“Buy less and buy better” has become a common refrain in fashion’s sustainability movement. But how much should we actually be buying? If a new report is anything to go by, it’s likely a lot less than you think. Researchers from Berlin’s Hot Or Cool Institute found that we should only be purchasing five new garments a year in order to stay in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C, if nothing else changes. That would mean shoppers in the UK needing to reduce their consumption by up to 80 per cent in some cases.
“It’s now normal to consume fashion [in a way] that’s really excessive and out of scale with what we need,” Luca Coscieme,the Hot Or Cool Institute’s research programme manager andone of the report’s lead authors, tellsVogue. “We’re consuming more and more fashion at cheaper prices, and with a shorter [usage] time per item – and it doesn’t add up in terms of climate,” Lewis Akenji, managing director at the institute and the report’s fellow lead author, adds.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s shoppers in richer countries that are consuming more than their fair share of fashion. The report found that Australia, Japan, the US and the UK have the highest carbon footprint per capita when it comes to fashion consumption. Out of the G20 countries, India, Brazil, China, Turkey and Indonesia have the lowest carbon footprint per capita. In fact, these countries are not currently meeting their “carbon budget” – the emissions per capita that would still be in line with the 1.5C limit, if fashion consumption were to be divided equally. “Fashion shows how unequal society is – not just unequal in economic terms, but also in terms of contributions to greenhouse gas emissions per capita,” Akenji says.
The researchers found that a “sufficient” wardrobe consists of 74 garments and 20 outfits in total. As an example, they’ve suggested six outfits for work, three outfits for homewear, three outfits for sports, two outfits for festive occasions, plus four outdoor jackets and trousers or skirts. “It’s a very generous allocation that we’ve given in our estimate,” Akenji explains. An average French wardrobe during the 1960s consisted of around 40 pieces, although times have admittedly moved on since then.
Interestingly, the report’s authors suggest that if other action is taken by both brands and consumers, we could actually go back to the consumption levels of 2010 in the UK and still be within fashion’s carbon budget for a 1.5C pathway. “We’re not really talking about going back to the Middle Ages,” Coscieme comments. “When we [talk about] these big reductions, it doesn’t mean that you have to [make do with] one or two T-shirts or whatever – it’s much more feasible.”
