Un Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action

Mode Manufacture General Statistics

• The global wearing apparel market is valued at 3 trillion dollars, iii,000 billion, and accounts for ii percent of the globe'south Gross Domestic Product (GDP).¹
  

  Source: FashionUnited.com¹
  Retail value of luxury goods market:	339.4 billion dollars
  Value of of the menswear industry:	402 billion dollars
  Value of the womenswear industry:	621 billion dollars
  Conjugal Wearable marketplace:	57 billion dollars
  Childrenswear market:	186 billion dollars
  Sports footwear market:	ninety.4 billion dollars

• Almost 75% of the world's fashion market is full-bodied in Europe, United states of america, China and Nihon.^two
• Un Alliance on Sustainable Fashion reports the fashion industry employs over 75 million people worldwide.
• The Usa is the largest importer of garments in the earth; most twoscore% of apparel products sold in the US are imported from China.²

Emissions/Air Pollution

• A 2021 report from the Globe Economic Forum identified fashion, and its supply chain, asthe planet's third largest polluter (after food and construction).
• United Nations Climate change News states, the manner industry contributes around x% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy intensive product; more than all international flights and maritime aircraft combined.
• Quantis found that over 90% of the emissions for wearing apparel come from four activities: dyeing and finishing, fabric training, yarn preparation, and fiber production.  Quantis 2018 Report –Measuring Style | Environmental Bear upon of the Global Dress and Footwear Industries Report.

Waste matter

• 208M lbs. of waste were generated by single-use outfits in 2019.¹¹
• 1 in ii people are throwing their unwanted clothes straight in the trash. The result?  64% of the 32B garments produced each twelvemonth finish up in landfill.^eleven
• The Environmental Protection Bureau reports that Americans generate 16 1000000 tons of textile waste a twelvemonth, equaling just over six per centum of full municipal waste (for context, plastics make up thirteen per centum of America's waste material stream).
• Environmental Protection Agency Clothing and Footwear Waste product Direction 2018 report: Landfilled: nine,070,000 US tons; Recycled: ane,690,000 US tons; Combustion with Energy Recovery: two,210,000 US tons.  From 1960 – 2018 all data higher than previous years.
  

  1960-2018 Data on Clothing and Footwear in MSW by Weight (in thousands of U.S. tons)

  Direction Pathway	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2005	2010	2015	2017	2018
  Generation	ane,360	1,620	2,170	4,010	6,470	7,890	9,100	11,940	12,800	12,970
  Recycled	50	lx	150	520	900	1,250	one,250	ane,690	1,740	ane,690
  Composted	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
  Combustion with Energy Recovery	–	x	50	590	ane,080	1,210	1,390	two,010	2,160	2,210
  Landfilled	1,310	1,550	1,970	2,900	4,490	5,430	6,460	8,240	8,900	9,070

  Sources: American Dress & Footwear Association, Council for Material Recycling, and International Trade Commission.

  A dash in the table ways that data is not available.

• Between 2000 and 2014, clothing production doubled with the average consumer buying 60 percent more pieces of garment compared to xv years ago. Nonetheless, each clothing detail is now kept half as long. ^ix
• Nearly 20% of global wastewater is produced past the mode industry.⁹
• According to Green America, textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of h2o globally.
• xx,000 liters is the amount of water needed to produce ane kilogram of cotton; equivalent to a unmarried t-shirt and pair of jeans.¹⁰
• Information technology takes more than than 5,000 gallons of water to manufacture just a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. ³
• Textile industry is ane of the top 3 water wasting industry in China, discharging over ii.5 billion tons of wastewater every yr.²
• About 15% of material intended for clothing ends up on the cutting room flooring. This waste product rate has been tolerated industry-wide for decades.⁴
• According to Christina Dean, Redress, waste generated in Red china is not known, with estimates that People's republic of china will soon make 50% of the world's habiliment – the indications for textile waste there are heed-blowing.  Daily in Hong Kong, there are 253 tons of textiles sent to landfill.

