THE FUNCTIONAL ROLE OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY
Abstract
The textile industry is a diverse, heterogeneous and one of the world’s oldest consumer goods manufacture industry. It covers the entire production chain of transforming synthetic and natural fibers (oil, wool and cotton) to end user products including household goods, garments and other industrial textiles. The production of textile has augmented the industrialisation of countries and continents. Europe for example, rode on the success of the textile industry in the industrialisation era. Attempts at promoting sustainability in the textile industry have had their focus directed towards eco-friendly fabrics and increased efficiency in the production of resources. A dead accurate sustainability framework in the commercial textile enterprise necessitates the reduction in material flow for textile, addressing sustainable production, and consumption. Garment, clothing, and leather producers (components of the textile industry) must shift their perspectives from exchange value to use value. A presentation of this is the opportunity to increase the quality of garments and reduce consumer quantity demands through inspiring consumers to pursue sustainable trends by wearing, and not the acquisition of more clothes, shoes, and other garments. This research presents findings on the lifecycle approach for social, economic, and environmental indicators to make changes on the lifecycles of manufactured goods for environmental indicators to achieve sustainability. If the focus of world garment industries becomes directed towards environmentally friendly products, many textiles will be far beyond it or lose risking the international market. Nevertheless, the need to adopt strategies and approaches towards sustainability cannot be overemphasized.
Key Words: sustainability, life cycle, textile industries, environment
Introduction
The early years of the 21st century have seen a rise in consumption of the apparel enterprise. Crediting this to smooth operations, declining prices, and increasing consumer spending. The industrial output of clothing has multiplied between the years 2000 and 2005, and the number of individual customer garments purchased per year has risen by a staggering 60% (McGrath, 2012). The welded and seamless apparel grew by 112% between 2000 and 2005 (Allwood, Laursen, de Rodríguez, and Bocken 2006, pp. 35). A continuous development of these technologies would lead to a decrease in the traditional methods of seaming and use of thread by turning out up to date designs and compressing production cycles. In turn, these businesses have capacitated shoppers to both refresh and quickly expand their wardrobes. Estimates indicate that garments with the lowest prices are treated as disposables, being discarded by consumers after being worn eight to nine times (Niinimaki and Hassi 2011).
The textile industry, and thereof fashion, is environmentally, socially and economically significant. Hethorn and Ulasewicz (2008) assert that as a materialistic way of expressing oneself, the fashion apparel is essential to both social and interpersonal connections, establishing a link on how individuals live and perceive themselves within societies. The global benchmark for clothing consumption has hit an annual $1 trillion spending mark and provided employment for over 26 million people (Allwood, et al. 2006).
Despite these statistics, the contemporary fashion in the neo-world, from creators to users, is connivance to the present time ecological turmoil, consisting both human and environmental wellbeing. A critical analysis of neo-world business practices reveals insight into the industry’s dissolute and profligate state, opening the possibilities of sustainable apparel systems able to contend humanistic and environmental wellbeing (McGrath 2012). Efforts to transform the current textile industry, and thereof fashion, demand the re-evaluation of people’s anaclitic connection with apparel trends, investigating mannerisms to tone down inordinate appetites and in place fostering lasting, more worthwhile engagements with apparels (Armstrong and LeHew, 2011).
According to Clark (2008), the current trends of fast fashion have been characterised by rapid foliation and utilization of such textiles to satisfy manufacturer needs – in particular clothes and shoes; they are designed to be easy, cheap and rapidly producible, and are created in such as a manner as to be distributable, palmed off and utilized in ever-accessioning amounts. Additionally, the textile industry in the past 20 years has seen development directed toward increasing the volumes of the material stream through large productions and acceleration of retail run over rates through greater integration of the global supply chains (McGrath, 2012). Production of textiles has shifted and consolidated in developing countries, with larger suppliers taking advantages of economies of scale, therefore producing products of less quality and easily affordable (Niinimaki and Hassi, 2011).
