“The planet can no longer handle the volume of clothing that is thrown away”: how fashion should now apply degrowth economics

In the Atacama Desert (Chile) an average of 39,000 tons of clothing are thrown away per year.

In Accra, the capital of Ghana, they count it daily: 100 tons every 24 hours, the equivalent of the weight of about 65 cars.

They are the two main textile landfills in the world: the global south coexists with the billions of garments that are discarded in the north.

Mountains and mountains that cause environmental disasters in the environment and diseases in the population.

“The story begins when a first-hand clothing brand decides to incorporate new products and remove from stores what has not been sold, including returns.

Retailers have different policies in terms of replacement of returned items, many garments will not re-enter the sales circuit,” they say from

The Or Foundation

, an association that works in Ghana's landfills trying to find a second life for certain pieces. either by donating them, turning them into other textiles or reintroducing them to the second-hand market.

But, obviously, it is not enough.

“The problem is not about what is organic and what is not organic;

“There are just too many clothes,” they say.

A recent report by

The Wall Street Journal

estimates that one million Shein packages are distributed a day in the United States alone.

According to

The World Economic Forum

, around 150 billion pieces of clothing are produced each year.

Taking into account that there are about 8,000 million inhabitants in the world, if the distribution were equal, each person would have 187 new items of clothing in their closet per year.

In 2022,

The Or Foundation

wrote an extensive report,

Waste Landscape

, which offers some revealing data, such as the fact that there are companies in charge of transporting the surplus of some clothing brands to these landfills, and many include agreements so that said leftovers cannot be sold on the second-hand market.

Of course, it's not exclusive to fashion.

There are more and more voices that point out the need to look for other economic models and not only slow down the pace, but reduce it, decrease it.

For some, degrowth is magical thinking;

for others, an inevitable solution in a world of finite resources.

Even Queen Letizia, at the opening of a seminar on sustainable development, was interested at the end of 2023 in this theory that Antonio Turiel, CSIC researcher, defends in Spain: “If we want to continue growing economically, the consumption of materials and energy It has to grow, here or in the place to which we have relocated the factory that supplies us,” he writes with Juan Bordera in

The End of Seasons?

“But it turns out that the availability of energy on this planet is finite and that the non-renewable energy sources that provide us with almost 90% of our primary energy consumption have peaked,” he says.

The idea at first clashes with the very notion of fashion, which bases its identity on constant change and its benefit on growth.

But the physical limits of the world and its resources are imposed.

“The evidence tells us that the attempts we have made over the last 30 years to reduce the environmental impact of fashion are not working;

in fact, that impact has only increased,” Kate Fletcher, professor at the

Royal Danish Academy

and creator, back in 2007, of the term and philosophy

slow fashion

, explains to S Moda .

“There is an underlying drive in the sector towards growth, increasing production indefinitely and thus getting people to buy more.

This growth is so rapid that no environmental measures can mitigate its effects.

That is why we need another approach to fashion and that is what degrowth offers,” she believes.

Aja Barber, activist and author of the essay

Consumed: the need of collective change

, states that “the planet can no longer maintain the volume of clothing discarded by large corporations.

Our resources are limited and this industry has exploited them to the maximum.”

Polo ID Shoulder Bag, by Ralph Lauren. COURTESY OF THE FIRM

Producing less and earning more is not an oxymoron

The irony of it all is that manufacturing less can mean increasing profits by doing something that should sound sensible: matching supply with demand and tackling the waste problem.

“When it is more profitable to get rid of pieces already produced than to reflect on another possible solution (that allows, for example, a garment in perfect condition to continue being useful), we have a clear problem in front of us that we do not want to manage,” says Adriana Cagigas, teacher. from the fashion area of ​​the University of Design, Innovation and Technology (UDIT).

Applying the theory is not easy and involves tectonic changes, but there are already firms testing alternatives.

The Spanish group Tendam has slowed its growth, but has increased its profitability with a long-term plan based on a model that is slower in volume, but also more efficient.

