Fast Fashion and Greenwashing are a Match Made in Heaven
The problem with greenwashing in the fast fashion industry
Have you ever seen a fashion brands new sustainability campaign and thought ‘wow, what a great idea!’. One example many people may recognize is H&Ms recycling campaign that states for every bag of old textiles you bring in you’ll get 15% off your next purchase. H&M is probably the most popular fast fashion brand in the world. Fast fashion is a term that defines how easily accessible inexpensive clothing is. It expresses how retailers can produce new designs almost instantly for sale.
Of course, everyone hopes the campaign is real, but how do you know? It could be just another example of greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company inflates the environmental benefits of their products. Greenwashing is something fast fashion brands are doing to make it seem like they’re doing something to help with sustainability when they are part of the main problem.
Greenwashing as it relates to the fast fashion industry is not good because it promotes false information and misleads costumers. As well, it is a contradiction for a fast fashion brand to call themselves “green” when they are based on mass production.
Greenwashing promotes false information and misleads customers. As Starshine Roshell says in her article for Pacific Standard, genuine eco-crusaders and brands only trying to make money off the new sustainability trend can be hard to distinguish between. With sustainability being something people are starting to care about now, brands have been lying about how much they’ve been doing.
Take the example of H&Ms recycling program. They state that they’ll take the textiles from your old clothes and recycle them to make new clothes, but that’s not possible. In her segment for CBC News, Charlsie Agro talked to the author, journalist and expert on fashion and sustainability Elizabeth Cline about H&Ms campaign who said that in reality only about 1% of clothing can be genuinely recycled. This is because most clothing fabric is a blend of many different types of fibres which are very hard to separate once blended. As well, fibres like cotton and wool are very hard to recycle because their quality goes down greatly once recycled.
H&M also offers 15% off your next purchase when you ‘recycle’ your clothes with them, which just encourages people to shop more at their stores for clothing that is not sustainable. It creates a cycle that is only beneficial to H&M and not good for the cause for sustainability or the environment.
Some people believe that greenwashing is not that bad. In Sophie Slater’s article for Vice, she talked to Orsola de Castro from the company Fashion Revolution. De Castro believes greenwashing is not a completely negative thing. She thinks that greenwashing will bring attention to the subject of sustainability and will make consumers want to become more educated on environmental issues. Even if greenwashing does bring more attention to sustainability and environmental issues that do not make it ethical.
Greenwashing is a lie that leads costumers to believe they are shopping sustainably when they are not.
Greenwashing is still lying to consumers about brands products or green initiatives. As well, it is not like brands do not know they are greenwashing. H&M is most likely very much aware of how much of the clothing given to them to recycle ends up in landfills or sent overseas for third world countries to deal with. But they still choose to use this ‘recycling’ as a marketing ploy. Greenwashing is a lie that leads costumers to believe they are shopping sustainably when they are not.
As well, for the consumers who are aware of what is going on it just leads to cynicism. It makes people not trust any brand who says they are taking steps towards true sustainability, even if a brand truly is doing what they say. If brands want to use sustainability as a marketing ploy, they should at least be doing what they say they are. For these reasons, greenwashing promotes false information and misleads consumers.
It is a contradiction for a fast fashion brand to call itself green when they are based on mass production. In her article for Vogue, Emily Farra wonders how the food industry has persuaded consumers into believing that healthier or organic food is worth the extra cost, and is the same idea possible for the fashion industry. Lots of people have no problem spending $100 on a night out but baulk at the idea of a dress for the same price. While the food or drinks they are getting only last them one night, that dress could last them five years. But people have been so conditioned into believing that clothing should be cheap and that new styles should be available every week.
In reality, people are getting what they pay for. That $10 T-shirt is most likely made out of the cheapest material possible, with the worst quality seams, and buy someone who is highly underpaid in a third world country. What does that have to do with the environment though? The cheap material and bad sewing mean that T-shirt is going to fall apart after ten washes and end up in a landfill. As well, that cheap fabric is most likely not made of sustainable fibres. The policies and practices that cut down pollution and the exploitation of natural resources are what make fibres sustainable.
Companies are not willing to invest the time and money it takes to be truly sustainable
There are solutions to fast fashion, but why hasn’t much progress been made? Farra thinks “Perhaps the pace of progress has been so slow because companies aren’t willing to properly invest in new fabrics, conduct life cycle assessments, or develop technologies”. Companies are not willing to invest the time and money it takes to be truly sustainable. The current technology we have is passable, but a lot could be done to reduce the amount of water and carbon used to produce and transport garments.
As well, companies need to find it in their budgets to do this research which is not impossible. In her article, Farra talks to Celine Seeman, who is the founder of Study Hall, a summit focusing on sustainability. Seeman believes the solution is simple; brands should take their marketing budget and use that money for research and development. Stella McCartney uses this approach for her namesake brand in order to help make her brand as sustainable as possible. Instead of focusing on promoting what they are supposedly doing to improve their sustainability, fast fashion brands should just do what they say. This strategy promotes research into new sustainable technologies which is one of our best options, in terms of reducing the fashion industries effect on the environment. It is a contradiction for a fast fashion brand to call itself green when they are based on mass production.
Though the real change has to come from the top consumers need to be conscious of what they are buying. People need to pay attention to what brands are saying they are doing and to do research. People should try to buy from more reputable brands with proper policies on sustainability. As well, buying fewer clothes, throwing out less and buying second hand can all help in reducing the fashion industries effects on the environment. All in all, greenwashing and fast fashion are bad for the fashion industry because greenwashing promotes false information as well as misleads customers and it is a contradiction for a fast fashion brand to call themselves green when they are based on mass production.
