Does my CO2 look big in this? Fashion’s carbon problem
Does my CO2 Look Big in This? Fashion’s Carbon Problem
The consequence of our unbridled dedication to following fashion has been the creation of the second biggest carbon polluting business behind oil. The 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) produced by the global fashion industry per year is more emissions than international flights and shipping combined.
Fashion’s carbon problem can be understood as the intersection of two related issues. The first has been the rise of fast fashion. Over the past twenty years retailers have shortened fashion cycles, marketing cheaper apparel into micro-seasons. The result is that consumers are purchasing twice as many clothes as they did a decade ago and wearing them for a much shorter time.
Earlier this year UK MPs called bosses at ten of the UK’s biggest retailers to account, and are demanding a much greater focus on sustainability from the sector. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee claims that the business of fashion “…will account for more than a quarter of our total impact on climate change by 2050.” Chairwoman Mary Creagh told BBC News, the second issue is the complicated manufacturing, supply chain and logistics processes that underlie the global industry. The multiple stages involved in producing a garment can include farming, harvesting, extraction, manufacture, packaging, shipping, warehousing and marketing — all uniquely carbon-intensive processes individually, but which compound as part of this wider process. Think of the fuel used to dump discarded clothes or ship plastic bottles to create recycled polyester, the pesticides used in cotton farming and dyes in manufacturing. Additionally the majority of textiles and clothing manufacture occurs mainly in countries which rely on coal-fuelled power plants.
For example, China’s Xintang province alone manufactures 300 million pairs annually. The area’s reliance on coal-fuelled power means the Co2e contribution does unfortunately look pretty large for jeans.
While most of the harmful C02 contribution is made before a product hits the sale rack — there are post-purchase choices that will at least limit further carbon impact. Giving a garment proper care, limiting wash cycles and keeper them for longer (and then up-cycling or recycling), all help to rein in the rise of fast fashion and further balance your footprint.
We know that information feedback loops really are effective in modifying human behaviour. Ecoingot aims to bring individuals the ability to offset in a meaningful way and to help anyone with a smartphone make better choices by providing accurate carbon impact information about what we choose to buy. Informed decision-making underpins consumer power which in turn acts as a pressure point for change.
Ecoingot is proposing a system with the ability to calculate the carbon impact of everything. By creating algorithms powered by AI and Machine Learning, the result will be an application-based metric, that will make the carbon impact information of individual items of clothing and apparel (and anything else) readily available. Think of it as an environmental fitness tracker with the added ability of being able to offset that specific carbon cost by spending the asset-matched cryptocurrency token — called the EGT — within the app.
Disclaimer — while we endeavour to make use of reputable information providers — the data given in this article has not been verified by our ECOSISTM.