The display of new fashion by retailers used to take several months, however, this has changed; new content appears within every two weeks. Marketing techniques, including advertising, have continuously stimulated novel user craving for these habitually ever-dynamic trends, motivating consumers to undergo new emotional gratification through shopping these new apparels (Niinimaki and Hassi, 2011). With its affordability and convenience, personal attachment to clothing has been devalued by this fast fashion; items are as quickly replaced as they are disposed of (Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2012).
Unfortunately, the detachment of consumers from their clothing also serves to disconnect them from social and environmental extremities of the choices they make in fashion. Niinimaki and Hassi (2011) explain that typical textile production involves complex, long and highly exploitative industrial cycles and chains. The industry is littered with a litany of labor abuses (such as excessive working hours, poverty, child labor, and denial of trade unions among others) and a general perception of it being an environmental polluter.
The processing of natural fibers into consummate products and fabrics haulages on water, power, labor, and other aforementioned ecological reserves. As this environmental wealth require similar periods to renew and reestablish without due consideration of the manufacture and disposal pace of a product, Reiley and DeLong (2011) emphasize that the heightened pace of production and disposal of fast textile products (clothes, shoes) is exacerbating the negative impingements of the textile enterprise. Sheth, Sethia, and Srinivas (2011) further explain that the inexhaustible desires of consumers, given succor by rapidly changing trends, have served to perpetuate the acquisition treadmill, bringing forth alarming quagmires to humanistic and environmental sustainability.
Whereas ethically and environmentally contentious consumerism has extended its adverse effects to other industries such as food, thereby remaining a paucity of patronage for sustainable textiles; the influence of the changing trends in consumer unsustainable clothing purchasing behavior is not a subject to be underestimated (Hustvedt and Bernard 2008). Unsustainable consumption has been given rise to by the creation and use of textile products; low-quality product designs are made with easy use and discard in mind. De Brito, Carbone and Blanquart (2008) highlight that consumers have been conditioned to satisfy their desires for self-gratification, identify formation, unexampled experiences, and societal status by these fast fashion trends, more often on impulsively seeking new things to wear every week or two. As excessive production is undermining environmental and human sustainability, a new business model has to be conceived, and therefore instrumental to societal changes through influence on that relationship people have with their material consumption (Bianchi and Birtwistle 2012). Without improvements and foreseeable changes in the production of clothes, these issues have the potential to metastasize as clothing production continues to skyrocket.
Fast Fashion and Overconsumption
The Real Cost of Cotton
According to Utrecht (2015), land under cotton has had little fluctuation over the last 65 years – in the 1950s it hit 35 million hectares and had hardly fallen below that amount, a maximum of 36 million hectares, and a minimum of 28 million hectares. Despite achieving a production milestone of 26 million tons in 2014 – yield growth has been attributed to driving the increment seen in cotton quantities (6-7) (Utrecht 2015). Utrecht (2015) further provided statistics that these yields catapulted from averages of 230 Kgs of lint per hectare in 1950 – 1951, with a peak just under 800 Kgs in 2007 – 2008, and since then have slightly declined.
A critical analysis of the work by Utrecht (2015) reveals that despite cotton being a relatively drought resistant crop, it has a high water footprint. Among crops that are fiber producers, cotton has the second largest global water footprint at a staggering average of 9,114 liters of water per kilogram (7) (Utrecht 2015). In quantifying the negative effects of cotton, Utrecht (2015) exemplifies that the plant has been linked to severe water usage in the Indus River in Pakistan, the Tigris and Euphrates river in Turkey, the Colorado River in the USA and the Murray River in Australia. Additionally, problems associated with cotton arise from the lofty levels of negated externalities of the cotton industry wholesomely. The McKinsey consultants gave a figure in 2011 of US dollars 7,266 per ton, when the prices averaged only US$ 1476 per ton, further complicated by concerns over low wages and incomes among workers and smallholders, particularly migrant and seasonal workers (Utrecht 2015).
The increase in sales projects the societal norms of shoppers overlooking or tolerating environmental and societal costs of fashion. Ironically, many companies are not waiting for the consumer backlash (Hamilton 2010; Hethorn and Ulasewicz 2008). They have taken steps to remedy the mostly unseen impacts of fast fashion businesses. Businesses have aggressively streamlined their supply chains and cut costs on production, causing the fall of clothing prices compared to other prices of consumer goods. Clothing producers have implemented shorter leader times to produce new clothing lines faster.
