Reducing emissions from the fashion industry, if desired

Fashion industry is in a position to commit lately.

In 2019, some of the biggest fashion brands in the world put their names science-based climate targets that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 The path adopted by the UN to prevent the climate from heating above 1.5 degrees Celsius. A couple of years later, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, with more than 130 brand members, including Amazon, Gap, H&M, Nike and Under Armor.he raised that goal a 45 percent reduction in emissions for its members by 2030 COP26 At last week’s climate conference, 130 companies joined forces to announce that they would reach zero net emissions. no later than 2050.

But to reduce greenhouse gases, the fight against the climate of fashion is based on another commitment: cleaner factories.

Forget about exchanging energy-efficient light bulbs in retail stores; According to the World Resources Institute, 96 percent of a fashion brand’s footprint is in its manufacturing supply chain. In other words, it will be the factories (and, to a lesser extent, the farmers who grow cotton and raise sheep for wool and cows for leather) who will have to do the work so that the brands can achieve these big and well-known goals.

Unfortunately, when it comes to factories, brands seem to have more of a commitment phobia than a 24-year-old on Tinder.

“We are a migration company,” says Sanjeev Bahl, founder and CEO Saitex, A permanent denim supplier in Vietnam. Like a digital nomadic crypto-bro, brands roam from factory to factory and country to country, looking for facilities that can offer them the cheapest prices and the fastest end.

During the pandemic, this event became clear to the public. When retail stores abruptly closed, brands and retailers took the ghost of their suppliers, breaking contracts, cancellation of orders, and requesting large discounts or in some cases refusing to pay for orders already sent. “You’ve seen what happened before and after Covid. Most factories, why would they invest? [in low-carbon technology]? ” says Bahlek.

In fact, a Study by The Climate Board published this month found no relationship between the brand’s bold climate commitments and actual carbon reductions. In order for the fashion industry to truly decarbonize, brands will have to stop having such flakes.

We have the power

The fashion and climate experts I’ve talked to largely believe that technology exists to halve emissions from the fashion industry in 10 years.

There are four large levers for clothing retailers to get there. One is shifting plants from coal to renewable energy. Sun and wind are well-established and profitable sources. Only the sun on the roof can handle 10 to 20 percent of a factory’s energy needs, and the rest can be purchased at an offshore solar park or wind farm.

“The barriers are mostly political,” says Michael Sadowski, a WRI research consultant. He and others pointed out that it is difficult to decarbonize when most fashion is done in coal-fired countries. For example, Vietnam, where much of the fashion in the world is made, does not allow companies to buy renewable energy generated off-site. But that could change this year as well, with the Vietnamese government ready to accept pilot energy purchase agreement.