Let me introduce you to my pants. They’re a pair of mediocre H&M black skinny jeans that I bought in the city after spilling an overpriced kale smoothie across my lap during a bluegrass festival. I needed a quick change and had already spent way too much money on the smoothie, so H&M was the go-to solution to my fruit-puree based problem. That’s where I met this particular pair of pants. I’ve gotten to know them a little better since that initial meeting. For one, they’re stretchy, but not quite stretchy enough. They have back pockets, but the front ones are purely, annoyingly decorative. They fit okay, but not great. I’ve probably only worn them a handful of times, when my laundry was getting low or if I’d mistaken them for the half a dozen other pairs of various black skinny jeans I own. I’d say we’re hardly more than acquaintances at this point (I didn’t even know their name). So I did a little digging on H&M website and learned a bit more about them. They are officially called the “Skinny Regular Ankle Jeans,” which are made of “Cotton 98%, Elastane 2%,” and are reference number 0399256030 in the catalog. The description reads “Ankle-length jeans in washed stretch denim with a regular waist. Mock front pockets, regular back pockets, and skinny legs” H&M.com. They come in seven colors, of which I have the black pair and while doing research for this piece almost added the Dark Khaki Green to my online shopping cart, despite my rather tepid relationship with my current jeans. I was tempted, not by the tapered ankles or stretch denim, but because of the most important and most appealing part of these jeans: the price. They retail for only $9.99.
I recently went through the process of cleaning out my closet. There were plenty of interesting finds, I rediscovered outfits I had only worn a few times or pieces I had bought on a whim because they’d been irresistibly on sale but never saw the light of day, clothes with price tags from stores like Forever 21, H&M, and Urban Outfitters still attached on plastic threads. After sorting through a discouraging amount of wasted personal finances, the pattern eventually became clear to me. All these unworn and forgotten clothes were cute, trendy, and most importantly- cheap. So, I started my journey into the complex world of fast fashion.
To start with, fast fashion is not sustainable. Sustainability inherently means something you’re able to maintain, it needs to be economically, environmentally, and ethically satisfactory. The entire fast fashion industry is maligned in all these categories, but it is understandably appealing as long as you don’t put much thought into where your clothes are coming from or how they are being created. Clothes are cheaper than ever, and new, trendy styles are available at affordable prices mere moments after debuting on the runway. Consumers have access to a huge range of options at almost unbelievably low prices. The real cost comes from what it takes to produce these supposedly cheap clothes. Nathalie Remy reports “Fast fashion is now a large, sophisticated business fed by a fragmented and relatively low-tech production system. This system has outsize environmental effects: making clothes typically requires using a lot of water and chemicals and emitting significant amounts of greenhouse gases”. Reports show that not only is fast fashion damaging to the environment, but the workers fabricating these items. Outsourcing, contract work, and accelerated labor are all dangerous factors in this industry. This is an ecosystem-based on a complex network of factories, suppliers, sub-contractors, sub-sub-contractors that would be nearly impossible for any corporation to properly oversee and ensure proper working conditions. And unsurprisingly so fast-fashion retailers have been accused of exploiting developing countries for cheap labor, cheap materials, and poor regulation of working conditions. As Jack Houston from Business Insider puts it “Combine a poor ability to regulate working conditions and synthetic materials, and you can start to understand how a T-shirt can cost so little.”
“Combine a poor ability to regulate working conditions and synthetic materials, and you can start to understand how a T-shirt can cost so little”
Jack Houston, Business Insider
But just because the initial price tag is lower, doesn’t mean you save money in the long run. Business Insider reports “the average consumer purchased 60% more items of clothing in 2014 than in 2000, but kept each garment for half as long, whether because the garment fell apart, went out of style, or was simply viewed as disposable.” McKinsey and Company expands on this statistic saying “Across nearly every apparel category, consumers keep clothing items about half as long as they did 15 years ago. Some estimates suggest that consumers treat the lowest-priced garments as nearly disposable, discarding them after just seven or eight wears.” At this point, all those unworn or barely touched clothes in my closest were tugging at my guilty conscious. The Atlantic reports that “Americans recycle or donate only 15 percent of their used clothing, and the rest—about 10.5 million tons a year—goes into landfills,” which amounts to approximately 80 pounds of used clothing per person per year. Since nearly 100 percent of textiles and clothing are recyclable this is a dramatic waste. “The annual environmental impact of a household’s clothing is equivalent to the water needed to fill 1,000 bathtubs and the carbon emissions from driving an average modern car for 6,000 miles”. I made a mental note to schedule a Goodwill run.