Increased buying of clothes has been the response of shoppers to lower prices and great variety in the apparel industry. Utrecht (2015) notes that the amount of garments annually brought forth has multiplied from 2000 and surpassed the 100 billion mark for the precedent time in 2014: a staggering ratio of 14 clothing items for every person in the world. With sales around the world taking a robust uphill trend, emerging economies around the world have seen the largest rise in apparel purchases as more persons in these countries have become part of the middle-class bandwagon (5) (Utrecht 2015). Mexico, China, Brazil, Russia, and India – as emerging economies of the world – have seen a sharp rise in apparel sales; a growth that is up to eight times greater than the economies of wealthy nations such as Canada, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom (6-7) (Utrecht 2015).
Even after such increases, the ratio of purchases made by residents in developing countries, as explained by Utrecht (2015) is a fraction of the annual apparel purchase of counterparts in affluent nations. As such, the sales of clothing could see an acute upward trend if consumers in developing countries opt to buy clothes in line with their growing purchasing powers. Experts estimate that up to 80% of people in developing economies would attain level clothing consumption as the affluent worlds by the year 2020, and if the clothing economic enterprise fails to become environmentally friendly, then the ecological footprint promises to be much larger (Allwood, et al. 2006, pp. 23; Mahmud-ul-Islam 2013, pp. 16).
Figure 1: The fashion supply chain: a stakeholder map (Source: De Brito, Carbone, and Blanquart: 2008)
Apparel industries so far have been unable to match the gains in sales with consummate environmental sustainability improvements and fruition in the social aspects. Armstrong and LeHew (2011) note that cotton accounts for up to 30% of all produce in textiles, typically cultivated with large volumes of water, chemicals, and pesticides. Furthermore, economies with over-blown apparel and fabric industries mainly rely on finite sources of energy such as fossil fuels to run production cycles; the making of a kilogram of material is estimated to produce an average of 2 kilos of harmful greenhouse gasses (LeHew 2011). Many industries additionally face problems with the working conditions of their workers in supply chains, including low wages, child laborers, safety, and health hazards. Niinimaki and Hassi (2011) posit that for these problems to be rooted, businesses would have to measure the performance of sustainability across their supply chains, set improvement goals, help producers mitigate their effects and if not hold them responsible if they fail to implement them.
In addition to the industries, consumers are mounted by the negative sustainability impact of clothing after the purchase of products. Cleaning a kilogram of laundry over its lifetime, with conventional means, for example, produces 11 kg of greenhouse emissions; a quantity that companies can lower by changing clothing designs and the fabrics used (Armstrong and LeHew 2011). Differences can also occur in post-purchase choices that consumers make such as washing them in hot water, in warm or cold water.
According to Bianchi and Birtwistle (2012), the disposing of clothing is an unwarranted issue to sustainability. Current technologies cannot be relied upon to turn unwarranted apparels in new goods. One attempt was through chemical digestion and shredding of worn out clothes and textiles, however, these attempts have had poor outcomes. Furthermore, there exists no markets equipped enough to accommodate the large volumes of materials that would be generated from clothes. As such, nearly 3/5 of all cloth and textile, in general, produced end up in an incinerator or a landfill within a year of their manufacture. Germany, a leading example in fabric collection, collects close to three-quarters of all used clothes, recycling one-quarter and reusing the remainder. The United States has a collection rate lower than 15 percent; Japan has 12 percent and China 10 percent (Laitala and Klepp 2011).
Critical Approaches and Interventions
McGrath (2012) explains, of recent, conscientious activities towards the mitigation of the hazardous impacts of textile production driven by supply and focusing on the commodities offered or resultant happenings. Strategies centralised on products that influence the ecological correctness of processes of production, for example by implementing the use of sustainable energy sources and materials. Result focused strategies, on the other hand, have emphasized on the marketing, distribution, and disposition of products (Armstrong and LeHew 2011). Fletcher (2013) notes that exemplifying this is design dubbed ‘eco chic’ that perceptively engages the consumer’s notions of environmental obligation and provision for aesthetics founded on moral values. The point of this strategy is that all natural material are deemed ‘good’ and all synthetic materials are deemed ‘bad’ belying consumers with many social and environmental externalities associated with all textiles, either manufactured or natural (Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2012).
