What Makes A Garment Sustainable?

Before we dive into the attributes of what makes a garment sustainable, I wanted to start off by highlighting that the most sustainable clothes are the ones already in your wardrobe! These are the garments that are being worn by you and enjoy wearing, avoiding the potential risk of ending in landfill.

Now lets talk details. The Collins dictionary depicts 'sustainability' as the

"avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance"

Collins Dictionary

In simpler terms, this discusses that an item must be made with little or no damage to the environment, such as avoiding the use of creating anything that our planet cannot recover from.

In relation to sustainable fashion, this entail that during all processes of production and manufacturing, there has to be minimal damage to the environment throughout supply chain practices. Attributes to what makes a garment sustainable are shared below, with talk on working environments, materials and end life of clothing.

WORKING ENVIRONMENTS

Garment workers having a safe environment should be the top priority in any business, but unfortunately many are working for no pay or under the living wage. The American Garment Worker Protection Act spoke out by saying that

"no industry is more rife with employment violations than the garment industry".

American Garment Protection Act

A sustainable garment has a requirement of showing it was made by someone who received the correct payment and a good working environment. In today's day, there have still been brands found guilty of paying workers under living wage. In fact, in 2020 Boohoo Group were found to be paying garment workers at their Leicester factory a wage of £3.50 an hour, which is less than the national minimum wage.

MATERIALS

Sustainable garments not only needs to contain fibres that cause minimal harm to the environment, but consideration of how this material, if so, can be recycled easily or biodegrade. During the production of fabrics, Textile mills generate one-fifth of the world's industrial water pollution and use 20,000 chemicals. To help apply sustainable alternatives to this, wastewater can be recycled and use of non-toxic chemicals can be applied to ensure minimal risk of water pollution are apparent.

As well as the water pollution achieved by using toxic chemicals, it's been said that 35% of the global use of microfibres in the ocean is formulated by the clothing and textile industry. A sustainable garment can involve the use of clothing that already exists, such as recycled fabrics or using pre-consumer waste to create alternative clothing, reducing the amount of textile waste generated at this stage. An example of how a brand has tried to limit the amount of waste created during the production stage is TALA, who took the opportunity of using fabrics scraps to create hair scrunchies. This is a simple yet effective solution to help reduce the amount of waste which may potentially end in landfill.

CONSIDERATION OF END LIFE

In order for improvements to be successful within the fashion industry, there needs to be development growth towards a circular economy, focusing on the full lifetime of a garment. This involves the consideration of whether the item can be recycled or easily biodegrade, eliminating the risk of ending in landfill. Some brands may offer a repair or alterations platform to encourage consumers to fix damaged clothing rather than throwing them straight away.

The decision on the garment end life can rely heavily on fashion designers at the early stages of garment production. This is because considerations on material use will be investigated and so details on choice of fibre will be a very important aspect to this process, with natural and man-made fibres having varied potential in recycling and its state left in landfill.

TRANSPARENCY

In order for brands to present themselves as a sustainable brand, they need to be transparent with the practices they follow within their business. This leaves consumers with the knowledge that the brand is open and honest about their plans within sustainability and are presented with what they have currently been working on.

As a reminder, luxury fashion and expensive designer wear isn't aren't necessarily sustainable, but investigating further into these brands will offer you information on their attitudes towards sustainable. Also to note, be aware of brands who use greenwashing in their marketing practices. More information on what greenwashing is and how to spot it can be viewed in a previous post here.

I hope this gave you an insight into what is classed as a sustainable garment. There is always confusion in what can be labelled as sustainable, but the more we talk and demand brands to incorporate sustainable practices in their business practices, we can slowly take steps into making the industry a more sustainable, environmentally friendly one.

Sabrina Cowper | Reform Your Fashion