SUSTAINABILITY, GROWTH DRIVER FOR FASHION AND TEXTILES

Sustainability in the heart of fashion business helps the world to be a better place in more ways than one. Investing in sustainable practices can deliver never-before opportunities in business expansion and differentiation for products, brands, companies and all partners in the value chain.

- Manohar Samuel

Sustainability is clearly a growing area of focus regardless of the industry, civil society, and Governments. It is not difficult to see why 197 Nations signed up for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, to limit global temperature to within two degrees increase — if not 1.5 degrees — from pre-industrialized levels. Statistical data for similar periods show the critical state of climate distress – in a 17-year comparison, the number of floods globally rose from 1200 until CY 2000 to 2800 until 2018. In a 33-year comparison, droughts rose from 200 until CY1984 to 500 until CY2018. There is much more of such extremely worrying data from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Accounting for 2.4 percent of the global GDP, fashion and textiles are two of the largest industries globally. They touch lives, are media perceptive, and prone to NGO scrutiny. They are also some of the most polluting, consumer underutilizing, and landfill-ending sectors — resulting in huge impacts on the environment. To improve the sustainability quotient of the industry, it is therefore important to understand key parameters across the textile value chain, analyze consumer insights, and view innovative models that build sustainable businesses.

Sustainability in Fibres

Cotton, polyester, and viscose are the top three fibers used in the fashion industry, and each comes with its unique set of attributes, sustainability challenges, and progressive work for betterment.