Fast fashion has benefited from increased consumer desire for speed and value but as clothing increasingly takes up space in landfills, sustainable fashion is gaining ground. But there are many hurdles in this area before fashion can claim to be sustainable, according to Lottie Meggitt, responsible investment analyst at Newton1, part of BNY Mellon Investment Management.
More garments are bought and discarded than ever before and more than half of these go to landfill - second to oil, the clothing and textile industry is the largest polluter in the world.2 Some blame the latest trend known as ‘fast fashion’, inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends. However, this trend is resulting in those items moving even faster to the bin when deemed not in style or trendy anymore. Due to the pervasiveness of social media today, fashions trends appear and fade quicker than ever before. Millennials are among the worst culprits.
The views of Gen Z (the demographic cohort following millennials) and millennial consumers are critical. Together, they represent around $350 billion of spending power in the US alone (US$150bn spent by Gen Z and US$200bn by millennials) and Gen Z alone will account for 40 percent of global consumers by 2020.3
According to The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), approximately £140m worth of clothes go into landfills each year in the UK. The overuse of landfills has resulted in a lack of space for landfills as a whole.4 What will happen when we run out of space to put our rubbish?
This has then fuelled a secondary retail trend – sustainable fashion. And millennials are leading the way here as well. Global fashion search platform Lyst reported in 2018 there had been an almost 50% increase in shoppers seeking ethical goods such as vegan leather or organic cotton.
So if we have the resources to cut down on clothing disposal levels and buy ethically sourced garments, why aren’t isn’t it being put into practice more widely?
Despite the recent popularity sustainable fashion and ethically sourced clothing has had, most consumers are not yet fully sold on the idea. This is perhaps due to the fact they don’t want to spend more money on better quality clothing or perhaps don’t realise the long-term effects.
“Although we see consumers chat about it a lot on social media, they comment on news articles and call clothing companies out, it’s key to say we haven’t yet seen consumers actually put their money where their mouth is as there’s been very little change in consumption patterns. There’s all this outrage but very little evidence so far that it’s actually impacting how people spend money,” says Lottie Meggitt, responsible investment analyst at Newton Investment Management. The rise in popularity of second-hand clothing and brands coming out with sustainable clothing lines is still miniscule compared to the high street and online giants dominating sales through their fast fashion lines.
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1 Investment Managers are appointed by BNY Mellon Investment Management EMEA Limited (BNYMIM EMEA), BNY Mellon Fund Management (Luxembourg) S.A. (BNY MFML) or affiliated fund operating companies to undertake portfolio management activities in relation to contracts for products and services entered into by clients with BNYMIM EMEA, BNY MFML or the BNY Mellon funds.
2 EDGE: ‘Fashion Intelligence Waste Statistics’, 3 July 2019
3 McKinsey & Company: ‘The State of Fashion 2019’, 4 July 2019
4 The Waste and Resources Action Programme: ‘Clothing Waste Prevention’, 2 July 2019
