SUSTAINABLE FASHION: THE PROS AND CONS

Pros

• Sustainable clothes help reduce the world’s water pollution, carbon emissions and large amounts of waste.

• Sustainable clothing company's best practices:

1. Use less water.

2. Use renewable energy to manufacture good.

3. Use recycled/eco-friendly fabrics in their clothing.

4. Eliminate disposing in unethical ways.

5. Use recycled materials in their shipping packaging.

6. Fair labour practises and fair wages for all employees working factories.

• By buying sustainable fashion, you’re supporting fair labour practises. Providing fair labour practises and a proper living wage to employees that work in their factories.

• Sustainable clothes are higher quality. Eco-friendly fabrics are softer, stronger and will last you for years to come.

• Sustainable clothing guarantees you won’t have to continue buying new clothes all the time.

• Unique and well-defined style. Sustainable clothing is designed to matter to you for years to come. Sustainable and ethical brands strive to create timeless, original, and well-made silhouettes that make you feel better than wearing something that is ultimately disposable.

• You feel a great sense of gratification that you are having a positive impact on the environment.

• Sustainable fashion benefits for other people:

1. Turning miserable wages into fair wages.

2. Stop endless working hours and guarantee a good-work life balance.

3. Make health and safety working conditions from unacceptable to dignified.

4. Stop child and forced labour.

• There are many benefits for animals too:

1. Fewer impacts on biodiversity.

2. Safety and protection: leather, feathers, silk, wool, and other animal derivatives can be replaced by innovative plant-based materials.

Cons

• Recycling textiles and ‘circular fashion’ has major challenges and isn’t effective in a number of countries.

• There can be issues with awareness, transparency and tracking/tracing in the supply and sourcing chain

• Fashion might still need improvement across several key sustainability and even ethics indicators

• Several key sustainability indicators have questionable forecasts for the future

• The burden to increase sustainability in the fashion industry might be unequally left to the smaller companies.

• More information on sustainability in fashion can lead to complexity and conflict in information, which can ultimately lead to the consumer doing nothing or ignoring sustainable fashion

• More sustainability related marketing terms are being used by fashion brands, but there can be uncertainty about what terms mean to consumers and others, and also in relation to the certifications they supposedly meet

• Some argue sustainability is ‘too broad’ of a term, has ‘too loose’ of a definition, and different sustainability metrics can’t be agreed upon

• Improving sustainability can be a long-term commitment

• Some argue that the current systems in the fashion industry are inherently flawed