When it comes to sustainability, there are so many terms being thrown around. Ethical fashion, conscious fashion, slow fashion… to be honest, it can get pretty confusing.
Then, we get into the root cause of sustainability. What is actually driving the destruction of the environment, exploitation of labor, etc. etc.? All of it can get very confusing, very quickly.
I want to actually break it all down and help you understand it all. I want to help you find your own version of the $500-shopping-spree-denting-your-budget. It is only from truly understanding the issue that we can then reflect on our own lives and decisions to make conscious choices to live differently.
First, let’s get our terminology straight. There are many, many words that government, brands, and influencers will use, but I want to start with the bare basics. I have categorized the top buzzwords you will hear by category based on its meaning.
To learn more about how to live sustainably, check out my Beginner’s Guide to Sustainability!
General Terms that Don’t Mean Much:
- Sustainability
- Sustainability is such a huge, complicated word. Generally, it is a bucket term that incorporates championing protection of our environment, animal rights, and fair labor conditions
- Slow
Fashion
- I wrote a whole Instagram post about this. It is “designing, creating, and buying garments for quality and longevity” to reduce our carbon footprint and waste. I personally practice slow fashion when buying new clothing through focusing on good quality and classic styles
- Fast
Fashion
- This is cheap clothing that is produced quickly by retailers serving the global market; typically they focus on the latest trends and styles (think Forever21, H&M, and Zara)
- Conscious
Fashion
- Another terminology for Sustainable Fashion; it can mean anything from being environmentally friendly, to only buying clothing made in decent labor conditions, and not buying fur, leather, etc.
Sustainability Terms that Mean Environmental Protection:
- Eco-Friendly
Fashion
- This refers to clothing that is made with materials and a manufacturing process that isn’t harmful to the environment. True eco-friendly fashion will not forget the manufacturing because many brands will claim to have eco-friendly materials such as recycled nylon but pollute constantly when producing their clothing – not eco-friendly at all!
- Organic
- Anything made that is in compliance with the organic standards of production. The most common one you will hear is organic cotton, which means cotton produced that is aimed to lower the environmental impact
- Compostable/Biodegradable
- Compostable means that something is capable of disintegrating into nature in a compost environment and leave no toxicity behind (this will typically happen in 90 days)
- Biodegradable is a fake word used by companies to claim that they are eco-friendly when they are not. Biodegrade also means decompose; everything will be biodegradable but some materials such as plastic can take up to 450 to 1000 years to decompose!
Sustainability Terms that Mean Fair Labor Practices in the Supply Chain:
- Ethical
Fashion
- General term used to describe fashion that is produced ethically, with workers in the supply chain manufacturing the clothing being treated fairly
- Fair
Trade
- Fair Trade is a certification that helps promote better trading conditions for developing countries and sets high social standards for their workers
- Living
Wage
- Living wage refers to each worker being paid a wage that they can live off of. Many advocates for living wage will argue that minimum wage is often not high enough to cover bare necessities such as food and shelter
Sustainability Terms That Mean the Promotion of Animal Rights:
- Cruelty-Free
- Usually used in conjunction with beauty products but can also refer to fur coats, etc. or any usage of animal products in clothing that can be deemed as cruel
- Vegan
- No animal products used (i.e. vegan leather comes from plastic, not animal)
For me, my $500-shopping-spree-denting-my-budget issue is environmental protection, and that is the area that I focus on most. You might see me wear brands such as Everlane more often than a Fair Trade brand because my focus is on protecting the environment. With that in mind, I want to share a simplified view of what the largest drivers are in the destruction of the planet. Arguably, most of the concerns can be summed up into two main parts: pollution and the usage of finite, natural resources.
Pollution is a three-pronged problem
The three prongs are: manufacturing pollution (think carbon emissions and waste drained into water supplies), individual pollution (when you don’t throw away your trash and it ends up in the ocean), and the inability for certain materials to be decomposed/biodegradable (plastic and many, many things cannot broken down naturally).
