Fast fashion retailers are a global phenomenon that is becoming more and more commonplace. Stores such H&M, Zara and Forever 21 have begun to dominate the retail space in markets worldwide. The trend that has developed amongst these companies and indeed the fashion industry as a whole are talks surrounding sustainability. Through a case study of H&M, a global, Swedish-based fast fashion retailer and their sustainability report, the question is: are the sustainable actions they promote really headed in right direction? Cotton too offers an interesting insight into sustainability for it is an industry traditionally seen as unsustainable but is one of the most utilised fibres in the industry. Practices surrounding cotton production will also be investigated in relation to sustainable practices in general as the fibre is still one of the most popular used in textile production today. Overall this essay is an investigation into the seemingly contradictory concepts of fast fashion and sustainability, and the bid for the two to co-exist.
As one of the world’s largest industrialised sectors (Mukherjee 2015), the fashion industry has an important place in cultures across the globe. The United Nations Environmental Program estimates that the fashion sector (including creation and production) is valued at $1.44 trillion globally (Mukherjee 2015). Within this sector, the emergence of fast fashion has been cause for much debate and discussion, particularly concerning its sustainability. The primary focus of the fast fashion sector is to deliver cheap clothing that mimics its high-end counterparts (Joy et al. 2012) to ever demanding consumers, at increasingly alarming rates. The development of the fast fashion sector can be attributed to a number of factors. Prior to the 1990s, fashion was based on spring/summer and autumn/winter cycles (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst 2010). Typically, the average time from runway to consumer was approximately six months (Joy et al. 2012). However, consumers’ lifestyles were changing and as too were their demands on the industry, which lead to retailers focusing on buyer-driven rather than product-driven chains (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst 2010). The development of communications and transport infrastructure, particularly the Internet and cheaper air travel, also had an impact as production and manufacture were increasingly sourced from overseas markets (Lund-Thomsen and Lindgreen 2013) for cheaper labour. Today, global retailers are introducing new styles almost daily (Illge and Preuss 2012, Cline 2012). However, although this is the case, sustainability has become the industry’s buzzword. Sustainability, as defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development is, “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meed their needs.” (Shen 2014) This can be seen as a seemingly contradictory concept considering the very principles that lie behind fast fashion.
Global fast fashion retailer H&M offers an insight into what fast fashion companies are trying to achieve through a focus on sustainability. H&M is a Swedish fashion retailer with more than 3600 stores in 58 markets globally (About.hm.com 2015). Established in 1947 as a women’s clothing store, the company expanded throughout European markets and the US in the late 1990s, early 2000s and continued into Asian markets in the mid-2000s. In 2013, H&M opened in Chile, its first store in the southern hemisphere (About.hm.com 2015).
In 2014, H&M released a sustainability report outlining the measures the company is taking to become more sustainable, through a program called ‘Conscious Action’. The report details a wide variety of objectives and current activities relating to sustainability that offer an opportunity for critique not only of H&M but also of the whole fashion industry. It addresses into all stages of the product lifecycle from fibre production through to apparel afterlife. The report focuses around seven commitments that are economically, socially and environmentally driven towards sustainable practices. The seven commitments are: to provide fashion for conscious consumers, choose and reward responsible partners, be ethical, be climate smart, reuse, reduce, recycle, use natural resources responsibly and strengthen communities (H&M 2014).
Cotton is one of the main fibres used for apparel production (Shen 2014) and there is much discussion surrounding its use and production within talks on sustainability, primarily organic cotton and recycling. H&M boasts in their report that they are the largest user of organic cotton in the world. As of 2010, India produced about 80% of the world’s organic cotton with much of the organic cotton being purchased by H&M coming from India, Turkey and China (Illge and Preuss 2012). Organic cotton is produced without chemicals such as pesticides and fertilisers, and uses non-genetically modified plants (Rieple and Singh 2010). Cotton is significant in India’s cultural history and in shaping what the country has become today. This can been seen through the work of Mohandas Gandhi in the 1930s standing against British oppression by returning to traditional spinning of cotton stating, “Machinery in the past has made us dependent on England, and the only way we can rid ourselves of the dependence is to boycott all goods made by machinery.” (Brown and Fee 2008) The significance of the events during this period can be seen today as the spinning wheel features on the Indian flag. (Brown and Fee 2008) It is important to acknowledge and be aware of cultural values when engaging with local communities, with India being one such example. Although organically grown cotton constitutes a small proportion of total cotton grown there is possibilities for growth through working with communities (Subramanian and Qaim 2010).
H&M is also a participant in the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), a voluntary not-for-profit programme established in 2005 which aims to develop the cotton industry as a continued, sustainable commodity with concern for the producers and the environment (Better Cotton Initiative 2015). Conventionally, the growing of cotton has particularly negative environmental impacts through extensive water consumption and high usage of pesticides and insecticides (Mukherjee). Through the BCI, cotton production methods are assessed in order to assist in achieving the best yields for the producer while using environmentally best practices to ensure cotton can continue as a sustainable mainstream fibre (Better Cotton Initiative 2015).
