Clothing & Energy

The meteoric rise of "fast fashion", the business of quickly turning around new collections, often at lower prices to encourage consumption, in particular is proving to be toxic for the environment.

Today, textile production is the world’s second most polluting industry after the oil industry. The total greenhouse gas emissions from textile production currently stands at 1.2 billion tonnes annually and accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions. Consuming fossil fuel based electricity, the primary source of energy in the apparel production process, causes a great deal of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Is your thirst for fashion damaging the planet? Here's a short video that briefly explains the environmental impact of fast fashion and its contribution to climate change and global warming.

Due to ever increasing apparel demand and population growth, this industry’s carbon footprint will only grow bigger. As attention on sustainability issues in our world intensifies, research on environmental sustainability in the apparel manufacturing industry is needed.The sector’s emissions are to rise by more than 60 per cent by 2030, if transformation towards a sustainable fashion industry fails to materialise soon.

Although the textile and apparel industry is not considered an energy-intensive industry, it comprises a large number of plants that, together, consume a significant amount of energy which result in substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions too.

Manufacturing hubs China and India will increase the footprint further. More than 60 per cent of textiles are used in the clothing industry and a large proportion of clothing manufacturing occurs in China and India, countries which rely on coal-fuelled power plants, increasing the footprint of each garment.

The clothing industry accounts for 10 percent of the world's carbon emissions. So what's it doing to reduce that figure?

Supply Chain

Every stage of the textile industry’s supply chain is energy-intensive, from processing yarn, producing fabric, and fabricating textiles, to transporting and selling clothes to customers.

The supply chain requires 10 times more energy to produce one ton of textiles than does the production of one ton of glass.

Electricity is one of the most commonly used types of energy and one of the key cost factors in the textile supply chain. The International Energy Agency  estimates that final energy consumption in the supply chain doubled from 47 between the years of 1971 and 2004.

The incomprehensible scale of the fashion industry and the sheer quantity of fabrics that are produced for clothing each year is what makes the fashion industry so destructive.

Factories are major energy consumers and therefore greenhouse gas emitters. An estimated 80% of the energy used in the fashion industry is used in textile manufacturing. 

Electricity is needed to run machinery such as sewing machines and air pumps in textile factories. Huge amounts of heat is needed for washing, drying and dying the cloth. Most of these factories operate in China which is largely dependent on coal for producing energy. The further costs of transporting the garments produces additional CO2 as the vast majority of garments have travelled by ship. Ships burn bunker fuel which contains 1800 times more sulfur than domestic vehicle fuel, making shipping a significant polluting sector.

The apparel system

Crop Production: To bring seed to life, fuels are used for machinery to plough and harvest crops to later become fabric.

Fiber Production: From crop-to-fabric there are three major steps which each consume their own heavy portion of energy. Spinning requiring 54%, weaving requiring 23% and Chemical processing requiring 38%. Ultimately, the remaining 5% is allocated for miscellaneous practices.

Garment Production: The most common power source for factory machinery, cooling and temperature control systems, lighting and office equipment is energy. Oil on the other hand “is used to fuel boilers to generate steam, as well as liquified petroleum, gas, coal and city gas” . Not to mention oil is the base of certain synthetic fibers like polyester which dominate of 65% of fabrics used.

Distribution: By the time the garment is created and ready to be sold, it is sent via the use freight transportation which is set to triple by 2040. Globalized production, competition and fast fashion demand have paved good business for international trade and poor health for marine and air life.

Climate Change

The energy-intensive processes in the Dyeing and Finishing stage are the primary drivers of the global apparel industry’s total climate change impact. Yarn Preparation is also a key contributor, though to a lesser extent.

Most of these impacts are a direct result of apparel’s reliance on hard coal and natural gas to generate electricity and heat in key processing locations. Asian countries such as China, India and Bangladesh not only comprise the largest manufacturers, but also have heavily coal-based energy Mixes.

Dyeing processes in particular have a high energy demand because of the wet processes used, resulting in heating high amounts of water. Fabric preparation (knitting and weaving) and yarn preparation (spinning) require mostly electricity and almost no additional heat, resulting in a lower climate change impact. Hard coal and natural gas show a share of 60% to 70% of the climate change impacts in the Dyeing and Finishing stage. The difference relates to different energy mixes in the various locations.

For Distribution, transport was assumed to be 8% air freight and 92% shipping freight. Distribution is proven to have a relatively low impact as far as climate change is concerned, although these results do not include final distribution from shop to end-customer.

The study further shows that transportation accounts for only an estimated 3% of the apparel industry’s impact on climate change. This impact would however be significantly higher if businesses decided to switch from road transportation to air. For example, shifting a single percent of transportation allocations from shipping to airfreight would cause a 35% increase in carbon emissions.

