Fashion Forward

By connecting innovators with large-scale manufacturers, Fashion for Good is helping take sustainable ideas mainstream

- Jasodhara BanerJee

Among all the talk and concern about greenhouse gas emissions, here is a point to ponder: Today, on an average, we wear any item of clothing 36 percent fewer times than we did 15

years ago. Consequently, more than 50 percent of ‘fast fashion’ clothing items are disposed of in less than a year. Globally, if we all doubled the number of times we wore a piece of clothing, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 44 percent.

The 2019 article by McKinsey & Company, an American consulting firm, which provides this data also adds that not only is the fashion industry one of the largest polluters in the world (see ‘The Natural Impact’), but also lack of mechanisms to recycle textiles costs the industry hundreds of billions of dollars a year (see ‘Missed Opportunities’). Adding to this is a January 2020 report by Boston Consulting Group and Fashion For Good that says the “innovations emerging in the fashion industry in response to sustainability pressures present unprecedented investment opportunities [estimated to be worth] $20 billion to $30 billion a year”.

Investing in and adopting sustainable technology and practices, therefore, are not just steps towards environmental sustainability for the fashion and textile industry, but towards reaping large economic benefits as well. Keeping this is mind, Fashion for Good—an Amsterdam-based organisation that is bringing together investors, textile manufacturers, fashion brands and innovators— has started its first accelerator programme in South Asia, with an aim to connect innovators and manufacturers so that they can implement and scale up various sustainable solutions.