Although the use of organic cotton is positive in terms of environmental impact and the wellbeing of those who work in the industry, both physically (through less chemical use) and socially (Rieple and Singh 2010), there is still the issue surrounding the huge quantities of clothing produced. According to their website, H&M’s growth targets are set to increase the number of stores by 10-15% every year (About.hm.com 2015). As Elizabeth Cline states in her book Over-dressed, comparing fast fashion to slow fashion it “is inherently more ecofriendly – no matter the materials used – because it is produced in smaller quantities”. This reveals the sheer impact of mass manufactured clothing, as Marc Bain puts it in a Quartz article about H&M, “a landfill overflowing with organic cotton is still an overflowing landfill.” (Bain 2015.) This highlights the fundamental element absent from H&M’s (and most other fast fashion retailers) sustainable thinking, the way in which clothes are produced and consumed en masse is unchanged, consumers of fast fashion have lost the true value clothing. As Tony Fry states in Becoming Human By Design, “unsustainability is relational.” (Fry 2012) Fashion retailers are failing to see the whole picture. Fry further explains, “the actual challenge is to deliver those ontological conditions that overdetermine market forces to reconstruct and redirect consumer desires.” (Fry 2012) How consumers have been ‘designed’ to value clothing is at the core of the issue of unsustainability. The problem with consumption is what in fact has been consumed is not the physical entity, rather its sign value, therefor never really consuming. This occurs through the introduction of new styles, outdating their predecessors, a case of through creation something must too be destroyed (Fry 2009)
The most direct connection fast fashion retailers have to their customer base is through the actual sale of their products. For all the transparency regarding the production and manufacturing process, consumer perception of the industry is still one of disposability due to their considerably low prices despite what H&M claims, “low prices can not be equated with a throwaway society, because price and lifespan of a garment are not related to each other.” (Cline 2012) This is of course true, but what H&M fails to acknowledge is the sign value of their garments due to this price and the perception of ‘good quality’ being ‘good enough’ considering the price paid. The quality of a garment is being based upon the number of washes it will last and increasingly are being bought knowing that this will be the case (Cline 2015).
One aspect that has played a significant role in the altered perception of clothing is branding through the merging of emotion and brand loyalty (Fry 2009). In a study completed by Facit Research in 2014 that ranks companies based on how the customer perceives a company’s efforts on sustainability. H&M was ranked poorly (Facit Research 2014) and indicates disconnect between their image and what the company is actually achieving in regards to sustainability. In one a study that asked participants between the ages of 20-35 about their consumption habits, some interesting outcomes can be seen. Although most participants were aware of sustainable practices, for example not running the washing machine without a full load, when it came to fast fashion there was not the same concern (Joy et al. 2010). The Internet has too, particularly through social media networks, has enabled fashion to be introduced to the consumer almost instantaneously (Cline 2012), perpetuating further the speed of which the consumer is introduced to new styles by fast fashion retailers. An example of the impact of social media is what is known as “shopping hauls”, which are uploaded YouTube. Some of the most successful “haulers” can reach upwards of a million hits per a video (Cline 2012). The aim of these videos is to showcase cheap fashion finds and usually contain several items purchased in spree-like fashion. This highlights the extremes of how consumers perceive fast fashion.
Post-consumer or the afterlife of clothing is too a concern for H&M. To address this concern they promote how to care for clothes with the introduction of the Clevercare Info label and also seek to close the loop through recycling of clothing. The care label, and the associated website offer tips to care for clothes in a more eco-friendly fashion. Although attempting to educate consumers, the label is so similar to the conventional labelling that its impact could be very minimal. H&M also aims to create a closed loop for the industry that is focused on the recycling of clothes consumers would normally dispose of. Recycling is championed as a solution to the disposal of clothing and H&M use their recycle programme as a point of difference in the market. According to the waste hierarchy table reduction/elimination and reuse take precedence over recycling (Shen 2014). Although H&M’s efforts are commendable for less water and chemicals are used in the recycling of cotton over the production of new cotton (H&M 2014), the exchange of old clothes for vouchers (Hm.com 2015) has its flaws. Through giving monetary incentives to bring in old clothes, H&M is simply perpetuating the value in purchasing new clothes that have made unsustainability an issue in the first place. There is also too little mention of the energy consumption involved in the recycling process. The disposal of clothing is viewed in a slightly different light in comparison to other disposable products, in much the same fashion as our obsolete electronic devices. Rather than dispose of them by throwing them into a bin, in most cases we accumulate clothing or donate them to charitable causes, thus evading the reality of waste (Cline 2012). This too has added to consumer perceptions surrounding fast fashion.
Fast fashion, as has been explored, can be seen to be inherently at odds with sustainability. What the industry is trying to achieve is commendable, however it can be seen to be only superficially dealing with larger issues at hand. The sheer enormity of clothing produced by these companies, regardless of material choice, is an unsustainable practice. The concern of the fast fashion industry is focused on how the consumer can consume and dispose of clothing better rather on how it is purchased in the first place. For a consumer, purchasing a garment knowing they will only wear it a few times suggests a recoding of the value cheap clothing is a necessary step for these retailers. Clothing and fashion is an important part in many cultures and societies as too is sustainability for futuring the future. Although fashion and sustainability seem at odds, if retailers begin to think beyond their current practices, there is the possibility for their aims on sustainability to make a real difference, in the fashion sector and other industries beyond the world of fashion.
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