The Ethics Versus Accessibility Debate in the Sustainable Clothing Market
JEC CHICAGO — Sustainable clothing is ethical but is it accessible? The sustainable clothing industry has been around for over forty years. But in the past decade, the emphasis on protecting the earth and environment has dramatically increased. Consequently, sustainability is now a priority when people shop for clothing. However, do the benefits of shopping sustainably outweigh the widely unaffordable prices of sustainable clothing, especially when the price of fast fashion clothing has sharply decreased in comparison? The question remains: sustainable and expensive or affordable and unethical?
What is Sustainable Clothing?
The sustainable clothing industry began in the 1980s. Today, sustainable clothing is defined as apparel that is manufactured, designed, sold, and allocated in a way that considers not only environmental concerns but ethics and fair pay as well. According to Dr. Brismar, founder of a global consulting firm that focuses on sustainability and fashion, “[sustainable clothing] implies continuous work to improve all stages of the product’s life cycle, from design, raw material production, manufacturing, transport, storage, marketing and [to the] final sale.” (Brismar 2014). In more basic terms, sustainable clothing is apparel that should consider both ecological integrity and ethics when being designed and created.
The Benefits of Sustainable Clothing
As a whole, the fashion industry is unsustainable, making up an estimated “10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions,” (Chan 2020). This has in large part been fueled by the growth of the fast fashion industry specifically. Clothing production has roughly doubled and concurrently, people are purchasing more clothing. However, “while people bought 60% more garments in 2014 than in 2000, they only kept the clothes for half as long,” ( McFall-Johnsen 2020). The output of garments currently being produced does not align with a needed input for more garments, causing excess clothing waste that often ends up in landfills. This is why there is a greater need today for the sustainable clothing industry. From an environmental perspective, the innovation being used in the sustainable fashion industry is remarkable. Megan Eddings, CEO of Accel Lifestyle, developed a sustainable fabric that is better for the earth, motivated by her belief that “Microplastics are a huge concern … these synthetic fibers are forms of plastic, and every time you wash fabrics made from these fibers, microplastics are breaking off, and many eventually end up in the oceans,” (Cotler 2019). The return on investment of wearing sustainable clothing is also a benefit of sustainable fashion. When purchasing sustainable clothing, you are investing in both an ethical & well-made piece of clothing, which tends to be worth more in its value to society. Sunny Williams, the founder of sustainable clothing brand House of Sunny, explains, “There are more stages involved and a system that’s a little bit more layered than a fast-fashion prototype,”(Davis 2019). Finally, a major benefit to sustainable fashion is the benefits that workers receive in wages and working conditions. For example, if a blouse costs $3.00, that probably means that the garment worker who made the clothing did not get paid adequately. Jasmine Malik Chua, an esteemed sourcing and labor journalist, put it best when she wrote “if a piece of clothing costs you $19.99, that means the person who made it was paid 19 cents,” (Malik-Chua 2019). The premium price point of sustainable clothing allows garment workers to be paid more fairly.
Economic Inaccessibility
It is clear that the benefits of sustainable shopping are widespread, ranging from environmental conservation to fair worker compensation. However, the cost of those benefits might be the sustainable clothing industry’s achilles heel. Shopping sustainably is notoriously expensive. Some of the top sustainable brands like Patagonia, Able, Tentree, Pact, and Amour Vert have tops that start at $100, pants that start at $200, and dresses in the $500+ range. The dilemma is simple. Clothing at that price point is simply inaccessible for the majority of the population. A study conducted in April of 2020 “showed that 67 percent of buyers value the use of sustainable materials in their clothing. However, less than a third of buyers are willing or able to pay for more eco-conscious products,” (Chan 2020). This shows that the issue at hand is not people’s desire to shop sustainably, but rather their ability to afford it. Currently, sustainable clothing appears to only target more affluent consumers given the expensive prices associated with the clothing. This inadvertently discriminates against lower-income individuals just by way of price point. Do the benefits of sustainable fashion outweigh the issue of economic inaccessibility? According to a report done by MIT Sloan Management Review, the answer is no because “When consumers are forced to make trade-offs between product attributes or helping the environment, the environment almost never wins,” (Ivanova 2019). Furthermore, the premium price of sustainable clothing & products makes it simply “hard to scale [because] you’re paying more for a green product” (Ivanova 2019). When you consider that information, you must also ask another question: can the sustainable clothing industry really get to the scale necessary to make a genuine impact on the environment while pricing its products as highly as it does? According to an article in the Guardian based on a conversation with over 30 major CEOs, the supply and demand for sustainable goods do not align. This means that the demand for sustainable clothing must increase for countries and businesses to receive the economic and environmental benefits of sustainable clothing. To increase demand, businesses need to be less focused on the up-front cost and more on consumer engagement. Businesses need “to listen to what consumers want and need, observe their actual behaviors and lead by designing better [more accessible] products,” (Lacy 2012). However, focusing on profit now instead of later could taint consumers’ opinions on whether sustainable clothing brands are prioritizing the process of designing more accessible products.
In Conclusion
The issue of ethics versus accessibility in the sustainable clothing industry will likely remain a prevalent issue for at least the next decade. To decrease economic inaccessibility, sustainable clothing will have to scale rapidly through unique design, innovation, and resources. However, businesses’ willingness to do so is still in question. But today, many consumers looking for a compromise are turning toward thrifting. The idea behind thrifting is that you are buying clothes that have already been worn by someone else. This allows you to buy cheaper clothes while not letting clothing go to waste. Furthermore, Business Insider writes, “the resale market [thrifting] as a whole is expected to rise from $32 billion this year to $51 billion by 2023,” (Stone 2020). This shows that thrifting is a great option for consumers who don’t know where they stand in the dilemma of ethics versus accessibility.