The fashion of eco-chic became emergent in the early in the late 20th century as a form of brand differentiation, far from revolutionary, it was critically analysed to reveal a revolutionary message detaching consumers from real sustainability values. As such, strategies focussed on results have to include cloth reuse and textile recycling options; a relevant ambition as shoes and clothes account for most non-durable goods in this stream of solid waste (Morgan and Birtwistle 2009).
The above-highlighted strategies help mitigate textile waste and thereof pollution but nevertheless, they do not help alleviate the mass manufacture of shoe and clothes; the business model is still associated with significant production volumes and sales to facilitate contemporary consuming purchase behavior, and undermining progress made toward solutions of sustainability (Williams, Baldwin and Fletcher 2009). With infrastructural development presenting forward movements in resource efficacy, the overall production, in addition to the consumption of a product, has heightened to the extent that technological advancements have been overwhelmed. Of fact, Horne (2009) indicates, is that many manufacturers and retailers have seen the opportunity of sustainability as a sales gimmick, a trending phenomenon, or an option to add value to their produce to motivate consumers to buy more. Therefore, strategies employed to limit products environmental wallops merely addresses the manifestations of the neo-textile industry models and never the fundamental, inherent and elementary issues: Technological advances and efficiency gains alone will never suffice to resolve the problem of manufacture and accretion to sustainability benchmarks.
Armstrong and LeHew (2011) further emphasize that these approaches are meager, and only address the guilt of consumers, beguiling them to feel as if the purchases they make adds to the practice of sustainable fashion through the consumption of the product. In contrast to directly dealing with unrestrained consumerism that is endemic to the sector and re-evaluation of the grounds to which consumers are inclined to, quest and come into possession of contemporary trends in the Genesis (Williams, Baldwin, and Fletcher 2009).
Recognition that a lifestyle change regarding substantial consumption behaviour is critical to the achievement of sustainability, intercessions in the textile enterprises thereof must shift their position beyond mere processes of restructuring their supplies towards the restructure of the textile business on the demand side in the form of consumer experience (Thorpe 2010). Textile providers must therefore move their efforts from valuing exchange to valuing use, presenting new insights into increasing the qualities of garments and reducing the quantity demanded. Instead of designing and producing garments to accommodate the continuously changing trends at lower costs to enable the realisation of quick profits, the textile industry must conceive contemporary means of apparel designs and manufactures that are founded on meeting user wants with fewer material intensities (Keane and Te Velde 2008; Laitala and Klepp 2011).
Therefore, such opportunities are presented by sustainability strategies based on the varying needs of users. Focusing on the dynamic need of consumers signifies gestalt changes to the doctrine of today’s fast, growth based textile (clothing and shoe), challenging the value that the industry places on economic and industrial priorities (Fletcher 2013; Keane and Te Velde 2008). It is about the design of a whole non-exemplified conceptual framework that appreciates the social and personal importance attached to trends while disassociating it from unbridled production and consumption. Such account for the power held within the fashion industry is a tool for communicating concepts and ideas and has the potential to influence peoples’ perceptions and concepts: sustainable fashion entails the seizing of opportunities the clothing industry provides thereof as a participation forum to ponder over the issue of sustainability (Mahmud-ul-Islam, 2013).
By gaining insights into the relationship existing between fashion, consumption, welfare and the humanistic wants, true fixes to designs can be used to motivate engagements in the wear, and not the acquisition of more of fashion, to gratify our emotional well-being. The highest degree of sustainable elaborative and systematic design schemes will catapult us beyond the mere use of eco-friendlier materials and efficient production processes to the provision of means for people to make associations with fashion in inventive mannerisms that lead to a more sustainable model of consumption (Hamilton 2010; Hethorn and Ulasewicz 2008).
