Keeping Up with Fashion, While Keeping Up with Sustanability

People today have one main concern when it comes to fashion, and that is staying on top of the current trends. Everyone gets so wrapped up in the latest trends and looking good, that we forget to take other very important aspects into consideration. It is important that consumers and designers start looking at fashion in terms of sustainability. The way we produce, use and dispose of our clothing has got to see a change or it could cause some serious environmental problems, more than we already have. Luckily, Fashion Sustainability and Pricing Environmental Impacts: A Tale of Two T-shirts, gives us some great insight on how to make these changes.

Fashion Sustainability reminds us that these challenges we face in the clothing industry are not new but there are ways to improve them. This reading shows all of the stages of a typical item of clothing and explains how impacts can be reduces at each stage. Some of the main issues we face are pesticide and energy use in cotton growing, animal cruelty, fashion consumption, working conditions, unsustainable man-made fibers, energy consumed during clothing care and the disposal of clothing. Some great solutions to these problems are given, solutions that will work with the help of the retailer and consumer. Cotton has raised many issues lately. The use of pesticides and the amount of water it takes to grow cotton is causing many problems. One solution they have given is to produce organic cotton and use proper irrigation to limit the use of water and energy. The use of oil based materials have been used as a solution because they are more energy saving and durable but the downfall is they take a longer time to degrade. One of the main key solutions is to raise awareness of the issues we are facing. Many people have no idea about how much trouble we could soon be in if we don't make changes. By raising awareness consumers can be more conscious decisions and change certain habits. It is also very important to have a transparent supply chain so that everything is traceable back to the source. This will allow them to make sure high standards of sustainability are being enforced. In order to convert to sustainable practices along the supply chain support is needed to ensure that it will work. Ultimately, it is up to the designer. It is up to the designer to promote sustainable solutions and encourage consumers that is it desirable, comfortable and stylish. After all, the consumers main concern is keeping up with the latest trends.

Fashion Sustainability and ESMA "Promising Interventions" both offer valuable advice as to improving the way we care for clothing today. One issue that they both touch on is the use of water efficency. In the Fashion Sustainability reading it discusses how it takes millions of tons of water to produce enough cotton to make 1 pair of jeans. This is a total waste of cotton and energy. As a solution, they state that irrigating cotton can be useful when harvesting and drip irrigation are combined. While this is a good solution ESMA goes on to say that investment in science and technology could help increase water efficiency in growing agriculture. These two solutions go hand in hand. Another topic that both reading discuss is making people aware of the issues. ESMA talks about the importance of access to knowledge about the history of the eco system in order to effectively manage and take control of the issues. While Fashion Sustainability, states that raising awareness is key because there needs to be an understanding of the problem among the industry and consumers in order to make necessary changes. They both discuss  that  increased transparency is key. They both talk about how it will allow more participation and will be good for tracking information. The solutions in Fashion Sustainability contribute to ESMA in many ways and it was great to see how each of them looked at the issue a little bit differently.

In the reading Pricing Environmental Impacts: A Tale of Two T-shirts, they have discover a way to translate life-cycle analysis into monetary costs. The whole idea behind their method it to evaluate what the environmental cost on a product when producing it. They give a dollar amount to the impact the product had on the environment. I think this is a good method to use when comparing two similar products. This method considers externalities which is very helpful. Externalities are environmental costs that aren't under control of the manufacturer. These externalities allocate the cost to specific stages of a production cycle. In their comparison it shows that it is more cost efficient to produce and organic cotton t-shirt rather than conventional cotton. I think their costing method could actually be very beneficial and it is a tool that can be used by management under the right circumstance, like here, where they are comparing two like options.

I believe that these issues stated in Fashion Sustainability can bring real change with the help of consumers, retailers and brands. It will take effort from everyone to really bring about change.While these solutions are great, it takes people implementing the solutions to make an impact.