The fashion industry and climate change What are the environmental impacts of the clothes we wear? New Classics Studios’ Alyssa Lau gives us the startling facts about what it takes to produce a simple tee shirt, and what we can do to limit our impact.

Polyester

Polyester and cotton are the two most commonly used fabrics in the industry and their production has a considerable ecological impact. Amongst these, polyester along with other synthetic fibres is the most commonly used fabric, but its production results in more emissions since it is produced from fossil fuels such as crude oil.

In 2015, production of polyester for textiles use results in more than 706 billion kg of CO2e. According to estimates, 262 per cent more CO2 is emitted to produce a single polyester T-shirt than a cotton shirt. But substituting polyester with its recyclable counterpart offers up to a 90% reduction of toxic substances, a 60 per cent reduction in energy usage, and up to a 40 per cent dip in emissions, says Pulse of the Fashion report 2018.

Solutions

Renewable Energy

A research report looked at the renewable energy emissions reduction scenario for the clothing industry. The study aimed to understand how other impact categories next to greenhouse gas emissions are affected. To assess the potential of mainstreaming renewables across the apparel industry, a variable percentage of renewable energy was applied to Yarn Preparation, Fabric Preparation, Dyeing and Finishing and Assembly processes. This modeling included a shift from fossil fuels to solar energy in addition to favoring wood pellets to their non-renewable alternatives (i.e. natural gas) in order to derive heat.

It was found that setting an industry-wide renewable energy target at 60% by 2030 would yield encouraging results in terms of climate change (39% reduction), and also freshwater consumption (16.9% reduction) and human health (11.5% reduction), which shows the value of a multi-indicator approach. Will this be the future?

ECO-FRIENDLY BRANDS

Consumers may assume that eco-friendly fashion items will cost significantly more money to purchase in comparison to cheap and convenient fast fashion. This assumption is well-reasoned due to the lack off economies of scale for eco-friendly materials and manufacturing. However, there are brands producing high-quality and on-trend pieces that are affordably priced. These sustainable items will also provide more wears and comfort than your average fast fashion piece.

Improving textile supply chains can be a daunting task. Use ChainPoint to connect all stakeholder in the textile supply chain, gather all supply chain data in one place for further analysis and improve the sustainability of your brand and company.

Innovating ideas

Closing the loop; involves minimizing resource consumption by facilitating re-entry into the value chain. In other words, this repeatedly recycling and reusing materials until they become biodegradable waste. The current linear business model stresses the environment by generating waste throughout the value chain, whereas a closed-loop system seeks to minimize waste and put that which is unavoidable to use. Closing the loop can address the finite land, water, and energy resources used intensely by the fashion. Emerging innovations that support closed-loop systems include recycling technologies that can produce new fibers comparable in quality to virgin fibers, and optical fiber-sorting technologies needed to facilitate scalable recycling. Others include mapping and tracking systems that enable pre-consumer waste upcycling and recycling, and consumer-focused fashion-as-a-service subscription programs

Sustainable materials mix; refers to innovations in new and existing materials to reduce environmental impact. Examples of advances here include the development of non-conventional fibers made from substances such as citrus juice, grape plants, or kelp; bioengineered leather; and the further promotion of bast fibers. These innovations also extend to processes, such as chemical-free binding technology.

Collaborative research and promotion of sustainable materials should be a high priority for the industry as current improvements in lowering the negative impact of cotton and recycled polyester are far from adequate to address the problem. Scaling solutions for sustainable materials has proven difficult, particularly with the volume of global demand and sourcing complexity.

What do you do regarding making more sustainable clothing choices? By tagging us with #theconsciouschallenge you can share your ideas!

Want to contribute to our Ecological Footprint Bible? Submit us your scientific articles! Mail us at info@theconsciouschallenge.org

Sources:

http://euratex.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/images/ongoing_projects/Critical_energy_saving_points_in_clothing_industry.pdf
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-clothing-industry-is-set-to-consume-a-quarter-of-the-global-carbon-supply-by-2050/
https://cabaus.org/2018/02/22/fashion-industrys-carbon-footprint-wearing-environment/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-day-2019-fashion-industrys-carbon-impact-is-bigger-than-airline
industrys/
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/fashion-industry-may-use-quarter-of-world-s-carbon-budget-by-2050-61183
https://cdn.businessoffashion.com/reports/The_State_of_Fashion_2018_v2.pdf
https://globalcompostproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SustainableApparelMaterials.pdf
https://www.globalfashionagenda.com/pulse-spotlight-reducing-water-and-energy-consumption-in-processing/#
https://www.dhanatribe.com/the-true-cost/energy
https://www.fashionrevolution.org/fashion-revolution-written-evidence-to-the-sustainability-of-the-fashion-industry-inquiry-u-k-environmental-audit-committee/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544218311939
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/77977794.pdf