How Serious Is Fashion To The Earth? We Are Still Not Sure.

In the past two days, Maxine B dat (co-founder of environmental shopping platform Zady.com) has been searching for a conclusive fact about the impact of fashion industry on society and environment.

This is a torment process.

B dat plans to set up the "new standards institute" (New StandardInstitute) in April as a database and innovation center, which aims to help the fashion industry adopt better practices.

To track the source of frequently cited industry data, she flew around the globe and made countless calls with experts and industry insiders.

She found that some data seem to be fabricated, for example, the clothing industry employs 1/6 of the world's workforce, and 80% of the garment workers are women.

As for the impact of fashion industry on the environment, although the data are more, the quality of data is not necessarily better.

"If such important data is false, it will be ridiculous," she said.

"We find that there are few data on environmental fraud, but there is a larger data gap."

The fact that the fashion industry is the second largest polluters has been proved false for many times, but the fashion industry is undoubtedly one of the most "dirty" industries in the world.

The materials used in clothing production come from high polluting industries such as oil and agriculture.

Stimulant chemicals are often used in the production process and consume a lot of water resources.

The global supply chain delivers goods to all parts of the world.

Unsold and worn clothes increased the amount of waste.

However, we still do not understand the internal operation mechanism of the fashion industry, which has hindered the solution of the environmental problems in the industry.

Environmental impact is not clear enough to become an excuse for the fashion industry's omission.

Although more brands have joined global initiatives to reduce environmental footprint, many brands lack the information needed to make effective changes.

"Ignorance is a blessing," says Sanjeev Bahl, founder of Saitex International, a producer of tannin clothing, which produces jeans for Everlane, EileenFisher and Lauren Ralph Lauren, with lower environmental footprint.

"You can set up a false image of environmental protection for yourself, and no one will pursue you."

Many brands have set targets for improving environmental footprint, but often use poor or incomplete information when determining their direction and specific methods.

"If such important data is false, it will be ridiculous."

As more brands are seeking to improve their sustainable development footprint, major organizations are developing more tools and databases for fashion enterprises to cope with environmental problems, such as the Council ofFashion Designers of America Inc's sustainable development guide and B dat NSI.

Brand and activists believe that in order to improve data collection and accountability, the ambitious goal is the first step, and the fashion industry is well aware of environmental issues. It is time for major changes.

But if they do not get the support of real data at the end, these goals will be meaningless because they can not measure progress.

In 2018, with the support of the United Nations, a number of fashion brands jointly established the industry charter for tackling climate change.

Companies such as Kering SA, BurberryGroup PLC, Hennes & Maurtiz AB and Inditex SA have signed the document and made a series of commitments, including reducing carbon emissions by 30% in the year of 2030.

One of the first tasks of these enterprises is to understand what they want to reduce.

"The demand for reliable data is of course great, and we are also working to meet this demand," said Lindita Xhaferi-Salihu, head of the United Nations fashion industry in tackling climate change.

She also mentioned that fashion brands involved in the development of industry Charter are gathering the necessary information.

Even the current best quality analysis of the impact of the fashion industry on the climate remains questionable.

The analysis, released in 2018, estimates that the fashion industry accounts for about 8% of the world's total carbon footprint.

ClimateWorks provided financial support for the report, but did not sign the report.

Despite support for the report, ClimateWorks believes that more work needs to be done to "accurately calculate" carbon emissions.

Quantis, a consultancy responsible for the study, said that the calculation methods of carbon emissions are different, but they are confident in their research results.

Without such information, the fashion industry will act blindly in the process of achieving more responsible operation.

"Enterprises that set goals of action will face serious problems," said textile expert Linda Greer.

By the end of last year, she had been leading the collaboration between the TheNatural Resources DefenceCouncil and the fashion industry.

"They need data that can effectively measure actions and provide guidance for action, but there is hardly such data at present."

Kai Yun group has been analyzing its impact on the environment for many years, including carbon emissions, water consumption and pollution, but the group's analysis also has blind spots.

The goal of Kai Yun group is to establish a fully pparent and responsible supply chain in 2025.

The group said last year that it had completed 95% of its target.

"If you do not analyze, do not understand your impact on the environment and its causes, you can not make improvement measures," said Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer of Kai Yun group.

Without such information, the fashion industry will act blindly in the process of achieving more responsible operation.

How far is the fashion industry to go to get an accurate picture of its impact on the environment? We can see some clues from the challenges faced by Kai Yun group, one of the world's largest fashion enterprises.

In order to measure the environmental footprint of an enterprise or product, it is necessary to sort out the complex industry system that has been developing for decades.

Although the fashion industry has been talking about improving supply chain pparency and understanding of supply chain for many years, many brands have not taken action at all.

Data from the GlobalFashion Agenda (GFA) show that about half of the fashion companies do not take any action for sustainable development.

Fashion companies quickly participated in popular initiatives, such as banning animal fur and developing long-term goals.

This is conducive to corporate publicity and sales growth.

But data analysis can not produce the same sensational effect.

"Unfortunately, fashion companies want to show either huge numbers or sexy stories, which are not interested in display information," said Phil Patterson, managing director of Colour Connections TextileConsultancy.

"From the beginning of the product life cycle to the end, indicators and analysis should be run through."

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) is made up of more than 200 brands, retailers, manufacturers and industry observers.

Since its establishment in 2011, the organization has been developing a unified tool for measuring the environmental and social impacts of products, factories and enterprises.

But the development is very slow, and relies on the active report data, so the data is missing seriously.

"There is a serious lack of data in every phase of the database," said Greer, a former director of SAC.

"It took us seven to eight years to collect data, but we still couldn't improve the quantity and quality of data."

In 2017, only 7000 factories completed the evaluation, and fewer than 6000 factories registered in 2018.

The goal set by SAC at the beginning is that by the year 2018, 20000 factories will be involved in the evaluation.

SAC believes that its establishment has announced that the fashion industry has started to focus on sustainable development for the first time, and that it will take some time to solve this problem.

The group also added that 48 members were added last year, and that this is a sign that the fashion industry is increasingly inclined to change.

"We are going to develop the metrics needed to drive change," said Amina Razvi, SAC's interim executive director.

"There are serious data missing problems in every stage of database."

Lack of data makes it more complicated for enterprises to develop climate friendly operations, such as weighing the pros and cons and costs of different materials becomes more difficult.

For example, because of the different planting sites and planting patterns, the environmental impacts of different cotton are very different, but this difference is not necessarily reflected in the tools to assess their environmental impact.

In contrast, recycled polyester has higher utilization of water resources, but there is a risk of microfiber pollution.

"At present, there is no way to get the brand to understand its environmental impact," said Claire Bergkamp, director of sustainable development and innovation at Stella McCartney.

Stella McCartney has been at the forefront of pursuing green fashion. At present, it is planning to entrust new research and share research results.

In the face of the current knowledge gap, the fashion industry should not stop. Instead, actions should be taken to improve environmental performance.

"Fashion companies are in a dilemma on two issues. One is to act on evidence, and the two is to hope that the fashion industry can act," said Morten Lehmann, chief sustainability officer at GFA.

"The situation is pressing, we must act quickly, but we can't do whatever we want."