Instead of business providing mostly homogenous, prefabricated products and blindfold prescription of trends only for phlegmatic users to abide by, an approach based on needs will engage users as non-passive invigorators whose values and needs become essential to the design of fashion and their production (Allwood, et al. 2006). By directing focus to the needs of the user, satisfaction will be the motivation to design a product, instead of speed, price and build on obsolescence, thereby catalyzing longer life spans for clothes and reducing the flow of materials (Howard 2013; Fletcher 2013). Understanding sociologic and economic theories and the semiotic monetary worth of products is, therefore, pivotal to the broadening of creation contributing to the progress of alternative pathways of achieving emotional well-being through fashion rather than the meagre and trite use of textile products. The role of goods as complicated satisfiers of the wants of humans must be clearly outlined before embarking on the reduction of consumption of these products (Keane and Te Velde 2008).
Satisfiers, Economic Needs, and Commodities
McGrath (2012) explains that appreciating the impact of excessive material consumption as ecologically unsustainable entails and understanding of the relation between human well-being and use as this is widely misconceived both socially and economically. Williams, Baldwin and Fletcher (2009) note that the welfare of individuals corresponds to their lives’ quality, which is a reflection on the ways in which people experience their needs: enhancement of people’s well-being occurs when their needs are met adequately. Collectively, the welfare of individuals is eroded and frustrated when such wants are thwarted. The contemporary models of economy assert that increased well-being levels are exploited through an increase in economic consumption – that is the acquisition of materialistic products that an economy produces. Recent decades have seen governments and businesses accepting this theory that consumption increases consumer wellbeing. The implication for this, according to Laitala and Klepp (2011), is the diversion of sustainable industry practices and sustainability policies away from lowering patterns of use, to the improvement in technological resource efficiencies.
Thus, McGrath (2012) points out that the current economic theory fails to take into account human needs in the definition of well-being; on the contrary to harnessing the inclusive concept of preferences and the suggestion that consumers make apparent their predispositions for fashion through behaviors in consumption. Accordingly, it is taken for granted that consumers premeditate benefit or usefulness from commodities by the systematic review of choices they make and acting in their best self-interests in reception to price (Armstrong and LeHew 2011). As an expectation of consumers to make decisions concerning the complete assessment of costs and benefits among available alternatives, the economics theory thereof asserts that the well-being of consumers is best safeguarded by open market consumer option mechanisms. User preferences therefore for increment in utility is perceived as a reliable way of generating financial gains, optimal aggregate results and other beneficial outcomes both environmentally and socially (Maraseni, Cockfield and Maroulis 2010).
According to Shove and Warde in Easterlin et al. (2010), existent is the essential distinction between preferences – these are only subjectable to feeling felt and leading to the achievement of momentary pleasure when satisfied – and fundamental needs deeply rooted in human beings and whose realization brings about subject well-being and growth. Thereof, McGrath (2012) explains identification of the fundamental human needs in accordance to axiological groupings of leisure, understanding, affection, subsistence, protection, participation, creation, freedom and identity which are all necessary to the intersection in agreement with the existential categories of doing, having, being and interacting. A matrix of needs thereof results in reflecting on how efferent experiential mannerisms are necessary to the realization of the fundamental human needs.
Attributed to this is that innumerable needs are non-monetary and immaterial, and the failure of market consumerisms to adequately meet these requirements thereof renders materialistic acquisition meager and scant as a baseline for ameliorating human well-being (McGrath 2012). Recent empirical studies go further to frustrate the presumed equitation between welfare and consumption. The semiotic theory “Easterlin Paradox” originally posted in 1974 is existent in the economics of happiness and states that economic use necessarily does not actuate more satisfaction. In 2010, the theory was further corroborated by studies from 37 countries, which affirmed that higher incomes are not positively associated with objective well-being and greater life satisfaction (Easterlin et al. 2010). All the results highlighted above support the “threshold hypothesis,” bringing about the suggestion that improved quality of life, up to a certain level, is caused by increased industrial consumption. However, beyond this threshold, increased consumption has an adverse toll on the social and environmental well-being of humans.
Whereas the identification of fundamental needs is “few, classifiable and finite,” the satisfaction of humanistic needs is dynamic, varying over cultures, across geographical localities, space and time (Allwood, et al. 2006). The underlying needs always remain discreet, but the satisfiers (the various states of being, interacting, doing, and having), in which engagement of culture occur have a significant variance. The meeting of needs is through both external and internal means, with only two of the needs – protection and subsistence – requiring materialistic input.
