Climate change or global warming certainly started to catch my attention about four years ago. When Al Gore's documentary: " The Inconvenient Truth" came out I was terrified. I started to turn all appliances off, I didn't use aerosols anymore, I kept my plastic bags... still I was naive to what is really going on.
Climate change, or global warming is the rise in the planet's overall temperature resulting in anthropogenic, or human-related, increase of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. After researching into different aspects of the textile industry's affect on the environment I think it is good to take a step back at look at the big picture of its affects.
What a surprise when you you read that the textile industry is one of the biggest GHG emitters on earth, due to its huge size and scope. As a designer, it really makes you ponder if what we do is at all sustainable in itself. I must be honest in saying that I haven't enjoyed this pondering very much. It's hard to look at all the facts presented to us on paper and through the changes in the environment about just how badly textiles negatively affect the world we live in. But people have to be clothed, and if we are the ones who must dress them we better do it and start doing it sustainably. Being naive about the effect of textiles does not help pave the way to an eco-friendly industry or world.
As I have discussed in previous blogs, many processes and products go into the making of fibers, textiles and apparel products that consume copious amounts of fossil fuels. Apparel and textiles account for approximately 10% of the total carbon impact. I didn't fully understand what a carbon footprint was: the total amount of CO2 and other GHGs emitted over the full life cycle of a process or product. For an annual global production of 60 billion kgs of fabrics -- 1 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity and up to 9 trillion liters of water are used. I can't even comprehend those numbers.
Companies such as Marks&Spencers, U.K. and Walmart are two companies that are moving in the right direction. They are starting to take the necessary steps to push suppliers to improve sustainability and offering environmentally responsible products with decreased carbon footprint along with investments into corporate social responsibility and projects to improve the working& living conditions of workers.
This only furthermore expresses the urgency and seriousness of the situation that is at hand. That as designers we are responsible for creating an environment and process of producing apparel in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way in every way possible. If it is not going to start on the other end of the textile industry, it must start with us.
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