Today marks Earth Overshoot Day, the day where our demand for biological resources and servicesexceeds what Earth can regenerate in one year.
While acknowledging our fast-paced reality, the campaign strives to empower individuals and communities towards creating large scale impact – urging to implement solutions that bring human activity in balance with Earth’s ecological budget.
Fashion’s ecological and social footprint is driven by the demand for new clothes, extracting an immense volume of natural resources while polluting and degrading Earth’s soils, waters, and atmosphere. Such fashion system has simultaneously reinforced a global injustice, as citizens and companies of the Global North have been demanding new fashions at speedy rate for decades, all at the expense of degraded environments, especially in the Global South. Acknowledging that the responsibility of the fashion industry’s environmental footprint sits with those driving overproduction and overconsumption, calls for a change of mindset and urgent action. Essentially, to produce less garments is an act of solidarity towards all people we share this planet with today, as well as ensuring a healthy planet for future generations. As such, fashion leaders and consumers of the Global North need to rethink the way we produce, consume and enjoy fashion.
Going forward, solutions to regenerative and cleaner agricultural practises, to reduce our carbon emissions and business models that minimise our resource use, need to be accelerated and invested in. One step forward is to embark in collaborations with solution providers that enable and support this sustainability mission – listed below are some recommendations!
- The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) endeavours to help cotton communities survive and thrive while protecting and restoring the environment.
- CYCLO® mechanically recycle textile waste from garment manufacturers in Bangladesh into new fibres and yarns, without using water, chemicals or dyes.
- Plan A their decarbonisation platform helps companies build a decarbonised economy, using data and science to accelerate corporate transformation and ESG reporting.
- Fashion Positive operates out of the global non-profit, Textile Exchange. Their approach is rooted in the cradle-to-cradle methodology, a transformative pathway for designing and making products with a positive impact on people and planet. To do so, they provide a circular materials guide and a membership of apparel companies and retailers driving the circular fashion movement.
- Rainforest Alliance an international non-profit organisation working at the intersection of business, agriculture and forests to make responsible business the new normal. They build an alliance to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote their human rights and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. Businesses can certify their products in accordance with their certification programme. In addition, they provide tailored supply chain services, guidance on marketing and the Forest Allies community.
- Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals Foundation (ZDHC Foundation) provides the Roadmap to Zero Programme that advocates the elimination of the use of harmful chemicals from global supply chains in the fashion industry, building a foundation to protect workers, consumers and our planet’s ecosystems