All the remaining needs are non-materialistic, and these emotional longings are not quickly realized; consumption alone can even inhibit them. Satisfiers for non-materialistic needs thereof, Clark (2008) explains, may have as part, among a myriad of other things, types of work, participation, behavior, and values. Our society yet is characteristically becoming more reliant on the consumption of materialistic needs to meet non-materialistic needs. Keane and Te Velde (2008) in the book “The role of textile and clothing industries in growth and development strategies” elaborate that existence are marketing techniques that link desirable outcomes such as social status, identity, beauty and success with market products, all these serving to draw emotional needs into the marketplace. By finding satiation from external human sources – that is materialistic form – attention is diverted from intrinsic means such as personal progression; society has seen an isomerism from ‘being’ to ‘having’.
These, therefore, serve to underline the complexity and non-lenity of the interaction between need satisfaction and consumption. When people purchase products to attain emotional needs, consumption of such goods, therefore, does not stem from preferences for materialistic goods but from attempts at satisfying their emotional needs (McGrath 2012). The superimposition of emotional needs on physical products influences what and how we purchase, with the acquisition of each new thing serving to provide a novel experience. The cycles leave consumers disembowelled, as emotional needs can never be truly satisfied by physical wants. In fact, not all efforts made towards meeting requirements have equivalent success rates; such a framework implying that materialistic use at best offers pseudo-satisfaction of non-materialistic demands – generation of a false sense of contentment recognisably toughening efforts to realise the needs they are intended for.
Furthermore, Jackson and Marks in Easterlin et al. (2010) explain that the distinction of need satisfiers regarding the variance in success degrees, therefore, serves to provide a foundation to examine the humanistic practices that stimulate or inhibit the satisfaction of human needs. Part of the cultural changes, therefore, would entail dropping of accustomed need satisfiers and the adoption of different or new ones; replacing the obsession with materialistic products for other kinds of satisfaction which brings forth the framework for a transition to a sustainable community.
According to Achabou and Dekhili (2013), the transformation would be characterised by a distinction of a culture delaminated by economic usage of materials to one invigorated by the teaming of materialistic and non-materialistic need satisfiers to connect with, engage with and gain a better understanding of each other, oneself, and the globe in general. On the contrary of being advanced by principles of blind consumption, consumers must be directed by the course of thoughtful considerations, which will result in a less materialistic input, lower environmental external externalities and enhanced actualization of the wellbeing of humans (Keane and Te Velde 2008).
Sustainability of the Fashion Value Chains
Extenuating the consequences of the viability of the fast fashion enterprise will entail alienation across the board. Few apparel manufacturers have created alliances that address the social and environmental demands altogether, helping accelerate to change the risks of engrossing oneself to solve these issues alone (Williams, Baldwin and Fletcher 2009). Exemplifying this are 22 apparel brands that have formed an alliance dubbed “Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals” to help widen the scope of the use of innocuous, sustainable chemicals in the chains of textile footwear supply. A second example explained by Utrecht (2015) is “The Better Cotton Initiative”, which encompasses over 50 different apparel distributors and 700 suppliers in setting framework guides for social, environmental, and economic responsibilities in the generation of cotton.
Furthermore, a few other clothing industries have started to tackle the issue of textile sustainability demands alone. Levi’s and HandM have collaborated with I: CO to gather footwear and apparel for recycling and reuse. I: CO provisions the two companies with collection bins, in which after collection, sorts the items into wearables that can be resolved and what remains is recycled. The retail chain has recognized environmental impacts of cotton produce and thereof spearheaded efforts to acquire only organic cotton by 2020. Production of chemicals is expected to focus on minimising adverse effects on human health and on the environment by 2020 (Roos, 2015). The Walmart Foundation in 2016 granted up to 3 million US dollars to five American universities to reinforce research into bettering efficiency and thereof sustainability of the manufacture of textiles.
