Encouraging Sustainable Behaviour in Fashion Consumption: The Clean Fashion Project
Authors — Amira Córcoles Tébar, Stacy Mackintosh, Jorge Calero Lara, Lennart Fichte & Lucia Alonso Martinez
CONCEPTION OF THE CORE IDEA
The Clean Fashion project started with our team’s collective concern about the severe pollution in the fashion industry. Before arriving at this point we shared our worries and this has led to the creation of our 5 whys. The 5 whys for the question “Why do we care about pollution” are the following: We care about climate change, respectful and appreciative treatment of nature and wildlife, water pollution, future generations, and responsible consumption. Taking these issues into account we thought that the fashion industry plays an important role in all these aspects and consequently, our team decided to create a social innovation company to tackle and solve the problem that is pollution in the fashion industry.
The initial ideas of Clean Fashion illustrated with Miro (2022)
Source: Authors
Nowadays, our world is extremely polluted and the fashion industry contributes a high share, indeed, it is the second highest polluting industry, just after the oil industry (Sustain Your Style, n.d.). According to estimations, the industry produces about one hundred billion garments annually and it generates on average eleven kilos of textile waste every year in the European Union per person. When clothes are produced, there are numerous toxic substances like arsenic or mercury that are dumped into rivers, ending up in seas and causing water pollution. The industry-related water consumption totals almost 80 billion cubic meters of water, with 80 to 90% of the generated wastewater from the fashion industry being returned to the environment untreated (Forbes, 2020).
It is clear that there is a big problem that needs to be solved if we do not want to continue destroying our planet. In Clean Fashion, we have the willingness to tackle this issue and start raising awareness about it. We wanted to link our concerns to five of the Sustainable Development Goals, which are goals set by the United Nations to “end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere” (United Nations, n.d.).
Clean Fashion aligns itself with the following Sustainable Development Goals: clean water and sanitation, responsible consumption and production, climate action, living on land, and partnerships for the goals. Moreover, we have several values which make us work towards our objective to end pollution in the fashion industry. Our values are fairness, honesty, respect towards nature, integrity, and regard for the carbon footprint.
OUR JOURNEY
The first thing we needed to do to create our company was choose a name. We opted for “Clean Fashion” as we think it summarizes what we promote, to create clean fashion in the world. “Clean” refers to what consumers find important when buying clothing items, namely that their items are hygienically clean. “Clean Fashion” as a whole adds to the factor of clean, namely the concepts of sustainability and non-polluting behaviour, and combines this with fashion. Additionally, we created a logo that properly represents our company with green colors, leaves, and a circle that represents the recycling process. We wanted to include our most important values, which are honesty, integrity, and fairness, into the Clean Fashion logo as a reminder to both our users and ourselves what the core ideas behind this project are.
Clean Fashion Logo (2022)
Source: Authors
Once our company was established, we decided that the first step was to better understand people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that are related to the fashion industry. We conducted interviews with six different people from different backgrounds to get a better overview of people’s opinions. In the next segment, we focus on three of our interviewee's points of view regarding the fashion industry.
The first person was Joanes, a young man from France who purchases sustainable clothes. He told us that he buys clothes twice or three times a year and that he wears all of his clothes regularly. He argues that the origin of clothes is not everything, as there are other factors that also influence the industry chain, such as the work conditions or the materials that are used.
Our second interviewee was Emma, a worker from a sustainable company. She told us that she decided to create a small online business when the pandemic in 2020 hit our lives. Furthermore, she believes that people are reluctant to buy sustainable fashion because many people do not trust these kinds of second-hand shops, and basically because many of them are lazy and just prefer to buy in shops that offer more options.
The last interviewee was Violet, a twenty-one-year-old girl who loves shopping in fast fashion shops. She argued that she buys clothes at least once a month, although she tries to wear all her clothes. Besides, she does not care about the origin of the clothes, just the price, however, she told us that she is not conscious of the high amounts of water that are needed in order to produce garments.
Furthermore, we also conducted a survey in which many people of different ages and occupations told us what their behavior is toward the fashion industry. The purpose of this survey is to reach a larger audience and include the opinions of a diverse group of people. The results of this survey can be seen in the image below.
