Place of sustainability in textiles

31 December 2022, Mumbai

Textile fashion and textile industry is one of the heaviest polluting sectors globally and has a notorious/dubious record as estimated by some of the trade estimates, that says by 2050 it is predicted GUESS WHAT! that going forward fashion sector per se will end up using globally some whopping 25% or thereabouts of the total carbon budget.

The industry is like a two-edged sword, requiring intense monitoring and adherence to regulations to lessen its adverse environmental effects.

The goal of incorporating sustainability into the textile business is to establish thriving ecosystems and alliances lessening the damage that production and consumption do to the environment.

The textile and fashion industries have made a sizeable impact on the environment along their diverse supply chains such as material production, garment manufacturing, and waste disposal.

The paper aims to create & sensitize awareness about sustainability, and the subsequent benefits of putting it to use in the manufacturing process in letter & spirit explore how innovations in sustainable production, renewable materials, and waste management can support the industry to develop circular models and their application along the value chain, thus mitigating the environmental impact.

Sustainability vision

Sustainability has to become a developmental goal of the day!

The sustainability purpose is driven by five key pillars: Responsible Fibres, Environment, Ethical Supply, Community, and Diversity and Inclusion. Customers won't pay extra for environmentally friendly items during a recession. The majority of executives view the need for sustainability as a corporate social duty distinct from business goals.

Load factor; Businesses generally think it will increase costs and not provide quick financial gains. In that case, you will hear all of their worries,” Compared to competitors in poorer nations that don't suffer the same challenges, making our operations non-sustainable and generating "green" products put us at a disadvantage”. 

Implementability 

Optimistically stating sector has made significant progress in integrating sustainability into the value chain of the textile manufacturing industry.

Although both law and education are essential. What is key is to outline the pivotal role of economic sustainability in the adoption of smart factory concepts and Industry 4.0 technologies making the manufacturing process itself aligned to the underlying objective pretty challenging.

Since those are corporate innovation objectives, forward-thinking businesses today view sustainability as the next frontier in innovation. Sustainable enterprises will emerge from the current recession to challenge the status order.

More stringent regulation is one idea put forth by environmentalists and policy professionals. Another group proposes educating and mobilizing customers to pressure companies to adopt sustainable practices.

Studies show that the organizational and technological improvements that benefit both the bottom line and the top line are found in plenty in sustainability.

Yays & Mehs

Sustainability is started to play a pivotal role in developing sustainable textiles. Numerous brands took action in 2018 to address the effects of their operations making it incumbent upon themselves always there are good & bad actors in every trade and that is what we should avoid always to assuage the concerns.

They will benefit from this competitive advantage because sustainability will always be a key component of growth. Brands in India are aspiring for making fashion more sustainable in practice to eke out an edge and thus drive consumer demand.

It will be a big moment for the players methodically taking up all the pieces of manufacturing methods, cost, colocating, and time optimization as they go down the path of making a sustainable textile/apparel.

Mehs

Companies at large lack the necessary frameworks and approaches to comprehend how their efforts in addressing these issues might generate a profit for their businesses.

We must change the fashion industry's business model from one that emphasizes linear manufacturing to one that emphasizes circular production.

For instance, textile processing/dyeing has a terrible side since their hues hurt the surrounding environment. Processing textiles produces a sizable amount of wastewater, which exerts significant environmental pressure.

A big polluter

Pollution, waste, and climate change are just a few of the challenges the textile sector is currently dealing with. Around 17 to 20 percent of all current water contamination, according to World Bank assessments, is purely due to coloring and finishing patterns. 

According to recent UN estimates fashion accounts for 2-8% or thereabouts of the entire world's carbon footprints/emissions. To make matter worse less than 1% of the material used to produce apparel/clothing is recycled/upcycled into new clothing, inflicting a reported loss of more than USD 100 billion worth of materials each year.

Key practices of corporate social responsibility: the environment, fair working conditions and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement aligning the sacrosanct climate goals with the textile sector's global supply chains.

The guiding principle to improving the ecological, economic, and social performance of the sector responsible for securing something like 70% of global apparel consumption V/s is quite the opposite in India.

Debate on Fast Fashion vs. Slow Fashion

The buzzword of circularity; The vision is for consumers to benefit from high-quality affordable textiles; for fast fashion to be out of fashion; and for producers to take responsibility for their products along the value chain. Fast fashion is typically mass-produced, low-ticket value articles with a faster turnaround.

