From Simplistic to Systemic Sustainability in the Textile and Fashion Industry

The fast fashion industry is notorious for wicked environmental and social problems, such as exploitative resource use, high amounts of waste, excessive pollution, below-living wages and unsafe working conditions. Addressing these problems calls for a systemic view on the industry with the goal of minimising the intake of natural resources into the system as well as the output of waste. However, thus far, most solution attempts have turned out simplistic and insufficient to nudge the industry to more sustainable practices at scale. We examine the textile and fashion system at the three different levels—the product, industry and socio-ecological system levels—and show the inadequacy of the current sustainability-driven practices in the field. As an alternative, we propose systemic solutions, geared toward long material and product lifetimes, that have the potential to trigger adaptive responses throughout different actors in the system and across all three levels. These systemic solutions operationalise a circular value retention hierarchy coupled with a sufficiency-based consumption philosophy.