Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined
The global apparel industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase by 50% by 2030 if no changes are made to current practices
Textile production generates 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year
The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide
It takes approximately 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, enough for one person to drink for 2.5 years
Creating a single pair of jeans requires between 7,000 and 10,000 liters of water
The equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second
Around 500,000 tonnes of plastic microfibers constitute the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles released into the ocean annually from washing clothes
Less than 1% of materials used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing (fiber-to-fiber recycling)
Cotton cultivation uses 4% of all nitrogen fertilizers and phosphorous fertilizers worldwide
16% of all insecticides released globally are used on cotton crops
Approximately 3,500 substances are used in textile production for dyeing and finishing
Global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, exceeding 100 billion garments annually
The average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing now than they did 15 years ago
Consumers keep items for about half as long as they did in the year 2000
Chemicals & Materials
- Cotton cultivation uses 4% of all nitrogen fertilizers and phosphorous fertilizers worldwide
- 16% of all insecticides released globally are used on cotton crops
- Approximately 3,500 substances are used in textile production for dyeing and finishing
- Viscose production is linked to the logging of 150 million trees annually
- 65% of all fibers used in the fashion industry are synthetic chemicals derived from fossil fuels
- Perfluorinated compounds (PFAS), known as "forever chemicals," are widely used in water-resistant clothing and accumulate in the environment
- Chromium VI, a toxic carcinogen, is used in 80-90% of leather tanning processes
- Chlorine bleaching of textiles releases dioxins, which are highly toxic and persistent environmental pollutants
- Formaldehyde is used in wrinkle-free treatments and can cause respiratory irritation and cancer
- Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) used in textile washing degrade into toxic nonylphenols that disrupt hormone systems in marine life
- Cotton occupies only 2.4% of the world's agricultural land but uses a disproportionately high amount of toxic chemicals
- Phthalates, often found in printing inks on clothing, are endocrine disruptors linked to reproductive issues
- Heavy metals like cadmium and lead are frequently used in textile dyes and pigments, contaminating soil near factories
- 43 million tonnes of chemicals are used in textile production every year
- Potassium permanganate spray, used to distress jeans, exposes workers to heavy metal manganese which can cause nerve damage
- Azo dyes, which can release carcinogenic amines, are used in approximately 60-70% of fabric dyes
- 2.5% of the world's farmland is planted with cotton, yet it accounts for 10% of total agricultural chemical use
- Soil degradation from intensive monoculture cotton farming leads to a 30% reduction in yield potential over time
- Flame retardants applied to children's sleepwear contain toxic organophosphates that wash into water systems
- Carbon disulphide used in viscose production causes severe neurological damage to exposed workers and local wildlife
Interpretation
Fashion may be fast, but its environmental and human costs are anything but fleeting: from cotton's outsized appetite for fertilizers, insecticides and agricultural chemicals and viscose-driven logging of roughly 150 million trees, to PFAS-coated rainwear, chromium-VI in tanning, chlorine bleaching that releases dioxins, azo dyes, phthalates, heavy metals and millions of tonnes of other toxic chemicals, the industry systematically poisons soils, waterways and workers while dressing consumers in conveniences that cost far more than the price tag.
Climate Impact
- The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined
- The global apparel industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase by 50% by 2030 if no changes are made to current practices
- Textile production generates 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year
- Washing and drying clothing by consumers accounts for 120 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually
- If the fashion industry continues on its current path, by 2050, it could use more than 26% of the carbon budget associated with a 2°C pathway
- Producing a single pair of jeans results in approximately 33.4 kilograms of CO2 equivalent emissions
- A polyester shirt has more than double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5 kg vs. 2.1 kg CO2e)
- The carbon footprint of a garment produced in the "fast fashion" model is often 60-70% higher due to air freight shipping
- Up to 80% of a garment's climate impact occurs during the manufacturing and production stages
- Buying one used item replaces the production of a new one and reduces its carbon footprint by 82%
- Synthetic fibers produced from fossil fuels like polyester required nearly 700 million barrels of oil in 2015
- In 2018, the fashion industry's emissions were roughly equivalent to the entire economies of France, Germany, and the UK combined
- Extending the life of clothing by an extra nine months of active use would reduce carbon, waste, and water footprints by around 20-30% each
- Footwear manufacturing accounts for approximately 1.4% of global carbon emissions
- Nylon production emits nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide
- Decarbonizing upstream material production could reduce fashion emissions by 61%
- Shifting to renewable energy in the supply chain could reduce industry emissions by 346 million tonnes by 2030
- Organic cotton cultivation can have a 46% lower global warming potential than conventional cotton
- Incinerating unsold clothes releases carbon stored in the fibers back into the atmosphere, contributing significantly to the industry's end-of-life emissions
- The UK fashion industry alone has a carbon footprint of 26.2 million tonnes of CO2e per year
Interpretation
Treating clothes as disposable has made fashion responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions, and with polyester, air freighted fast fashion and energy intensive production pushing emissions toward a path that could consume more than 26% of the 2°C carbon budget by 2050, we are buying trends at the cost of the planet's future unless we extend garment life, embrace reused items and decarbonize materials and energy in the supply chain.