Secondly, new chemical and mechanical recycling methods need to be looked into: fibers produced by mechanical recycling methods, for instance, tend more often to be of low quality and shorter than original unprocessed fibers and thus of less use to apparel makers (Petry 2008). Advances in chemical recycling could improve this. Additionally, developing practices and standards for garment design that can be easily recycled and reused. Attributing this to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which has come up with an index for measuring the full life cycle effect of footwear and clothing products.
Another sustainability mechanism that Achabou and Dekhili (2013) highlight is encouraging end users to care for their textile products in ecologically friendly ways. Cleaning of garments in warm or hot water and drying them up in heat for extended periods consumes a large amount of energy. Apparel retailers and makers therefore, can help direct the course of consumers towards effective practices of cloth care that have a small negative environmental impact and at the same time keeping their garments in good shape and prolonging their life (Horne, 2009).
Additionally, establishing higher environmental and labor standards for supplies and outlining technical processes that are more transparent will go a long way in enhancing environmental sustainability. Exemplifying this is a software company, EVERYTHING, and Avery Dennison, a packaging maker, which have both collaborated to launch efforts towards tagging clothes so that consumers can trace individual textile products all the way from production to the supply chain (Caniato et al. 2012).
Future Improvement of the Performance of Agricultural Systems
Fletcher (2013) highlights that non-governmental organisations and businesses have started initiatives to mitigate the issue of sustainability in the textile industry. Efforts by these organisations have seen the spread and subsequent growth of sustainability measures for cotton that advance environmentally friendly farming patterns, aid farmers and objectify the creation of a market connection between demand and certified market supply. Although such improvements, and more, are the right steps made on the ground towards training and certification, these standards and policies have been formulated to address all relevant environmental, economic, and social issues surrounding sustainability. Of fact is the noncooperation among the measures addressing different elements, in the sector of cotton alone, such interests are competing against each other (Nagurney and Yu 2012).
Due to the myriad of methodologies, metrics and standards to account for actual changes in the field, it becomes an uphill task to make a comparison between performances, and unfortunately evidences backing up such claims have come out poorly supported (REF). Niinimaki and Hassi (2011) highlight that the risk of green-washing becomes real. Confusion thereof arises over claims and labels and the entry of less efficient schemes, leading to loss of buyer confidence and at either extremity of the supply chains the consumers fail to realise the initial targets of better sustainable products and overall practices.
Sustainability efforts directed towards synthetic fibers primarily focus on lowering the ecological footprint of producing and processing, therefore extending the lifetime by reuse or recycle. Many European economies are making progress by conducting studies into how regulatory framework, technological advancements, and investments can be tailored to support reuse and recycling of synthetic fibers. Considering the possibility of finite fossil energy running out soon is a clear motivation for sustainable use, recycle and reuse. According to Laitala and Klepp (2011), programs such as Waste2Wear5 are provisional causes of how synthetic materials such as polythenes, deemed useless by societal norms after a single use, and an environmental nuisance regarding pollution can be given a second life as clothes. Such innovative ideas exemplify the notion of waste, and if put into proper use, turn the material back into value.
According to Muthu et al. (2012), the supply of fibers from nature originates in a forthright manner from fiber plants or as an ancillary product from other crops. The production of crops directly for fiber shapes the agglomeration of the sustainability extent of the fiber raw materials and the end textile produced. Cotton is entirely farmed in lessened input systems by either choice or default lack of access to inputs by farmers in many regions and high input systems that are supported by the latest technology and other provisions of science. Sheth, Sethia and Srinivas (2011) note that dependent on the available water and land resources, land management techniques in cropping and rotation and the quality of the soil, systems of production require different inputs that produce varying outcomes – both environmentally and economically.
According to Howard (2013), the systems approach to agriculture based on the above-outlined values is dubbed Agro-ecological intensification, aiming at increasing productivity concerning yield output in addition to keeping the proper nutrient flow, enhancing the quality of soils and bio-diversification through combinations of crops in the production system.
A Holistic View: What Next?
