Sustainability in fashion needs a hands-on approach from everyone

Sustainability cannot be fixed by one organisation or person, everyone in the fashion supply chain needs to put in their two cents and help, according to Emily Brayshaw, research associate for the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at UTS.

“Sustainability in fashion is such a wicked complex problem, that it's just too massive for even one company to fix,” she said.

“You have these big global fast fashion brands and they're in a position to be able to do a lot more than the individual consumer, or even the smaller, more nimble companies that are focusing on sustainable practices, developing new technologies for around fabrics, dyes or manufacturing techniques.”

Brayshaw said consumers need to understand that waste is generated at every stage of the supply chain.

“From when you start even thinking, 'I’d like to make that fabric', even the fibre production and making the fibres and the dyeing through to how the fibres are taken to the factory, and until it gets to the shelves and then the consumer buys them or doesn't buy them,” she said.

“That's more waste generated because the consumer either wears them twice or throws them out.”

She said many of these initiatives around textile waste and fashion are not that environmentally friendly. “They are producing so much, versus the percentage that you can actually recycle.”

Consumers want to play their part and do the right thing, Brayshaw explained.

“As consumers we care increasingly, we want to make these good decisions. The role of designers and the role of these fashion industries, is to support us in these choices that we want to make. The companies have to change, there has to be global corporate responsibility,” she added.