Production & Consumption
- Global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, exceeding 100 billion garments annually
- The average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing now than they did 15 years ago
- Consumers keep items for about half as long as they did in the year 2000
- In the UK, the average garment is worn only 7 times before being discarded
- The fast fashion market is expected to grow to $163.4 billion by 2027
- 30% of clothes produced each season are never sold
- One in three young women in the UK consider clothes "old" after wearing them once or twice
- Online return rates for clothing can be as high as 40%, with many returned items ending up in landfills due to restocking costs
- By 2030, it is predicted that there will be 148 million tons of fashion waste annually due to consumption growth
- China consumes the most apparel globally, followed by the United States and India
- The average American throws away approximately 81 pounds (37kg) of clothing each year
- 9 out of 10 consumers in Gen Z believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues
- Only 15% of heavy clothing users are responsible for 50% of total clothing purchases
- Global consumption of apparel and footwear is projected to increase by 63% by 2030
- 50% of people surveyed in the UK said they would buy more sustainable clothing if it were cheaper
- The volume of polyester produced globally has increased by 157% between 2000 and 2020 to meet consumption demands
- Ultra-fast fashion brands release up to 6,000 new items per day on their websites
- 88% of consumers say they want brands to help them be more environmentally friendly and ethical in their daily lives
- To stay within planetary boundaries, G20 countries need to reduce their fashion consumption footprint by 60% by 2030
- The average wardrobe contains 148 items, yet we only wear 20-30% of them regularly
Interpretation
We're treating clothes like disposable confetti, buying 60% more and wearing items half as long while over 100 billion garments flood the market, so fast fashion is literally dressing the planet in polyester and waste unless consumers, brands and governments decide to stop the conveyor belt.
Waste & Microplastics
- The equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second
- Around 500,000 tonnes of plastic microfibers constitute the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles released into the ocean annually from washing clothes
- Less than 1% of materials used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing (fiber-to-fiber recycling)
- 35% of all microplastics released into the world's environment are from laundering synthetic textiles
- In the US alone, 11.3 million tons of textile waste ended up in landfills in 2018
- Global textile waste is estimated to weigh 92 million tonnes annually
- 73% of the world's secondhand clothing ends up in landfill or is incinerated
- Synthetic fibers like polyester can take up to 200 years to decompose in a landfill
- A single load of laundry can release up to 700,000 microfibers into the water supply
- The Atacama Desert in Chile has become a dumping ground for at least 39,000 tons of unsold clothing annually
- Between 2000 and 2015, clothing utilization (the number of times a garment is worn) decreased by 36% globally, increasing waste
- 87% of the total fiber input for clothing is ultimately heavily incinerated or landfilled
- In the EU, textile waste amounts to approximately 4 million tons per year
- Ghana's Kantamanto market receives 15 million garments a week, 40% of which becomes waste immediately
- Microplastics have been found in the stomachs of plankton, shifting plastics up the food chain to humans
- Fleeces and athletic wear shed significantly more microfibers than other synthetic textiles
- Every year, the fashion industry generates 13 kilograms of waste for every person on the planet
- Ocean floor samples suggest there are 14 million tonnes of microplastics on the ocean floor, largely from textiles
- Only 12% of textile material is downcycled into lower-value applications like insulation or stuffing
- Deadstock (unsold inventory) accounts for between 10-30% of goods produced that are never sold and often destroyed
Interpretation
The fashion industry is quietly engineering an environmental catastrophe: every second a garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned, about 500,000 tonnes of plastic microfibers a year—the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles—are washed into the ocean, less than 1% of fibers are recycled into new clothing while roughly 87% of fiber input is incinerated or buried, global textile waste runs to about 92 million tonnes annually with secondhand and deadstock too often dumped from Atacama to Kantamanto, and fleeces and athletic wear shed hundreds of thousands of microfibers per wash that can persist for centuries and climb the food chain to our plates.
Water Impact
- The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide
- It takes approximately 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, enough for one person to drink for 2.5 years
- Creating a single pair of jeans requires between 7,000 and 10,000 liters of water
- About 20% of global industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and treatment
- The Aral Sea has shrunk to 10% of its former volume largely due to cotton irrigation
- Textile mills generate one-fifth of the world's industrial water pollution, using 20,000 chemicals to turn raw materials into clothes
- In China, 70% of the rivers and lakes are contaminated by the 2.5 billion gallons of wastewater produced by the textile industry
- Textile production uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water annually
- The water footprint of polyester production is generally lower than cotton, but the pollution impact is higher due to chemical runoff
- Organic cotton production uses 91% less "blue water" (freshwater from lakes/rivers) than conventional cotton
- One kilogram of viscose production requires up to 640 liters of water
- In Bangladesh, the textile industry consumes as much groundwater as 18% of the entire population of Dhaka annually
- Leather tanning utilizes approximately 16,000 liters of water for every kilogram of leather produced (upstream and downstream included)
- 85% of the daily needs of water for the entire population of India would be covered by the water used to grow cotton in the country
- Fabric dyeing alone consumes up to 200 tons of water for every ton of fabric produced
- Untreated textile wastewater contains high concentrations of lead, mercury, and arsenic, which are often dumped directly into rivers
- By 2030, water consumption in the industry is projected to increase by 50% to 118 billion cubic meters
- Recycled cotton can save up to 2500 liters of water per kilogram compared to virgin cotton
- Low-water dyeing technologies (like CO2 dyeing) can reduce water use in the coloring process by up to 95%
- Approximately 44 trillion liters of water are used annually for irrigation of cotton crops
Interpretation
Fashion is essentially a pampered water hog: a single cotton shirt can gulp about 2,700 liters and a pair of jeans up to 10,000, textile dyeing accounts for roughly a fifth of industrial water pollution and helped shrink the Aral Sea to a tenth of its former size, rivers and groundwater are being poisoned with heavy metals and chemical runoff, and demand is set to rise by about 50 percent by 2030 — yet simple fixes like organic or recycled cotton and low water or CO2 dyeing could cut freshwater use by the tens of billions of liters and save thousands of liters per garment.
References
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