Cashmere In Crisis

The fabric synonymous with luxury is under threat from cross-border bickering, climate change and the global pandemic. So why can’t everyone agree with how to save it?

- Mark Ellwood

CASHMERE IS AN unlikely candidate for controversy. It conjures up images of cosy, expensive scarves made from the belly hair of goats roaming across the steppes of Mongolia, using techniques and skills honed over the centuries. It’s a luxe treat that has grown more accessible in recent years; see Naadam’s US$75 sweater, for instance, or the rows of candy-coloured pullovers in mass-market stores. Yet, though the price of a cashmere sweater might have dipped, the costs are higher than ever. Much like one of the bitter winters, known as dzuds, that menace Mongolia, this age-old industry faces a perfect storm of challenges: rising demand, surging temperatures and plunging prices for raw materials, which should put cashmere in any ethical shopper’s crosshairs.

First, demand. Cashmere forms almost seven per cent of the US$71.2 billion global luxury industry alone, per Bain & Co – more a problem than an opportunity when each goat’s yield is a meagre 113g of finished fibre. Farmers have boosted their flocks to better cater to the new market; some 29 million goats graze the steppes today, almost five times the number 30 years ago. Such an increase in livestock would likely stress even plush pastures thanks to overgrazing, but the land in Mongolia is under its own duress. Ninety per cent of the country is arid and so especially vulnerable to desertification. Mongolia is a hotspot for climate change, where temperatures have risen by an average of 2.24°C between 1940 and 2015, compared with an average global rise of about 1.8 degrees. Of course, that warming threatens the very ecosystem on which the goats depend—the second major problem.