A small, simple and cheap way to prevent some future climate pollution is to wear the clothes already in your closet twice as many times as you might have otherwise before tossing them.
People doing so could reduce clothing’s related emissions impacts by 44 percent, according to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation charity, a finding echoed by the UN Environment Programme.
Here is why: Wearing the stuff you already own likely means that you buy less in the future, thus preventing the greenhouse gas emissions generated during the production of new items.
Illustration:Tania Chou
If you are the type of person who already wears clothes until they fall apart, ripped and ragged, this hot climate tip is not for you. However, skyrocketing clothing sales suggest that many people worldwide are buying more than they used to just a couple decades ago — and also buying more than they can really use.
“The way that the sales were growing, people were starting to own more and more clothes,” said Laura Balmond, head of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Fashion Initiative.
The numbers are undeniable: “It wouldn’t be physically possible to get as much wear out of your items as it previously had, because people have got a lot sitting in their wardrobes,” she said.
It is no secret that the fashion industry has a pollution problem. Big fashion accounts for 2 percent to 8 percent of global carbon emissions, the UN program said.
On its current path, the industry could use up more than 26 percent of the carbon budget remaining if we are to limit global warming to 2°C by 2050, the foundation estimated.
The industry’s mass production of polyester, which is derived from fossil fuels, also contributes to the release of plastic microfibers into the ocean and the accumulation of waste in landfills. Less than 1 percent of clothing collected for recycling worldwide is turned into new items.
One idea gaining traction among apparel companies is called circularity, an umbrella term referring to the reuse, resale and recycling of textiles to extend their life. New business models have cropped up or expanded in response.
Fueled by the fast fashion craze and social media, “there’s sort of this desire for newness,” Balmond said.
With companies increasingly announcing strategic goals and programs in the name of circularity, it can be hard for customers to distinguish greenwashing from legitimate efforts to curb emissions.
However, shifting customer perspectives could open the door to businesses more in line with clear circularity targets.
Balmond said the challenge is to shift the mindset of a used clothing purchase from “being a brand new product to being new to you.”
RENTED CLOTHES
The shift is already underway. After hosting “Worn Wear” events for customers to bring their old jackets, leggings and other items for repair or exchange, Patagonia launched an online marketplace with the same name in 2017 to expand the program.
The following year, North Face piloted a similar program called Renewed for reselling its used items. There are also third-party virtual marketplaces for selling secondhand clothing, such as Sellpy, Depop, The RealReal and ThredUp.
The secondhand market grew from about US$11 billion in 2012 to US$35 billion last year, ThredUp’s resale report said, and it is projected to dramatically jump to US$82 billion by 2026.
Then there are clothing rentals. Rent the Runway, an online site for people to rent clothing that launched in 2009, is just one example. The business has expanded again and again in the years since, adding accessories and plus-size items to the rentals, followed by brick-and-mortar stores and monthly subscriptions.
The company went public in October last year. While sales climbed this year, Rent the Runway reported a net loss of US$42.5 million in the first quarter of this year. Circularity only gets the world so far in reining in greenhouse gas emissions.
“We have endless talk about circularity,” said Veronica Bates Kassatly, an independent fashion analyst.
The focus instead should be on the sheer volume of items being produced:
“We have far too much and we wear it far too few times,” she said.
30 WASH RULE
Some research has indicated that people toss clothing items after wearing them only seven to 10 times. Yet what would be a reasonable number of times to wear a garment? 60, 100, 200? Should there even be a target?
“It’s hard to give a number,” said Jin Su, an associate professor in the Department of Consumer, Apparel and Retail Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, adding that such a goal would should vary by clothing type and fabric.
Perhaps the closest thing to this number is a new durability metric for jeans. Led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a coalition of academic experts, brands, retailers, manufacturers and others developed jeans guidelines, deciding that jeans should be able to withstand a minimum of 30 washes while retaining their high quality.
The way you wash your clothes also matters from a climate perspective. While the biggest share of emissions tied to apparel comes from textile production — 41 percent — the second largest source is from consumption, which largely comes down to the energy associated with washing and drying. To minimize this footprint, experts recommend washing your clothes using cooler water and then line-dry them.
Not needing to wash your clothes as much helps, too. Wool is generally more expensive than plastic-based clothing, but it is good at wicking away moisture and highly durable, the foundation said.
To showcase the powers of wool, Wool&Prince founder Mac Bishop wore a wool shirt for 100 days without washing it. That challenge went viral and helped launch Bishop’s clothing line. He later started a parallel company for women’s clothing called Wool&.
Now the twin companies reward customers who wear an item of their clothing for 100 days straight (although washing is highly encouraged) with a discount off their next purchase.
More than 4,000 people have completed the challenge, Wool& customer experience manager Rebecca Eby said.
“I started as a customer who did this challenge and it changed my life,” Eby said.
Eby almost exclusively wears natural fibers now, mostly Wool& clothes, and does much less laundry. She has heard from many customers who started the challenge to get the discount to buy more and ended up changing their habits in the process.
In promoting a lifestyle of wearing and needing less, Wool& is inevitably limiting its reach as a company. It is something the entire fashion industry might eventually wrestle with, and Eby acknowledged the awkwardness.
“It’s definitely something that we struggle with a bit,” she said.
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