After these revealing statistics, I winced at the thought of tracking down my own pair of jeans. To give you some perspective, H&M’s yearly sales in 2017 were $25 billion, and their CEO’s net worth is $1.9 billion. As Business Insider reports “In order for consumers to return and keep purchasing, the clothes need to be cycled through quickly, rather than invested in for long-term wear. It is for immediate consumption. It is to capture the look of the moment. It is not to linger in the wardrobe.” And the moment is increasingly fleeting. Fast fashion has evolved past the traditional four-season year of spring, summer, fall, and winter. Another similar fast fashion company, Zara, offers 24 new clothing collections each year and as for H&M, it offers 12 to 16 and refreshes them weekly.
But there is hope, H&M recently launched the sustainability program called “Conscious Action” and is making greater strides to be more transparent and about where their products are being made. From the H&M press release on this matter from April of this year, the Head of Sustainability at H&M, Isak Roth announces “For each of our garments, we now share details such as production country, supplier names, factory names and addresses as well as the number of workers in the factories. In addition, customers can find out more about the materials used to make a specific garment.” In action, this means an inconspicuous tab on the H&M product page that lets consumers know how the item came into being. For my personal pair of mediocre black skinny jeans that report tells me:
- “Cotton: Cotton is the fiber we use the most, but it’s a challenging material that needs a lot of water to grow. Our aim is for all of our cotton to be sustainably sourced by 2020. Currently, we’re using three types of sustainably-sourced cotton: organic cotton, which is grown without chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and contains no genetically modified organisms; recycled cotton, which comes from used garments and textile leftovers; and cotton sourced through the BCI (Better Cotton Initiative), which helps reduce stress on the local environment and improves the welfare of farming communities
- Elastane: Conventional elastane is a commonly used fiber that gives fabric elasticity. The fiber is made from oil which is a fossil resource. We are exploring the development of sustainable alternatives to conventional elastane, such as recycled elastane and bio-based elastane.” –H&M.com.
With a few clicks more you can learn what countries the clothing was manufactured in, for my mediocre black skinny jeans the list is: Bangladesh, China, and Myanmar. More specifically, these three factories:
- Sharmin Apparels Ltd from East Narashinghapur, Zirabo, Ashulia, Savar, 1341, Dhaka with 1001-1500 workers.
- Shandong TianYuan Garment Co.Ltd from Huancheng Science and Technology, Industrial Park, Ningyang, 271400, Tan an with 2001-2500 workers.
- Myanmar York Fashion Co.,Ltd Plot No.168, Kyansitthar, Street,Industrial Zone No.4, Hlaing Tharyar Township, 213244, Yangon with 2001-2500 workers.
I’ve got to hand it to H&M, these are some pretty detailed statistics. Though, it should be noted that in the past the company had trouble meeting its lofty proposed changes. The 2017 H&M Sustainable Development proposed “The H&M group wants to lead the change towards a circular, fair and equal fashion industry. In 2017 we raised our ambitions further, to contribute to long-term positive change for people and the environment throughout the value chain” –H&M.com. But by 2018 “H&M did not keep the promise to make it possible for 850,000 garment workers to earn a living wage” and was severely reprimanded in reports by Global Labor Justice. According to the US director of Global Labor Justice, More than 540 workers at factories across Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka that supply clothes to H&M have described incidents of threats and abuse. The Guardian warns H&M and similar retailers that “gender-based violence as an outcome of the global supply chain structure. H&M’s fast-fashion supply chain model creates unreasonable production targets and underbid contracts, resulting in women working unpaid overtime and working very fast under extreme pressure.”
“Gender-based violence as an outcome of the global supply chain structure. H&M’s fast-fashion supply chain model creates unreasonable production targets and underbid contracts, resulting in women working unpaid overtime and working very fast under extreme pressure.”
Kate Hodal, The Gaurdian
Even with some questionable human rights issues, H&M is doing more than most of the fast fashion industry to move to a more sustainable future. The company is making an effort to makes changes in the industry. Things like the “Conscious Action” initiative and the recycle program, where customers can bring in old garments for the company to properly recycle and get a 15% discount in return are reasonable, positive changes to the industry that can provide a model for similar brands to act on. Recycling is a cradle-to-cradle responsibility, meaning it incorporates the idea that a business should be responsible for incorporating the end results of its products back into the production cycle.
In conclusion, fast fashion is a dangerously unsustainable industry that damages the environment, is not economically sustainable in the long run for companies or consumers, and is in ethically dicey territory over the network of contractors that even the most well-intentioned companies have little oversight of. But, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the impact their choices have on the environment, it is becoming a competitive advantage to be a more eco-friendly producer. And while explicit transparency on the factory where a pair of jeans were made, the public accountability of a major brand making that information known can hold real power in creating a more sustainable future.
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