On the other hand, the usage of the finite resources of our Earth is the other pressing matter. Each time we cut down a tree to make paper or to make your favorite clothing fabric (rayon, viscose, and modal), this is an environmental crisis.
Though there are many other environmental issues that keep me awake at night (such as climate change), I would still categorize them into one of these two buckets. Climate change and waste disposal are directly linked to pollution, and droughts and inadequate access to clean water are linked to both pollution and the usage of finite resources.
Let’s discuss ethical fashion and vegan fashion
I want to expand upon a point I previously made in another blog post. Labor conditions in the supply chain and animal rights are not the same as sustainability for environmental protection. Sustainability being an umbrella term means that we have to get really specific. Each pillar under sustainability (environment, labor, and animal rights) has distinctly different agendas and end goals, and should be considered separately. I got some feedback the last time I discussed these points that I wasn’t detailed enough. I completely agree and want to provide more details here.
To start first with the simpler of the two, I will say something that might make some people mad: environmental protection is not a characteristic of ethical fashion. Ethical fashion is when the working conditions across each step of the supply chain in design, production, and merchandising is deemed as “ethical”. It can be considered ethical when it hits any of the these points: access to a living wage, promotion of a healthy and safe working condition and hours, or promotion of human rights (child labor, gender equality, unionize).
There are many ethical fashion outlets that claim that ethical fashion always encompasses environmental protection (Fair Trade comes to mind). While I applaud Fair Trade’s attentiveness towards environmental protection, saying that Fair Trade is committed to protecting the environment is the same as saying USDA organic meat and dairy is humane (FYI, it is not). It marks the bare standards that every company should be adhering to, but does not take into account the larger issues. Some of these issues include the 64K tons (1.28 billion pounds) of nylon fishing nets that abandoned in the oceans by fishermen each year. Did you know that up to 40 marine animals can get tangled up in the nets, and they die because of starvation and their inability to surface for air?
Another major issue is the constant creation of clothing fabrics that are harmful to the environment (rayon, viscose, and modal is made from the trees in our already dying rainforests, and polyester and nylon are plastics made from oil). I would challenge the notion that Fair Trade, or any other ethical certification is extensive enough to address the issues facing our environment.
As for animal rights and sustainability, as much as it hurts me to say this, animal rights is also not the same as environmental sustainability. The agenda for animal rights is very different than that of environmental sustainability. It hurts me to write this because I care for animals as much as I care for our planet’s ecosystems. After all, humans aside, the animals and the plants are the ones who are being harmed from the actions of human beings.
However, as often as the interests of animal rights and environmental protection align, we currently do not have a way of ensuring both the animals and the environment is being protected. The most common example of this is the recent movement in the fashion industry to go fur-free. While I love that most of us are in agreement that fur-free is the way to go, it is also the truth that the non-fur materials used for the fur coats is not environmentally sustainable. The same can be said of “vegan leather”. The most common material used is polyurethane, which according to the American Chemistry Council, is a plastic.
Organizations such as PETA and ASPCA who promote human rights will gloss over the detrimental environmental impacts of alternatives to fur, leather, etc. because it will ultimately help achieve their end goal: which is to ensure the rights of all animals, no matter what. While I will always applaud that goal, I would urge everyone to remember that when it comes to fashion, it is impossible to get a “feel-good-about-yourself” pass for wearing vegan leather or vegan fur because you think you are saying the animals and the environment all at once. It simply isn’t true.
No matter what your focus is (be it the plants or the people or the animals), I hope that this blog post helped shed some light on the complicated nature of this industry. Sustainability has become a huge topic of conversation in the industry, and the last thing I want is for anyone to enter into the discussion misinformed. What is worse than buying clothing harmful to the environment or the workers or the animals is thinking that you’re doing the right thing when you’re actually being misled.
Let me know your thoughts (my Instagram DM is always open!), and I love you all! Thanks for reading!
