The global environmental injustice of fast fashion

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal, 2020

This Note is dedicated to my parents Stephanie Meyer and Allen Elia. I am grateful to Professor Trexler for inspiring the topic of this capstone paper. The first day of your ethics course you challenged me to look beyond the headline of H&M burning their products and to find a solution. Thank you for compelling me to second guess every source and to see what bias the author or establishment may have. I am eternally grateful for Professor Susan Scafidi for your unwavering support and mentorship. Thank you to Anton Baptiste and Elliot Fink for your encouragement and edits throughout the process.

Sustainable Fashion: An Ethical Future Ahead?, 2019

Fashion is one of the most polluting industries and one of the most influential one. Currently, total greenhouse gas emissions from textiles production, at 1.2 billion tonnes annually, are more than those of all international flights and maritime shipping combined, that’s really alarming. By some estimates, emissions in this sector is expected to rise by more than 60% by 2030. In 2015 two large agreements realized the way to where we have to go, what direction to take and what we need to do to live in a more sustainable planet, this is how the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change adopted. But when we talk about the SDGs and fashion we also refer to the human and labour exploitation of textile production, because sustainability must be analyzed around its three dimensions, i,e. social, economic and environmental. We can meet our needs without accumulating things and buying what we don’t need, without compromising with resources and possibilities for future generations. We have innovative ideas and this is our opportunity to take care of our planet because there is no planet B.

Academia Environmental Sciences and Sustainability, 2024

In the past decade, numerous policies and regulations have emerged in the field of sustainable fashion, including the Bangladesh Accord, the Sustainability Compact in Bangladesh, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector, California's SB62 law protecting workers' rights, France's proposed tax on fast fashion products, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the USA. This wave of regulations reflects a growing awareness of the environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry, as well as the complex political and economic dynamics between countries, particularly the trade relations between China, the US, and Europe. These dynamics are evident in the shift from fast fashion originating in Europe to ultra-fast fashion originating in China. This brief communication reviews global regulations in sustainable fashion, highlighting current legislative initiatives, including the New York Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act, the Americas Trade and Investment Act and the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, and the economic and political contexts driving these changes.

The International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) , 2025

This article assesses the readiness of Malaysia, China, and Bangladesh to handle the environmental and labour challenges posed by ultra-fast fashion. Driven by consumer demand and e-commerce, ultra-fast fashion presents significant regulatory issues, including environmental degradation and labour exploitation. While Malaysia's economic policies support industry growth, its environmental and labour regulations are insufficient. Current laws primarily focus on certain pollutants, overlooking harmful chemicals commonly used in garment production. Also, labour laws offer basic protections, but weak enforcement allows exploitation. Similarly, China faces severe environmental impacts from textile production, while Bangladesh struggles with unsafe working conditions and environmental harm. The rapid production cycles of ultra-fast fashion surpass regulatory capabilities in all three countries. Stronger legal frameworks, more apparent environmental monitoring, and better enforcement of labour protections are necessary to mitigate the adverse effects and promote sustainable fashion practices.

2010

Textiles, the fastest growing sector in household waste, have created an exponential rise in the export of second hand clothes (SHC) to overseas markets such as Kenya and Tanzania. Despite the few advantages for the destination markets (eg, enterprise opportunities), this has exasperated a difficult situation for domestic production. Increased cheap imports from Asia have also led to decline in SHC markets, resulting in increased land filling and the associated environmental impacts. Our research proposes remanufacturing fashion from the unwanted SHC, embellishing using local (destination market) craft/design. From literature review conducted, reuse and remanufacture of clothing causes the least impact on energy use and appears to be the most environmentally and socially friendly approach to sustainability efforts. Remanufacture of clothing is currently practiced at niche market levels, for it to have a broader impact; it needs to gain entry into the mass-market retail arena. In the...

2014

The paper presents the concept of the fast fasion and how these lead to an excessive consumption of clothes and as result a growth of the worn products market. The paper also aims to establish how fast fashion is influenting not only the economy also the environment. The fast fashion model can also damage developing economies with a low household income, which are not the necessary most important markets of these companies. Our study has identified the influences in increased purchase behavior and focused esspecialy of the positive relationship between income and clothing expenses. We found out that it is a large gap between the European countries regarding clothing expenses in year and Romania is for far the lowest consumer. It is presented the second hand clothes import-export trade during 2007-2012 and we found out that there is an inverse relation between the balances sheet of import-export of textile products between the developed and developing countries. The authors conclude ...

Introducing the sustainability challenge of textiles and clothing

As emphasized in the collection of articles for this special issue, clothing and textile production is one of the most polluting industries in the world. Its sustainability challenge involves multiple, interrelated, and complicated issues. Textiles and clothing now play a key role in the global public discourse on climate change, chemical society, water shortage, and human rights. Their production and consumption raise several questions and worries that create challenges about how people live their political, social, and economic lives. Many of the challenges concern several common societal and private practices and the role of various and often conflicting values associated with production and consumption. A large number of different actors and institutions from the corporate, governmental, civil society, media, and private spheres are involved as well. While there are technological solutions that solve some of the challenges, others require committed actions on the part of consumers, NGOs, government, business, and others; and increasingly so on an international scale. Particularly businesses and consumers have been identified as key actors here, due to the nature of the fast textile and fashion industry. Policy makers and activists ponder how businesses and consumers can be encouraged to take responsibility, take voluntary steps towards sustainability improvements, and at times even be outright forced to change their choices and behaviours. The deeper question is, however, whether, how, and to what degree they can take on new responsibility for ensuring that textile and clothing production becomes more sustainable. What mechanisms are currently used and which ones can be devised to make this happen? And how well are the ones presently in place working to solve this industry's sustainability challenge? Scholars stress that the problem areas in globalized textile and clothing production are highly complex. Technological fixes aside, they find that modifying behaviour and practice often requires the more complicated task of working with changing the values associated with production and consumption and doing so in a way sensitive to different cultural, geographic, and political contexts.

Journal of Vocational Education Studies

This paper will look into the agenda of the United Nations (UN) for the planned global, social and environmental progression in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially goals on the quality of education and responsible consumption and production. The combination of these two goals touched on quality education in the field of fashion and also fostered a responsible attitude among producers and consumers. Hence, educators, designers and manufacturers need to ensure the process and production of eco-friendly products do not harm consumers and nature while reducing the amount of waste. Responsibilities of the manufacturers are in terms of producing and adopting sustainable methods in production of textile and clothing products. Furthermore, consumer attitudes and behaviors are also very influential in utilizing of textile products considering the environmental sustainability aspects. In this study, critical review of relevant literature will be conducted. In the context of educa...