Sustainability Post Pandemic: 5 Tips To Make The Shift

The fashion industry is worth more than US$2.5 trillion and employs over 75 million people globally. Though the sector is booming, it has negatively impacted the environment. About 85 per cent of textiles go to the dump each year, and washing few types of clothes sends a large amount of microplastic into water bodies, further polluting essential resources. There is an urgent need to shift to truly sustainable practices.

- Nidhi Yadav, Founder, Aks Clothings

COVID-19, a life-changing pandemic, has had a multifaceted impact on the working of the fashion industry. This pandemic resulted in the shutdown of business during lockdown, creating unprecedented challenges for the fashion industry, including declining consumer spending, disrupted supply chains, and inflicting devastation on manufacturers and workers. During the pandemic, garment orders worth billions of dollars, including finished products, were cancelled by brands, leaving manufacturers abandoned in a dire situation where they received no settlement for labours they had already performed. The livelihoods of the garment factory workers became complex and the brands also scuffed hard to find ways to get rid of their deterred inventory.

The fashion industry represents an essential part of our economies, worth more than US$2.5 trillion and employing over 75 million people globally. Over the past decades, the sector has seen spectacular growth as clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2021. Well, we can’t deny that good fashion comes at a tremendous environmental and social cost. Though the fashion sector is booming, it has negatively impacted the fashion industry, increasing pollution, drying up water sources, carbon emissions, human rights and gender inequality. Besides, 85 per cent of textiles go to the dump each year, and washing few types of clothes sends a weighty amount of micro-plastic into the water bodies. And to overcome these impacts, the need for a shift to sustainable fashion is noticeable.

Using chemicals in clothes production also raises significant and severe health concerns, both for the workers in the industry and consumers. Additional impacts on health also arise from pollution.