When we think of businesses that pollute our planet and oceans, we usually think of big oil companies and coal mines pumping out massive amounts of smog, but the fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries on the planet.
In the process of making clothes, plastic additives such as dyes, fire retardants and antioxidants, along with fabric dyeing treatments, leak or dump dangerous chemicals into our oceans, harming marine wildlife.
Here are five facts about sustainable fashion to think about if you care about the planet:
- The fashion industry accounts for 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the third most polluting industry on the planet.
- The fashion industry produces around 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, more than international airlines and maritime shipping combined.
- One single pair of jeans can take as much as 20,000 litres of water to produce.
- Less than 1% of fashion materials are recycled into new clothing at the end of their life cycle.
- The fashion industry is expected to use 35% more land by 2030. That is 115 million hectares more than it already uses, land that could be natural ecosystems or crops for an expanding population.
In the spirit of world oceans month, read on to discover your next sustainable fashion find.
Vivobarefoot
Founded in 2012 by two seventh-generation cobblers, Galahad and Asher Clark, Vivobarefoot is based on one simple insight: barefoot footwear is sustainable footwear. Vivo is also B Corporation certified, which means it meets verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.
Why barefoot shoes? The human foot, left to its own devices, can thrive doing anything from walking and running to jumping and dancing. By cramming it into the modern shoe, narrow, rigid, cushioned and angled, we negate our feet’s natural strength and function.
Vivo believes our feet are our foundation, connecting us to the earth, and that this should not be compromised. All Vivobarefoot footwear is designed to be wide, thin and flexible, as close to barefoot as possible, so it promotes your foot's natural strength and movement and lets you feel the ground beneath you.
If the price tag of a Vivobarefoot shoe puts you off, ReVivo may be what you’re looking for. ReVivo is a way to buy pre-loved, reconditioned Vivos at a lower price, alongside returned footwear and unsold stock from previous seasons.
Shop Vivobarefoot and ReVivo today.
Rapanui
When Mart was 5, he was worried about waste. Together with his brother Rob, they started a brand in the garden shed with a mission to solve it. Today, the whole team continues that work.
Rapanui products are made from natural materials using renewable energy, and everything they make is designed from the start to be sent back when it is worn out, so they can make new products from the materials they recover. All t-shirts are produced in real time, in the seconds after they are ordered, in their factory on the Isle of Wight.
“Instead of making waste, we make new products from it. It's a circular supply chain.”
With 100 billion items of clothing bought each year, and three out of five tees bought today thrown away within 12 months, we are creating a dump truck of clothing going to landfill every second. If you want to help make a difference, shopping at Rapanui is a good step.
Rapanui has also been building a platform so that anyone in the world has access to their supply chain and tech. It is called Teemill, and it is free. Anyone can use their systems to start their own brand, build their own store, and connect automatically to their real-time production facilities.
Shop Rapanui now.
Finisterre
Born over a decade ago from the needs of hardy British surfers, Finisterre designs functional and sustainable products for those who share a love of the sea.
Beginning in a flat above a surf shop, they started with an innovative fleece designed to keep out chill winds and warm up cold bodies. Now, from their clifftop workshop in St Agnes, Finisterre stays true to that original ethos of functionality and sustainability, brought to life in an understated style, and stays committed to product, environment and people.
Sharing their first B Corporation positive report in 2020, Finisterre works with communities to enable better access to the sea, creates partnerships for ocean conservation, and champions wider change.
From dresses, tops and t-shirts to shorts, dungarees, sweatshirts, jackets and swimwear, you can build an ethical wardrobe with no single-use plastics. Using marine-safe garment bags and unbleached kraft pulp mailbags, Finisterre’s packaging is fairly robust too.
Waterhaul
Waterhaul is a social enterprise making eyewear. Based in Cornwall, they intercept plastic from our oceans and turn it into functional products for adventure. Believing that “waste is simply a misallocated resource”, they treat ocean plastic as a unique material that tells a story.
The most harmful plastics in our oceans are fishing-related debris, because of their tendency to entangle marine life and damage seabed habitats such as kelp beds and coral reefs. Waterhaul tells us:
“In a phenomenon known as ‘ghost fishing’, the entangled carcasses of trapped marine life will attract more species, resulting in further potential entanglements. As these discarded nets are produced from plastic, they will not degrade, persisting in the ocean to catch and kill marine life indefinitely.”
Turning the problem on its head, Waterhaul takes all of the properties that make discarded fishing gear such a problem, its abundance, its strength and durability and its propensity to harm, and combines them to make it both an excellent material and a priority target to intercept from the ocean.
Their frames are produced entirely from 100% recycled fishing nets, without the addition of virgin plastics or chemicals. Glazing, the process of cutting and fitting the lens, and the finishing of the frame are done by hand in Cornwall.
If you’re looking for genuinely unique but harm-free eyewear, Waterhaul will be right for you.
Patagonia
Yvon Chouinard, a mountain climber, surfer and environmentalist, founded Patagonia in 1973, providing a range of outdoor clothing for everything from sport and surfing to fly fishing and mountain biking.
Patagonia’s core values still reflect those of a business started by a band of climbers and surfers. Their criteria for a product rest on function, repairability and, above all, durability, on the basis that making the best product matters for saving the planet.
They acknowledge that their business activity, from lighting their stores to dyeing shirts, is part of the problem. They work to change their practices and share what they have learnt with the wider community, and they seek not only to do less harm but more good.
Patagonia also uses its business and funds to protect nature, stating:
“The challenges we face as a society require leadership. Once we identify a problem, we act. We embrace risk and act to protect and restore the stability, integrity and beauty of the web of life.”
You can also go to their website to discover exactly how your clothes are made.
These brands are taking a stand and choosing eco-friendly production methods, from low-impact dyeing to pesticide-free organic cotton, for a better blue planet for all of us.
Do you know about other ocean and environmentally friendly apparel brands? Let us know over on Instagram.
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