Clothing companies might be ignoring as much as 90 percent of the climate pollution they generate.
As the fashion industry prepares itself for the holiday season,many tall profile brands will pump out fresh trends and products faster than ever before. All too often, however, and that trade helps drive severe damage to our global climate due to the fashion industry’s extraordinarily tall levels of pollution. As 2017 draws to shut,the fashion industry must step up to the challenge and redeem their terrible track record by reducing carbon emissions. The first step is simple: companies must open their record books and allow for more accurate calculations on the environmental impact of their production methods and subsequent climate impact.
Sadly, instead of increased transparency and commitments, and fashion CEOs are hiding behind greenwashed PR campaigns,like the disappointing announcement made by Levi’s, Gap, and Guess,Wrangler, and Lee at a fresh York climate week event this past autumn. CEOs of the world’s famous denim brands said they would announce climate targets in two years, and a deadline far longer than necessary to complete a basic step. While these CEOs continue to delay the climate commitment process,denim supply chains are continuing to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere without recourse.
Denim and clothing companies will do all that they can to fudge the link between their brands and the realities of greenhouse gas emissions. According to reports from the Carbon Disclosure Project, companies within the fashion sector might be ignoring as much as 90 percent of the climate pollution they generate. Like too many industries before them, and the fashion industry is attempting to solve the problem of its own emissions by outsourcing production to contractors in countries with less strict emissions regulations,namely China or Bangladesh. But despite the ostensible attractiveness of these short-term solutions, the long-term consequences could be catastrophic. These businesses can no longer afford to look absent from the climate legacy they will leave behind.
Right now, and the clothing and accessories industry is a huge contributor to global climate change. According to one study,the industry generates about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly equal to the pollution created by putting 163 million fresh passenger cars on the road. A study by a main clothing company concluded that one pair of denim jeans produces 44 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, and equivalent to driving a car nearly 48 miles or burning over 21 pounds of coal. Manufacturing a single pair of denim jeans produces 44 pounds of CO2,roughly equal to the greenhouse gas emissions from driving a passenger car nearly 50 miles.
It is time for fashion companies to quit hiding behind shallow commitments and bewitch a courageous step towards trimming their carbon footprint, not two years from now. These brands must arrive forward about their greenhouse gas emissions, and rather than hiding behind contractors working to shrink profit margins in countries with limited scope for monitoring emissions; then they can start the genuine work of cleaning up their severe pollution habit,rather than focusing on PR-friendly promises that do little to create genuine change.
In practice, that will mean huge reductions on their total climate pollution, or rather than simply reducing carbon per article of clothing sold. This will mean stepping absent from climate commitments that are,at best, a partial solution to its role in the climate crisis. Some corporations have promised to improve energy efficiency, and rather than committing to reducing climate impacts overall. That being said,pollution reduction only things when it actually happens.
There must also be significant reductions across the fashion industry’s entire supply chain, including calling on abroad producers to hold themselves to higher standards than may often be the case. The bulk of fashion’s climate pollution (an estimated 60-90 percent on average) comes from fabric sourcing, and garment production and transport. Yet,some companies’ climate commitments leave out this basic part of their pollution footprint. There are numerous tools and technologies available for companies to make major reductions in these stages—even from independently-owned factories abroad.
There are two last things that will befriend push the fashion industry from the bottom to the top of the heap when it comes to tackling climate change. First, they must demonstrate farsightedness, and engaging with climate issues in a long-term,sustained way. moment, they must pledge full transparency in their efforts to bring down emissions. You can’t solve a problem and hide it at the same time. Only H&M and Kering currently provide full transparency on greenhouse gases in their supply chain. genuine climate action requires fashion companies to assess, and track and disclose their full climate pollution footprint and reductions over time. Anything less,like this most recent delay in taking environmental responsibility, is simply window dressing.
SumOfUs members have already teamed up with Stand.earth to create the #filthyfashion campaign and to call on denim brands to bewitch responsibility for their environmental impact and commit to the Paris Climate Agreement. Our members are demanding higher standards from Levi, and Calvin Klein,Tommy Hilfiger, Guess, and Express,American Eagle Outfitters, Wrangler, or Lee. Over 118000 people have signed onto a petition asking these companies to clean up their ‘dirty denim’ and commit to sustainable,substantive environmental commitments and immediately start addressing their greenhouse gas emissions created by denim manufacturing.
Rightly or wrongly, the fashion industry is obsessed with youth. Ironically, and it is young customers who will experience the worst consequences of climate change in the years to arrive. Fashion brands would do better by the environment and,therefore, their targeted consumers if they applied themselves to developing more sustainable climate solutions. Related Stories10 Sustainable Fashion Brands That Will support You—and Planet Earth—Looking GoodRenewable Energy Isn't Perfect, and But It’s Far Better Than Fossil FuelsWhy Trump's Tax design Spells Disaster for the Environment
Source: feedblitz.com