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Sustainability has become a common buzzword in fashion marketing. However, brands have had a lot of work to live up to their stated goals. Joshua Williams, Fashion Industry Essentials contributor, discusses the evolving role of sustainability in the fashion industry.
Watch the full video to learn about:
- What sustainability means for different brands
- If fashion can ever be sustainable
- How transparency affects business
Brand Sustainability
Fashion itself is not sustainable. The fashion system is not and never will be because it’s selling products that aren’t essential to daily living. Although brands can’t be fully sustainable, they have to think about ways they can move in that direction. Each company must ask themselves key questions: how do we make sure that if people are going to buy a new sweater it is as sustainable as possible? How do we cycle or upcycle that so that we’re not wasting it or putting it into a landfill?
Looking at products from a sustainable point of view, brands have to examine the materials they are using and how they affect the environment. So, for example, dyes used in manufacturing can go back into the ecosystem and poison the fish. So those are kinds of considerations in terms of the product itself.
Brand Transparency
Additionally, brands have to consider the human perspective. Are they actually paying a living wage to the people creating their products? Living wages are going to be different in every country. For example, an employee in Bangladesh may not be eligible for $15 per hour. However, they need to be able to pay for shelter, food, and clothing.
Brands also have to examine business sustainability. They can’t have the values of sustainability if the business isn’t making any money. It doesn’t matter that their carbon footprint is low or because they’re not going to be in business. Fashion companies must balance that with the human resource aspect, materials, and sourcing pieces.
Regarding how a young designer could think about sustainability, focus on one or two things that you know you can do and that are authentic to you. A brand in New York City was started by two women who realized that it couldn’t be fully sustainable creating a brand. They decided to make sure that where they got their leathers from was at a high level of health. The people who worked on the leathers and the tanneries were being taken care of, and they were a gold standard leather supplier. That’s hard to find, but that was what they decided to rest their brand on. That’s become part of their marketing and their raison d’etre for being in the marketplace. They do really think very much about their materials.
For more information on fashion sustainability and careers in marketing, download Yellowbrick’s Ultimate Fashion Career Guide.
