit for it? Renting an outfit is always a better idea than buying one for yourself.

In many cases, the outfit we buy for a specific event lies in our closets for years before it becomes unusable. 

Disposing the dress in a sustainable way again becomes a challenge. The worst thing is that many of us just do not care about the disposal part. So, we just dump the clothes in a garbage truck so that those clothes can be burnt and landfilled. 

Final Words 

Sustainable fashion is something that we must try to achieve as regular consumers or anyone associated with the fashion industry.

It has a humane face with goals to establish pay parity, ideal working environments, animal welfare, and, most importantly, better environmental conditions.

Standing against the fast fashion culture, sustainable fashion harps the importance of recycling and reselling used clothes and fashion essentials. 

So, to create an ecosystem where equality and environmental wellness rule, you need to choose sustainability.

Also read

• What Are The Best Cottagecore Fashion Trends For Women This Season?
• What Is Twee Fashion? (Exploring The Aesthetic And The Fashion Trends For Women)
• What Is Punk Fashion? Know The Aesthetic And Explore Its Different Styles (20+ Ideas)

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