Slow fashion Manufacturers tend to ensure their clothes are eco-friendly and hard-wearing.

Technology is an enabler

First comes a commitment to bring a change we want to see in this world. The theme of sustainability and how digitalization reinforces the industry's agile transformation into a sustainable value chain through supply chain disruptions is laudable. 

Digitization per se brings in transparency removes middlemen, improves speed, and aptly addresses the issue of inventory management.

The advent of new age automated cutting-edge machines is securing enduringly energy efficiency & cutting down on the time cycle promising to make apparel making a more sustainable process.

The Role Of 3D Printing, textile digital printing is becoming more and more creative and, it definitely is 'technology and sustainability accretive' in the textile sector in its journey of making sustainable fashion and producing sustainable textiles a reality. Besides, emerging technologies such as Technological solutions ranging from biotech textiles to predictive analytics are all supporting the case.

Actionable Points

How it compliments value add in any sector. There is a clear-cut need for transparency & traceability going forward. The need, therefore, is the adoption of the right technology. Sustainability is the key to influencing every stakeholder in the apparel industry.

In one of the recent studies of Selfridges, UK close to 60% or so consumers presently care for sustainable products before making a purchase, and another exciting observation showed 90% or thereabouts are pretty mindful of what they want out of their investment and, that it is perfectly ok with them buying less but in a better and sustainable way and will continue to do so. 

Recycling

Clothing is used so little and isn't recycled nearly enough to cost the world 500 billion dollars annually. 

Since washing apparel/garments and prewashing raw materials produce micro-organisms equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles. Bottle-to-fiber is a smart way of reducing global plastic waste, recycling of pet bottles into garments has all started to happen in India which is pretty encouraging.

What is trending is some of the garments are produced from recycled materials and cotton garments from 100 percent sustainable fibers.

Vision for a Decarbonised textile/apparel industry

In one of the trade studies the estimated global apparel and footwear industry has shown a significant growth clocked at the rate of 18.1% at current prices in the period 2020-2021 and, in absolute terms, the market size was reported to be $1.71 billion dollars; so the impact it left on the environment & the planet is crystal clear as it is anyone's guess that the sector emitted an enormous degree of greenhouse gases (GHG).

Aiming for a carbon-neutral future; It is the time when the focus should shift to now sustainable fashion. Decarbonization, climate change, and sustainable fashion all have to come on the same page aligning them to the supply chain. The objective of decarbonization is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions globally as quickly as feasible.

By implementing the Regenerative Organic Farming technique to expand their sustainable cotton portfolio, they are creating a sustainable ecosystem from farm to fabric.

Textile “Linear to Circular” economy

The possible scope of increasing renewable energy usage by using solar plants in the garment industry. More businesses and governments are realizing the value of sustainability and changing their business models and supply chains to lessen overall environmental consequences. The efficiency and value of goods and operations are increased by switching to a circular strategy.

The efficiency and value of goods and operations are increased by switching to a circular strategy and practice of circular design, regenerative agriculture, and manufacturing techniques with low environmental effects within the textile supply chain.

The innovations in relation to the circular economy and biodegradability stem from a deep sense of responsibility to the planet and a desire to act in ways that future generations can be proud of.

Sustainability: Three E’s – Equity, Environment, and Economics
Technology is the backbone for achieving the underlying purpose of going green in the quest to produce green products eventually making production/manufacturing sustainable in the journey of attaining sustainable textiles & in turn sustainable apparel/fashion aligning the infrastructure for achieving net zero industry goal post. 

The way forward is; Industry professionals to help designers, marketers, manufacturers, tertiary students, and tutors support the industry's shift to less damaging products and business.

What gives heart is the increasing number of brands that are committed to becoming a champion of change in the industry, inspiring conscious shopping choices, besides revolutionary new products that significantly improve apparel’s sustainability profile, life cycle analysis, and environmental impact reducing significantly reduce carbon footprint setting climate goals, committing to achieving net-zero1 by a specific period and reducing absolute emissions by XYZ period.

Making the underlying pledges like an important step on their journey taking a decision to not onboard any new suppliers or supplier factories into their supply chain/s if they have on-site coal boilers in their factories, working towards a long-term goal to phase out coal from their supply chain.

What gives a big heart is that increasingly more & more retailers are coming forward enthusiastically committing & pledging to reach a “net-zero emissions” state from their direct operations indicating a timeline like achieving it before 2030.

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