Survey Results for Clean Fashion (2023)
Source: Authors
Looking at the results of the survey, one can see that all of the surveyed people shop approximately 4 times per year, and 79% follow the fashion trends but indicate not changing their clothes too much. Although 43% of the questioned people wear most of their clothes, 36% stack older outdated pieces in their closets and only about 7% wear all of their clothes. Most striking was that 86% of the people do not, or only from time to time, check where the clothes come from before they buy them. The lack of awareness about environmental consequences like the heavy pollution in the fashion industry and the willingness to care more about the origin of clothes and if they are produced more sustainably, perfectly fit our concept and gave rise to our approach. Once we knew better about the thoughts and preferences of different profiles of people, we arrived at the conclusion that there is, in particular, a lack of awareness about this problem. Therefore, we decided that we could carry out conferences in different places such as high schools or universities in order to inform young people.
For better communication with our audience, we created social media accounts, Twitter (cleanfashion1), Instagram (cle.anfashion), and Gmail (clean.fashiongr@gmail.com). Besides, we count on a web page in which all our information and events are written.
Clean Fashion Social Media — Left Twitter & Right Instagram (2022)
Source: Authors
Clean Fashion Website (2022)
Source: Authors
Moreover, we thought that it would be interesting to inform about sustainable brands which have a fair traits to their workers and to the planet. In that way, it would be easier for our audience to choose among different brands.
There is also a problem with the clothes that people already have because they do not wear them. It is estimated that at least fifty percent of the clothes we have are not worn (Fashion United, 2018). Therefore, we arrived at the idea of creating upcycling workshops for having renewed clothes. At these events, all the people interested in sustainable fashion can come with the clothes that they do not like and adapt them to their liking in order to wear them again.
OUR USERS
Our main target is people under the age of thirty years old. They are teenagers and young adults with a low income who are interested in sustainable fashion and in climate change. The groups which are peripherally relevant are the families of our main target and children as they are in contact with our users. However, we can also find skeptical people who do not share our values, for instance, old people who are not informed about these people as they do not care about climate change. This is why we would like to raise awareness among them too, although it is not easy.
Clean Fashion users illustrated with Miro (2022)
Source: Authors
When we realized the survey, we arrived at the conclusion that the most important aspect for our users is the budget.
CHALLENGES WE FACED
The creation of a company is not an easy task and there are always some difficulties that workers encounter during the process of developing a company. In our case, the main challenge we found was the ignorance of the population about pollution and sustainable fashion. Our main objective thus shifted and the focus for our company was to reduce the lack of awareness about pollution in the fashion industry. Even though each year young people are more conscious of this issue and are trying to be more sustainable (Forbes, 2022), there are still skeptical people who are opposed to buying sustainable fashion. This may be because of the way in which they have been raised, as when they were growing up pollution was not as serious as it is nowadays.
Moreover, it has also been very difficult to make changes in people’s behaviour towards clothes. Although citizens are aware of the origin of clothes, it is not easy to make them change the brands they purchase from. People choose to buy from certain brands due to several reasons, for instance, the price or the accessibility they have to it, as demonstrated by our survey results and interviews. This is why many people still buy fast fashion and not sustainable companies which are not so accessible.
Finally, when it comes to collaboration with other brands we have to be very careful with all the procedures we have to do. Starting from the legal factors going to the participation in our upcycling workshops. We have to choose the brands carefully making sure that they are in accordance with our values, therefore citizens can opt to purchase in their shops.
REFERENCES
Van Elven, M. (2018, August 16). People do not wear at least 50 percent of their wardrobes, says study. Fashion United. https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/people-do-not-wear-at-least-50-percent-of-their-wardrobes-according-to-study/2018081638356
Paoletti, J. (2022, June 1). Gen Z And Environmental Issues: How To Earn Young Consumers’ Trust. Forbes.
Scott, M. (2020, September 19). Out Of Fashion — The Hidden Cost Of Clothing Is A Water Pollution Crisis. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/09/19/out-of-fashionthe-hidden-cost-of-clothing-is-a-water-pollution-crisis/?sh=4bb43a7589ce
SustainYourStyle. (n.d.). Fashion & Environment. https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/whats-wrong-with-the-fashion-industry
United Nations. (2020, September 19). Take Action for the Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations Sustainable Development. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/?classId=e3c98e1f-b4f3-4840-9c7f-b05f981ce9a2
