{"id":17822,"date":"2024-02-07T10:25:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T09:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dress-ecode.com\/?p=17822"},"modified":"2024-02-13T15:21:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T14:21:32","slug":"the-essential-a-key-approach-to-sustainable-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dress-ecode.com\/en\/the-essential-a-key-approach-to-sustainable-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"The essential: a key approach to sustainable fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>For fashion to be truly sustainable, it is increasingly clear how necessary it is to limit the production and consumption of clothing to the essentials. A study by Zero Waste Europe (2023) explains the urgency of an approach of containment of the superfluous to deal with the risks faced by our planet.<\/p>\n

According to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the main cause of loss of biological diversity can be found in the use of the planet’s resources. For this reason, the framework sets the goal of equitably reducing the global consumption footprint, including halving food waste and significantly decreasing overconsumption and waste generation by 2030. Europe, bound by regulatory framework, is committed to a path of collective self-limitation. This implies the need to contain production to avoid exceeding planetary limits<\/strong>, ensuring that efficiency gains do not lead to an unsustainable increase in resource consumption.<\/p>\n

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“The environmental impact of the consumption of an average EU citizen is outside the safe operating space for humanity for several impacts, namely climate change, particulate matter, freshwater ecotoxicity, and resource use (fossils fuels, minerals and metals).”<\/p>\n

Sany\u00e9 Mengual e Sala, <\/em>Joint Research Centre (JRC)<\/em> of European Commission<\/em>, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The EU’s Material Footprint per capita is now higher than much of the rest of the world, and between 40 and 70% higher than available estimates of a sustainable level<\/strong>, which is broadly consistent with limitation of environmental pressure within planetary boundaries (Meysner and Gore, Ieep, 2022).<\/p>\n

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Chart elaborated from IEEP 2022 (Towards resource consumption within planetary boundaries<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Overproduction and inappropriate disposal of clothing contribute to the planetary crisis. Furthermore, excessive consumption, fueled by the fashion industry’s dominant business model, is at the heart of the climate, environmental and pollution crises. For this reason it is necessary to act on both production and consumption levels. In practice, we must choose the essential in both production and consumption.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>If increased material efficiency through longevity, reuse or recycling does not result in a reduction in the overall consumption of materials, the circular economy has lost its “raison d’\u00eatre”.<\/em>\u201d (Zero Waste Europe 2023). A circular economy isn\u2019t enough \u2013 we need to consume less <\/strong>(Wijkman e Potochnik, The New Statesman, 2023).<\/p>\n

It is the same message launched by the British Fashion Council (BFC) which, based on a report by the Institute of Positive Fashion (IPF), asked the government, the British fashion industry and consumers to all work together to “reduce massively\u201d the number of new clothes people buy each year. The goal is to reduce the demand for new clothing by 50% (Moore, Circular Online, 2021).<\/p>\n

The consumption problem<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

In the European Union, the environmental impact of excessive consumption is evident in the unsustainable amount of natural resources used to meet demands. Overproduction and Europe’s growing footprint of materials have contributed to planetary crises, including climate change and pollution.<\/p>\n

According to Zero Waste Europe (2023), the scale of fashion overproduction and consumption is staggering. With the purchase of 26 kg of textile products, every year the average European generates around 11 kg of textile waste, which mainly ends up in landfill or incinerated: only 1% of used garments is recycled into new clothing (European Parliament 2020).<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Dress ECOde I Sustainable Fashion Propagator (@dress_ecode)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n