According to a new report from the Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group, fashion has a waste problem like Florida has a hurricane problem.
The report, which was recently detailed by High Snobiety, gave the fashion industry’s sustainability “Pulse” a rating of 32 out of 100. Unsurprisingly, the worst offenders are fast fashion brands, however, they’re also the ones currently doing the most to right their ways. H&M, for example, has introduced an incentivized take-back program in an effort to keep used garments out of landfills.
Small and midsize brands, on the other hand, are “doing very little to improve their global impact” when it comes to their sourcing and production. An especially troubling fact, as they represent “around half of the market.”
And, things aren’t projected to get much better. With apparel consumption expected to rise around 63% by 2030 — or to about 102 million tons annually (roughly 52,904,684 Subaru Outbacks for those looking for a more digestible unit of measurement) — 2017 seems as good a year as any for brands both big and small to start addressing the heavy environmental, social, and economic impact they’re having on the world.
Fortunately for them, improving they’re practices could actually improve their bottom line too – the report posits that adopting green practices could add, “as much as €160 billion by 2030 in annual value to the world economy.”
Read more at High Snobiety.