Toxic Chemic Stats and Make Scorecard

• 43 million tons of chemicals are used to dye and treat our clothes every year AND in that location are 8,000 dissimilar chemicals used to manufacture clothing.
• According to Green America, fabric dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally.
• Cotton fiber farming is responsible for 24% of insecticides and 11% of pesticides, despite using only three% of the world's arable land.^nine

Source: Green America Toxic Textiles Scorecard; Green America Toxic Fabric Report

Recycle

• More than USD 500 billion of value is lost every year due to vesture underutilisation and the lack of recycling.
• Consumers throw away shoes and wearable [versus recycle], an average of 70 pounds per person, annually. ^five
• A few communities have textile recycling programs, about 85% of this waste product goes to landfills where it occupies near 5% of landfill space and the amount is growing. ⁵
• Up to 95% of the textiles that are land filled each yr could be recycled. ^seven
• Landfill space is expensive and difficult to notice. ^five
• Using recycled cotton saves 20,000 liters of h2o per kilogram of cotton, a water-intensive crop.⁸

Used Wear – the 2nd-mitt marketplace

• The secondhand marketplace projected to nearly double the size of fast way by 2029.¹¹
• 208M lbs. of waste matter were generated by single-utilise outfits in 2019.¹¹
• ane in 2 people are throwing their unwanted clothes straight in the trash. The result?  64% of the 32B garments produced each year end up in landfill.¹¹
• The United states of america is the largest exporter of second paw vesture. It exports over a billion pounds of used clothing every year.⁶
• Over 70% of the world'southward population utilize second hand clothes.⁷
• Consumers in the Great britain have an estimated $46.7 billion worth of unworn wearing apparel in their closets. ²

More on Sustainable Fashion:

Take a look at the category Sustainable Border and exist informed on designers, brands, and global initiatives that are making the example for a circular manner economy.  Sustainable fashion is a big topic and as you bout the website, you'll find vetted resources, reports, and links documenting this massive topic.  In the right column yous will observe over 35 links in the section: Sustainable Fashion: Be Informed | Edge Suggested Resource.  With periodic updates to this page and throughout the website, we've done the homework for yous.

What is Circular Way?

Apparel, footwear, accessories that are made to be made again, are made from rubber and recycled or renewable inputs, are used and cared for more, and later on employ re-enters the economic system, never ending upwards as waste.

Reference Notes:

1. https://fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics
2. http://world wide web.business2community.com/way-beauty/xxx-shocking-figures-facts-global-material-apparel-industry-01222057#hBWEEKFemo8cCM9Q.97
3. Forbes – Making Climate Alter Fashionable – The Garment Industry Takes on Global Warming
4. Timo Rissanen, "From fifteen% to 0: Investigating the creation of fashion without the creation of fabric waste," Presenter, Kreativ Institut for Design og Teknologi, September 2005.
5. http://worldwearproject.com/about-us/global-responsibility
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_trade_of_secondhand_clothing
7. http://world wide web.smartasn.org/ | Secondary Materials and Recycling Textiles [SMART]
8. http://world wide web.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1964887/
9. United Nations Partnership on Sustainable Fashion and the SDG's
10. https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/cotton
11. thredUp.com, online resale – https://world wide web.thredup.com/resale/#resale-growth

Other References:

• A New Textiles Economic system: Redesigning Fashion'due south Hereafter (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• Textile Exchange Fast Facts – textile-product waste-fast-facts, PDF.
• Forbes – Making Climate Change Fashionable – The Garment Industry Takes on Global Warming
• http://www.wrap.org.great britain/
• https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business concern/sustainable-style-weblog/2015/jan/fourteen/10-things-learned-zero-waste-way-industry
• Redress | The Positive Ability of Fashion

Follow EDGExpo.com to receive an email link to 'an intelligent look at fashion'.  Click on "sign up", located in the far right column.

Share this post