Today you made a decision that could change the face of the planet. You decided what to wear.
When was the last time you looked in your wardrobe and couldn’t find anything suitable?
Screen stars on Netflix wear stunning but different couture in every episode. Celebrities and influencers boast cutting edge design, always pictured in a new outfit.
Are you keeping up? Don’t worry. The latest news is that you don’t have to. As stated in the Ellen Macarthur Foundation report A New Textiles Economy, “Circular is the new black! We need a fashion industry based on three principles: clean, fair and good.”
Our clothing is an expression of individuality. We use it to make ourselves unique as well as provide comfort and protection. But the environmental cost of our clothes is adding up.
The industry’s environmental footprint extends from raw material production or extraction, all the way to manufacturing, distribution, use, and end of life. Combined, the global apparel and footwear industries account for an estimated 2 to 8 per cent of the world´s greenhouse gas emissions.
Estimates show that in average conditions, producing one pair of jeans requires around 3,000 to 4,000 litres of water, with the most efficient processes using 2,000 litres and the least-efficient more than 10,000 litres.
Even just washing our clothes releases plastic microfibres and other pollutants into the environment, contaminating our oceans – textiles account for 9 per cent of annual microplastics added to the ocean – as well as our drinking water and therefore our bodies.
Yet globally, the industry wields considerable power. It provides a high level of employment, is worth US$1.5 trillion, and provides products essential to human welfare.
UN Environment’s Llorenç Milà i Canals, Head of the Life Cycle Initiative, said fashion presents a massive opportunity to create a cleaner future.
But steps must be taken to involve everyone involved in the value chain to address areas of environmental concern and take bold action on them.
“All actors must play their part in redefining the way value is generated and kept within the apparel sector, moving away from disposable apparel to a sector that generates and sustains value for society without polluting the environment,” he said.
As consumers, this means buying less. Some studies estimate that the average garment is worn 10 times before being discarded. Global fibre production per person has grown from 8.3 kilograms per person in 1975 to 16.2 kilograms per person in 2024, and is expected to rise to 19.4 kilograms by 2030 if business as usual continues.
This waste costs money and the value of natural resources. Of the total fibre input used for clothing, less than 1 per cent is recycled into new clothing. Overall, the equivalent of a garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second.
There are steps we can all take today. We can check that the materials and designs of clothes are durable, so that we can cherish and keep them for longer. We can reduce the amount of clothes we buy, and prioritize circular business models such as reusing, repairing and buying second-hand items. We can wash our clothes less and with more care: washing at cold temperatures and line drying them can reduce clothes’ climate impacts, and using only the amount of detergent needed can reduce water pollution.
But while our attitude towards our clothing needs a rethink, so too does the way in which our clothes are produced. Collectively, on a large scale, reducing our environmental footprint requires cutting resource consumption and designing pollution out of clothing altogether. Innovative new technology can play a part in cutting resource use. Virgin fibers, whether natural fibres such as cotton or synthetic fibres such as polyester, still put a strain on the environment, so finding and scaling circular practices and business models is key to reducing natural resource consumption.
In the meantime, developing countries with nascent textile industries have an opportunity to build circular models into production from the start. They can set the bar high for the rest of the world to follow suit.
Ultimately, the key to a sustainable future lies in radically rethinking the way we consume and use clothing, and disrupting current business models. That means buying less. And it means putting pressure on our fashion industry to design a more responsible product.