Ralph Lauren has been transforming its business for several years by cutting manufacturing, increasing prices and giving up discounts: today its garments are purchased on average 80% more expensive than in 2018. “I don't think there is a limit as long as we do a good job to elevate the product, elevate the narrative and improve the environment,” its CEO, Patrice Louvet, told Bloomberg on the occasion of the closing of the fiscal year last June.

Then the brand announced that it had increased its margin to 61.8%.

That of the Tapestry group, owner of brands such as Coach or Stuart Weitzman, has also grown substantially and now places its share at around 68%.

In its report to investors last year it highlighted the problem that unsold garments pose for them: “Our business could be subject to increased costs from excess inventory and decreased profitability if we misjudge demand for our products.”

Image from Phoebe Philo's first brand collection.Talia Chetrit / PHOEBE PHILO

Highways or shortcuts

The possible answers to the degrowth puzzle are varied.

Phoebe Philo herself, upon her return to the industry last fall, chose to reduce her offering to only two collections a year and small productions of 50 garments of each reference.

When they run out, she makes them on demand: “As part of our determination to address environmental impact, we focus on the material problems of overconsumption, waste and the fashion supply chain.

Our goal is to create a product that reflects permanence,” they explained at its launch.

On a smaller scale, in Spain more and more firms are betting on something similar: “At Cléa Studio it is a hallmark,” says its founder, Nuria Freire.

She set up her firm, producing only when an order came in due to lack of financing, but now she would not give up this model that allows her economic balance.

“Perhaps not having had the resources to produce stock by size made me realize how nice it is to make custom clothing, how difficult it is to get it right when you want to classify people between XS and XL, and the number of garments that are left without an owner,” he adds.

The market itself changes in demands and demands: according to Kantar, the consumption of discounted clothing has gone from 46.5% in 2020 to 31.2% in 2023. “In the current inflationary moments there is no single explanation for what is causing this situation.

On the one hand, after the pandemic, the consumer reaffirmed that they had to buy only the necessary clothing,” the consultancy explains.

But, they also indicate, not all the change is in the same direction, since part of this reduction in purchases of discounted clothing is compensated by "the growth experienced by the main

low-cost retailers

, which makes sales redundant."

Technology also brings solutions: “Brands that have great control of their market based on historical data have great opportunities with artificial intelligence,” says Cagigas, “stock management through the predictions that this type of technologies can make.” "They are beneficial in terms of adjusting demand, which will allow us to avoid generating unnecessary surpluses."

But not the entire future can be trusted to the potential evolution of the technique.

Especially in the field of recycling, where solutions fail to scale.

“The discourse on waste management tends to define technology as if machines were magic and could separate our poisonous waste from nature forever,” they say from The Or Foundation.

The change has to be social and structural and, no matter how much the consumer adheres to the sometimes hackneyed 'buy less, buy better', it is essential that it involves the institutions: “The issue goes a long way but the expanded consumer responsibility law producer (RAP) is a great starting point,” explains Aja Barber.

This law forces companies to take charge of their leftovers and guarantee that they go to donations, recycling plants or the second-hand market, prohibiting their export.

In force in France for two years, in Spain they have proposed implementing it by April 2025. The European Union works within a broader framework, the Green Pact, a set of proposals to achieve climate neutrality and reduce the carbon footprint by 55 % in 2030. Fashion covers several chapters of this plan that requires that by 2030 all textiles be “durable and recyclable, made largely with recycled fibers, free of dangerous substances and produced with respect for social rights and the environment ”.

However, it is not enough either.

The Or Foundation believes that to tackle overproduction, fashion should cut its volume by a very utopian 40%.

“The problem is that brands are not obliged to publish how much they produce,” they explain.

Last year they launched the

Speak the Volumes

campaign , to force large textile companies to confess their annual manufacturing volume.

If we don't know how much they make, we will never know for sure how much they waste.