Fast fashion needs to slow down, scientists warn

The fast fashion industry urgently needs to transition to a “slow” fashion model to reduce its heavy environmental toll, researchers at Aalto University, Finland, say.

The environmental impact of fashion’s global supply chain continues to rise, they say in a paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, with the industry now producing over 92 million tonnes of waste and consuming 79 trillion litres of water per year. It causes around 10 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and is also a high source of chemical pollution.

Developing countries tend to be most vulnerable to the environmental impacts of the industry, the paper says, since production often occurs there, even if developed countries largely consume the final products.

The fashion industry is also projected to grow significantly in the coming decades. Fashion brands are already producing almost twice the amount of clothing as they did 20 years ago, while global consumption of textiles is projected to increase by over 60 per cent by 2030 to 102 million tonnes, the paper says.

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Around 15 years ago, brands would produce four collections a year, whereas now many are constantly introducing new collections, according to Kirsi Niinimäki, associate professor in fashion research at Aalto University in Finland and lead author of the paper. She argues the whole fashion system has to slow down again.

“It is quite critical that we as consumers accept that these cheap garments are not possible if the environmental impacts are really all taken care of,” says Niinimäki. “In the future, we should produce less, we buy less and there will be less waste.”

People in the UK buy more clothes per person than any other country in Europe. Last year, a cross-party parliamentary committee in the UK called on the government to add a one penny “producer responsibility charge” on each item of clothing to pay for better clothing collection and recycling.

Mark Sumner, a lecturer in sustainability in retail and fashion at the University of Leeds, says the paper gives a good overview of the material aspects of the industry, but missed the opportunity to highlight efforts by more responsible brands to address these environmental problems.

“There are definitely success stories out there in terms of what industry has done,” says Sumner, adding that not enough brands are using that best practice. He also says it’s important not to see “slow” fashion as the only answer.

“But I do agree that we need a system-wide approach to understand how fashion works, to then be able to work out how we transition to something more sustainable,” he says.