Making Climate Change Fashionable
In Paris, climate change was the talk of the city. Lots of industry's, other than energy production, are important sources of greenhouse gas emissions – agriculture, iron and metal smelting, cement production, waste treatment and…the fashion industry.
Fashion has been blamed for releasing carbon emissions and creating a bad climate in the atmosphere.
The fashion industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and remains the second largest industrial polluter, second only to oil.
This isn't that surprising since it’s a £4 trillion global industry. The apparel market in the United States tops the world, contributing close to a third of the global total.
Some well known fashionistas are looking seriously at the industry’s role in environmental pollution and climate change. Zady is one of these new sustainable fashion brands and is a leading voice of the slow fashion movement that has created online resources for consumers to learn how their clothing decisions can have a large impact on the environment.
And they present some amazing facts:
- Nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make the world’s polyester fiber, which is now the most commonly used fiber in our clothing. But it takes more than 200 years to decompose.
- More than 150 billion garments are produced annually, enough to provide 20 new garments to every person on the planet, every year.
- Americans throw away about 70 lbs of clothing per person every year.
My Views:
As a fashion student I am very interested in the fashion industry and how clothes are produced, promoted, and sold to customers and clients. I am also very into the environment and keeping things green and a healthier world to live in. I personally understand that because the fashion industry is so popular and is a necessity for day-to-day life that it is inevitable that it will create pollution and unhealthy emissions. Saying this i believe that there are ways in which the industry can cut down on the amounts of carbon emissions and pollution being emitted into the air.
To do this I think we need to make more people aware of the problem. When we think of pollution, we envision coal power-plants, raw sewage piped into out waterways and strip-mined mountaintops. Most people don't understand or have the knowledge that in fact, the clothes we wear everyday impact the climate and environment more and more everyday.
I personally believe that if people were more aware of how garments are made and produce emissions that are ruining the world, they would be more interested in learning about what clothes produce less harm to the environment. This way the companies that manufacture clothes that produce a lot of harm would go down in business as more people would be opting for the healthier production of clothes to the environment meaning that in the long run, wither the companies would opt for a lower emission production service or would ultimately end up closing down.
