Sustainable, Environmentally Friendly And Ethical Products

The primary purpose of this essay uses persuasive writing to get her point across. Informing the reader about the eco dangers of buying outsourced clothing material. Most people often want the cheaper alternative without going to the flea market or charity clothing banks. But all the clothes get worn down, shrink, fade or just deteriorate in the end because the fabric is unsustainable. Resulting in the t-shirts and jeans to be tossed away and put into a landfill. Where they have been found to transmite “more than three million tons of carbon dioxide emissions”. (Siegle, 7)

Robert Swan once said “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” Two companies that understand this concept are Patagonia and Nike. How they address these issues regarding sustainable business practice vary, however. Both have made it their mission to deliver excellence and make the best quality products within their industries, Patagonia focussing more on outdoor active wear, while Nike is more sports oriented. Part of this process has been developing products from sustainable sources. Patagonia, for example, actively took a stand against chemical intensive cotton in 1994, and has since switched to less harmful means of organic cotton within all their cotton-based products. They are even going the extra

At times when sustainability seems to be the mantra for not only corporations but also the lay man, sustainable fashion is a much less understood term as "sustainability" alongside "fashion” are two seemingly contradictory concepts as fashion is all about change and sustainability is all about preservation. Sustainable fashion, in its purest form generates new ideas on how to produce fashion with a sense of ethics, organic or renewable resources, and socially responsible manufacturing techniques. Simply put, the term “eco-fashion” refers to stylized clothing that uses environmentally sensitive fabrics and responsible production techniques.

Credibility statement: A university of Georgia professor gave an hour-long ted talk talking about her experiences of working and traveling to different countries seeing the fast fashion industry at first hands. She now teaches about fashion sustainability and the cycles of the fast fashion market.

TenTree has created a product with the positioning to give customers clothing options that are environmentally and socially responsible. They promise to plant ten trees for every item purchased and only use factories that are approved by WRAP. (TenTree, n.d.) They also have a large selection of t-shirts, hoodies, sweaters, tanks, hats, and toques, in a variety of different colours and sizes. (TenTree, n.d.) Satisfying the customer wants for a wide variety of socially and environmentally responsible clothing has created functional-instrumental value for their customers.

Fashion is everything to society and the media. The fashion industry has transformed into a necessity in the life of people. Everyone wants to look good, feel fabulous and feel as if we belong with everyone else. The envy and desire to wear certain things and look a certain way all come, from wearing the latest fashion handbags, accessories, dresses, shoes, and the list goes on. But, when is considering fashion into an individual’s life going too far to the extreme? Many do not consider the whereabouts of fashion materials and how the environment is affected by the mere existence of certain garments. Some may believe these objects grow on trees. But that is clearly not the case. Even though it would be nice. The fashion industry as a

In this article, Barenblat outlines some of the key reasons as to why fast fashion is detrimental for women and the environment. The author supports her claim by suggesting fast fashion is expensive for the planet, encourages young women in poverty to work in sweatshops, and leads to million tons of landfill each year. This information in the article is useful because it provides relevant statistics on the damages caused by the clothing industry.

The process is just as important as the materials used in the production. Alongside production technology innovations, brands such as Adidas and Nike have begun to use recycled materials in their shoes. The way to ‘do more with less’ will involve innovations in the types of materials used in products. Adidas has prototyped Primeknit shoes made from recovered ocean fishing nets while Nike is using recycled polyester, diverting plastic bottles from landfills. Furthermore Nike has begun to implement sustainability metrics into their material choice and product design. This helps to ensure that there is greater transparency to the trade-off’s that designers are making between functional performance and environmental impact. To ensure continuous superior product performance a business must drive product innovation as well as

Lululemon is the third leading speciality sports apparel store, behind Nike and Adidas (appendix 1), retailing for women and a small range of men. They have capitalised on the growing trend of fashionable gym and street clothes (Ibisworld, 2016). Their vision is “Elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness”, through their 350 stores and online store shipping to 80 countries (Lululemon, 2016). A SWOT analysis in appendix 2 reveals the sustainable niche of Lululemon’s market, while below demographics, social trends and environment macro-environmental factors are discussed due to their relevance to Lululemon as a modern brand, the others are outlined in appendix 3.

Nordstrom has continued to improve their dedication to the environment, steps such as: reducing carbon dioxide released into the air, using organic cottons and investing time and money into the discovery of more sustainable fabric clarification. Although many of these steps may seem like obvious choices so many large companies are still struggling to make the leap nordstrom has shown in these areas. The hunt for more sustainable fabrics is in hopes to lower the unlawfully logged forests and continue to encourage other brands, which they outsource from to be aware of how and where their fabric materials are made. The ethical decision to improve their own environmental practices and inspire other brands to do the same shows they care about the recent changes in society and are willing to form to these

With the tech savvier consumer now able to access information on hand and voice opinions across a wider and faster base thanks to social media, they have driven the industry to be more transparent in the everyday operations and practices in the wake of Rana Plaza. This saw the return of designer Kit Willow as sustainable/ethical brand Kit X, the establishment of an accreditation body ‘Ethical Clothing Australia (ECA)’.

Firstly, fashion design thinking is a framework for making products aesthetically attractive by adopting new innovative approaches. But I was intrigued by seeing the disparity between conceptual fashion design thinking of designers and its industrial production viability. Questions like what type of fabric is best for what type of printing process and which process is more cost-effective with less limitation, are still some burning issues in the fashion world. Many times fashion designers demand very critical development like reactive printing on polyester-cotton blend fabric or discharge printing on double part dyed cotton-polyester fabric. But unfortunately, considering current technological aspects in Bangladeshi industrial sector,

In this revealing and thoughtful look at clothing and consumerism, author Elizabeth Cline sets out to reform how we look at fashion and how we shop for clothing. She approached this topic with a series of anecdotes and statistics to back up her findings. I became curious about sustainability in fashion through reading this book.

With manufacturing moving overseas, we should realize that with it moves the dyed chemical water. Countries such as Bangladesh dump their wastewater in ditches that can be see when driving to textile mills and manufacturing plants (Cline, 2012, pg. 123). With environmental forces such as global warming, we are overlooking the waste the fashion world is creating. Instead of donating to The Salvation Army or Goodwill, “a tremendous amount of clothing is in fact not getting recycled but getting trashed” which means consumers aren’t realizing where their used garments are really going (Cline, 2012, pg. 123). Cellulosic fibers seem to be environmentally friendly because they come from cotton, flax, and bamboo. Even though these fibers start off

Finding an exact definition for the terms “sustainable fashion”. “Green”, “Eco fashion” to a name a few, is close to impossible. We all have the impression everyone understands it the same way but it is false, it has different meanings for all of us.