The statements highlighted above focus their efforts on moving the discourse of sustainability in the textile industry to the next stage. There exists no Band-Aid towards optimized performances on sustainability. At the onset of opportunities, challenges also do rise, but nevertheless, we ought to change over our attention to query, advance our knowing and continuously test practices. McGrath (2012) notes that practical sustainability does not entail compartmentalisation of constituents such as greenhouse emission, water, and nutrient flow, but rather obtaining a holistic view of the system while concurrently establishing and applying consistently what is proved to work at a particular time and place.
According to Williams, Baldwin and Fletcher (2009), practical sustainability does not entail implementing efficiency gain to increase profit margins, but striking a balance between benefits and costs, for people and nature, in a comprehensive and equitable manner; focusing our attention on future changes that factor in predicted population numbers. Such a focus will additionally entail querying preoccupations and premises, exemplified by those on product consumption, which have often emerged as favouring particular assumptions or viewpoints on what people would like to consume (Sheth, Sethia and Srinivas 2011). Exemplified by cheaper clothing as opposed to less good quality clothes, fashion advice will likely have effects on perceptions and as much as wealth and the promotion of cheaply manufactured and imported clothes. Having laid the foundation, an exploration of sourcing and production strategies for fibers that are genuinely hereafter proof.
According to Armstrong and LeHew (2011), real sustainability, however, does not just entail ecological soundness. In this way, therefore, a sustainable enterprise briefly is indicative of not only respecting the environment, but also respecting the consumers and workers’ health, the rationalising of manufacturing and creative processes, human rights, and incentives for innovation and research (Caniato et al. 2012). In general terms to fully accomplish the issue of company sustainability, it is necessary to consider, in the first place, the interests of all stakeholders that engage in the design, manufacture, supply, sale and use of a product, up to the final consumer in local communities.
Summary and Conclusion
Understanding humanistic needs helps us gain insights into how fashion and clothing (and by far the textile industry) bestow to the well-being of humans both emotionally and functionally. Whereas clothes address the basic need for protection, trends in fashion connect with the emotional manifestations and link us to a clear space and time. Materialistic is clothing, and symbolistic are trends. Whereas existence is the coincidence between fashion and apparel, garments are used to express emotional well-being. Wearing clothes fosters our need for identity, leisure, creation, participation and freedom. Despite anything to the contrary, as the satisfaction of these psychological and emotional necessities is by the reciprocal action of external and internal means, the consumption of clothes, shoes, and other textile products alone is insufficient to quelling them. The proliferation of materialistic obsession and fast fashion in our society has generated the illusion that being fashionable is to be excessive, and satisfaction can only be attained if one keeps up with the changing trends. The design of textile products without the well-being of consumers in mind, fashion as experienced of today is inhibiting the actualization of emotional needs by being sold mostly homogenised commodities designed for specific markets, barring opportunities for authentic self-expression.
The textile industry is a heterogeneous, diverse and one of the oldest branches of consumer goods and manufacture. To find a lasting solution to sustainability in the textile industry, the scope, legal frameworks, opportunities, barriers and key challenges need to be identified and addressed. As the industry is intertwined heavily with social, governance, and environmental issues, it is imperative that producers and consumers focus their efforts on mitigating adverse effects on these aspects. A move away from the traditional approach of sustainability to addressing the neo issues of environmental impacts is welcome. A challenge, thereof, exists as to finding new means to manifest fashion as a critical part of the human culture while dissociating it from excessive, unsustainable materialistic consumption. Truly sustainable fashion and thereof textile industry must accost the expression of physical and emotional well-being in that textile products provide to sustain human and environmental well-being. The movement of fashion away from incessant production and consumption toward the enhancement of social and ecological well-being, understanding the emotional significances, utility values that consumers accrue from fashion brings a necessary leverage for envisioning a system envisioned by quantity being superseded by quality. From this emerges a textile industry that produces products that are more resilient in lifespan and style, providing compelling alternatives to fast retail turnover and more sustainable ways of being fashionable. Development of production processes that use lower amounts of pesticides, water, insecticides and other hazardous chemical is vital to lowering greenhouse emissions, water and soil pollution. Additionally, of equal importance is consumer behavior on the care and disposal of clothing and other textile products; taking right steps to increase the life of products, washing clothing in appropriate temperatures and encouraging the recycle of garments.
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