We’re constantly bombarded with media
that puts pressure on us to buy newer and trendier clothes.
Just to throw them away when they’re no longer in style.
An estimated 93 million tons go to landfill or are burned every year.
“And that’s roughly about a garbage truckload of textiles,
every second going to landfill.
Every second!”
Producing clothes also pollutes our water and churns out CO2.
The fast fashion model pioneered by Zara
means that brands are churning out double the amount of clothing per year
as they did in the early 2000s.
But companies say that’s about to change
because we can now buy eco-friendly fast fashion.
And also recycle our clothes when we don’t want them anymore.
But can we believe them?
Inditex, Zara’s parent company,
and H&M Group
are two of the biggest fashion retailers in the world,
and both have collections that claim to reduce
the environmental impact of making clothes.
Not only that, but the two fashion giants
say they are making their entire brands more sustainable.
Let’s take a look at these promises, starting with the materials.
[MATERIALS]
Main materials at Zara & H&M, as well as worldwide, are polyester,
which accounts for around 52% of total fiber production,
and cotton, which is around 24%.
PET is a different name for polyester
and is the same type of plastic that's found in water bottles.
Actually,
60% of PET production goes to textiles,
and only 30% to water bottles.
The material is produced from petroleum,
and the process uses lots of energy
and releases CO2,
as well as acids and ammonia into the water supply.
Recycled polyester uses up to 60% less energy than virgin material
and can be made from textile scraps
or plastic trash.
But inconsistencies in the threads can make it require more dye,
and experts say
that polyester fabrics can shed 700,000 microplastic fibers
with every wash,
which end up in the ocean,
and also in our food.
Cotton doesn't have these problems,
but is still a chemical and water intensive crop.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature,
it takes 20,000 liters of water to make one kilo of cotton,
which is enough for one T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
Also, around 11% of the world’s pesticides are used on cotton fields.
So is organic cotton better?
"Essentially there's a massive difference between organic cotton and cotton."
This is Suki, a representative of Fashion Revolution,
which is an organization that advocates worldwide
for transparency and sustainability in the fashion industry.
“Organic cotton is, in the long term, much better for the farmer that grows it
and the environment and the soil that produces it,
and it's less water intensive
and doesn't require as much irrigation as such.”
We requested an interview with H&M
about the sustainability of their products,
but they declined.
Over email they said,
"We are happy to say that by the end of this year,
all cotton we use will come from sustainable sources."
Zara also responded only through email, saying,
"In 2019, the Group [Inditex, Zara's parent company]
used over 38,000 tonnes of sustainable cotton in its clothing,
(up 105% from 2018)."
But what does sustainable actually mean?
There’s no standard definition, and it doesn’t equal organic.
H&M says that sustainable cotton can also mean recycled
or cotton that uses less pesticides and GMOs.
Zara portrays its cotton as sustainable,
but calls it ecologically grown instead of organic.
It claims the cotton uses natural fertilizers and pesticides,
and is certified by the Organic Content Standard
and the Global Organic Textile Standard,
which say they control for chemical and water use
in the whole production process.
Terms like "conscious" and "ecologically grown"
are hard to fact-check,
as well as confusing for the consumer.
But according to the non-profit Textile Exchange,
in 2016, H&M was the second largest user of organic cotton in the world.
Zara was the fourth.
Let’s focus on synthetics.
In H&M's sustainable collection,
the synthetic clothing has to be at least 50% recycled.
Zara doesn’t specify their percentage, and their labeling can be confusing.
This jacket says it’s 100% recycled polyamide,
which makes it seem like it’s completely recycled.
But the filling is polyester.
That’s a different material.
And this isn’t the only time this happens.
The percentage recycled statement often doesn’t refer to the whole garment,
making it look like the item is more recycled than it actually is.
On the subject of transparent labeling,
the Join Life tags are also on the Zara website
and are stamped by the Forest Stewardship Council.
This would seem to imply the clothing is certified by this organization.
The stamp, however, is only referring to the tag,
not to the whole clothing item.
Talk about misleading.
Zara has committed to sustainable cotton and polyester by 2025.
H&M says all of their materials to be sustainable by 2030,
and for 2019, that figure was already at 57%.
If they stick to these commitments,
it could mean big changes for the industry.
But material is only part of the story.
[SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSPARENCY]
To find out if that cotton is actually organic,
or that polyester is actually recycled,
consumers need to be able to check the production process.
With an H&M Conscious T-shirt,
you can find out
in which specific factory it was made
so it’s theoretically possible to check the factory’s sustainability.
Zara only lists how many suppliers it has in one city,
but not their names and addresses.
They were both evaluated by Fashion Revolution,
an organization advocating for transparency
and sustainability in fashion.
None of the 250 large brands scored over 80%,
but for 2020, H&M was the highest scoring brand, with 73%,
so quite transparent.
