Planet
Planet is one of the four pillars/objectives of business. With the rise of ecommerce and fast fashion within the past 15 years the fashion industry has had a climatic effect on our planet. Fast fashion can have a detrimental effect on our planet because the production of clothing is the second most water intensive process in the world as it uses almost 79 billion cubic meters of water a year, this negatively impacts the planet because it reduces the global supply of safe clean drinking water and fast fashion is a factor on as to why 771 million people don’t have access to clean water (WHO/UNICEF Joint monitoring programme 2021). This relates to the sixth UN sustainable development goals clean water and sanitation as the water invasive processes used to produce the clothes is one of the main factors as to why so many people don’t have access to clean water. Fast fashion also has many other negative impacts on our planet like the fact that this sector of the fashion industry is responsible for nearly 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions (UN alliance for sustainable fashion 2019). Ecommerce isn’t sustainable for the planet as we cannot keep taking rubbish from packaging to landfills as there will eventually not be enough space on the landfill or to create new landfills. Although nowadays more and more recyclable packaging is being used, consumers still don’t recycle as it is estimated that out of 86 million tons of plastic packaging produced internationally only 9% is recycled each year (organisation for economic co-operation and development 2019).
SDG 6 United Nations 2019
Sustainable fashion considers the impact that making, wearing and disposal of clothing and how it can affect the environment, so it can mean carbon-neutral clothing, second-hand clothing, biodegradable clothing or clothing produced in small scale. In recent years there has been an upsurge of sustainable fashion brands. East London based fashion brand House of Sunny is a sustainable fashion brand as they don’t over produce clothing as they only release two collections a year, they use recycled materials, the clothes they create are made to last long, and they also use e-flow technology to wash their denim to reduce water wastage. House of Sunny is an example of a brand that uses the circular economy as they design their products to be more durable, reusable and recyclable.
House of sunny, Independent 2021