Planet

The Fashion Business School has four pillars of sustainability, “Planet”, “Purpose”, “People” and “Profit”. The first pillar “Planet” explores and investigates the environmental impact of the fashion industry. 

The planet has always been a major topic of discussion within the fashion industry, since the 1970s environmentalist groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have been speaking up about their concerns over the overconsumption and overproduction of fashion and has been pushing the industry for a responsible design movement (Gwlit, 2020). Fashion consumers worldwide discard articles of clothing that could continue to be worn that have a combined worth of around $460 billion, this increases the concerns of overconsumption and the geological damage of the fashion industry (McKinsey & Sustainability, 2019). 

Within the fashion industry, the circular economy is an approach that allows for problems such as overproduction and overconsumption to be tackled. The main components of the circular economy are as follows: decreasing the amount of pollution and waste, improving material and product circulation, and the regeneration of nature (MacAuthur, 2013). According to (Gwilt, 2020) the circular economy should not be a replacement for sustainability but should be complimentary to the multiple ongoing efforts within the industry.

The United Nations (UN) has set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that have 169 specified aims that are aimed to be met by 2030, currently, 193 member states of the UN have endorsed these goals (Gwlit, 2020). The SDG that is most important to the fashion industry is number 12: responsible production and consumption, this is because it directly links to the fashion industry’s biggest problem, overproduction, and overconsumption. SDG 12 pushes for the use of renewable energy with solar and wind, reducing food waste and recycling materials that are non-renewable. For sustainable development to take place the present model of the industry needs to move away from the current ultra-fast pace to a slower more relaxed pace, this will also allow customers to buy pieces that are higher quality and have better longevity rather than cheaper trendy pieces that aren’t sustainable.

References

Mckinsey & Sustainability., (2019). Refashioning clothing’s environmental impact.

Gwilt, A., (2020). A practical guide to sustainable fashion. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 7-15.

MacArthur, E., (2013). Towards the circular economy. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2(1), pp.23-44.