Zara scored a 43%.
Not so much.
This is important because:
"Suppliers are one of the few stakeholders
with a front row seat to brands' inner workings."
Kim has a background in human rights
and was a garment factory manager in Cambodia.
"They uniquely have access to the information that consumers
need to be able to crosscheck brands' actions against their words."
So being able to research suppliers
allows people to hold brands accountable to their sustainability claims, but -
"Just because you're transparent, it does not mean you're sustainable,
It does not mean that at all.
And that's really, really important."
Even for brands [that] know their whole supply chain,
making an eco-friendly garment is hard.
Jessie Li: Let's pick up a denim.
You can see the dyeing is done in a more environmentally responsible way,
but the cotton is not produced the same.
N: Jessie has worked in different industries
from product inspection to purchasing,
to product development, in both China and Cambodia.
JL: Or take another example.
The whole piece of the clothes is made out of the waste,
but not dyed in a responsible way.
So, they're green,
but it's different degrees of green
or different degrees of less bad.
N: Because an item of clothing is made up of many different materials
all manufactured in different ways,
it’s hard to make each piece less harmful to the environment.
This is also the reason
why recycling clothing is much harder than H&M and Zara would seem to claim.
[RECYCLING]
N: H&M’s advertisements
say that the company is working towards a circular future for clothing.
According to the website,
you can bring your clothing to any store,
and it will be resold as second-hand clothing,
reused as other textiles, or recycled.
Zara has a similar campaign.
It says it partners with different local organizations,
which then take over what happens to the clothing.
So what does happen?
They are resold, reused, and recycled,
but not in the proportions you might think.
Over half of donated clothing is sold overseas.
The rest is mostly turned into industrial material,
burned, or goes to landfill.
Less than 1% of the material in used clothing
is recycled into new clothing.
A big reason is lack of technology.
Remember how many materials were in the jacket?
Well, they need to come out again to recycle it.
Maxi Bohn: "Garments that are made from mono materials,
or can easily be taken apart into pieces,
can be recycled.
N: Maxi started her career as a certified dressmaker
over ten years ago
and has headed product development for Hugo Boss and major online retailers.
MB: But think about your wardrobe.
How many pieces would fulfill these requirements?
N: So giving back clothing is better than throwing it away,
but the chances of it actually getting recycled
are very low.
H&M and Zara are investing in recycling research, but we looked at their annual
reports and the amount is 0.5 percent and 0.02 percent of their profits, respectively.
They say returning clothes is circular, which isn’t really true. And even if it were:
“That's not the solution to our overconsumption.
Or our overproduction.”
The problem is that too much clothing is produced, and bought, whether the clothing is eco-friendly or not.
“Let's just say you're putting one person here who says, you know what, I don't give
a bleep about anything recycled or organic.
I will once a year buy a nice pair of pants
and I don't care about anything, and then there are these people who are saying,
yes, I'm really aware, I want to do that. I want to commit to the environment.
And the pair of jeans that I'm going to buy every four weeks will always be sustainable. So.
Still, this person is better.”
Buying clothing every four weeks is relatively new. Before the 90s designers made clothes
for two fashion seasons per year, and now fashion retailers put out clothes in as little as two weeks.
More clothes mean cheaper prices, lower quality, and more ending up in the landfill or burned.
But it’s not just big fast fashion brands, it’s the fashion industry in general and
our desire for constantly changing outfits that need to hit pause.
“We need to think about how we shop and what we're really calling for.
But there is a bold step in a number of notable fashion brands and fashion houses
now going seasonless and hats off to them. It's an important thing to do.”
The concept doesn’t mean sacrificing style – but instead making clothing to last rather
than be thrown away.
“So all in all, what we're trying to do is working with clothing that is not very seasonal, so to say.
It should be something that you can wear year after year, we want to focus on quality.”
Karishma is the founder of Ka-Sha, an Indian brand featured in magazines like Forbes and Vogue
for championing eco-friendly fashion.
"We try to make products that try to fit into different places depending on who's
wearing it and how it's worn. So we have a lot of different aspects to our clothing.”
So what do you do when you want to buy new clothes?
H&M and Zara say their eco-collections are better for the environment, and they actually are.
If you want to make sure the whole supply chain is sustainable, there are
many smaller brands that can account for every step of their production process.
And buying seasonless instead of trendy clothing means it won’t go out of fashion
and end up in the trash.
Because this is a rare industry where consumers actually have a real influence.
“When I look at the whole picture, I realize maybe only end consumer is the power
[that] can balance brands and can push them, give them pressure to make some changes.”
So, ask yourself not only who made your clothes and what they are made of,
but also, do I need these new clothes? And go from there instead.
And if you want to see more videos like this, we post about environmental topics every Friday.
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