Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of humanity's carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.
The apparel industry's global emissions are projected to increase by 50% by 2030 if current trends continue.
Polyester production for textiles released about 706 million tons of CO2e in 2015.
The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide.
It takes about 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, enough for one person to drink for 2.5 years.
Textile dyeing and finishing are responsible for approximately 20% of global industrial water pollution.
92 million tonnes of textile waste is created annually worldwide.
Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned.
Less than 1% of materials used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing.
Cotton cultivation uses 4% of all nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers worldwide.
Synthetic fibers (mainly polyester) represent over 60% of total fiber production globally.
Cotton farming is responsible for 16% of global insecticide releases.
Global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014.
The average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing compared to 15 years ago.
Clothing items are kept for half as long as they were 15 years ago.
Consumption & Consumer Behavior
- Global clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014.
- The average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing compared to 15 years ago.
- Clothing items are kept for half as long as they were 15 years ago.
- Some garments are worn as few as 7 to 10 times before being discarded.
- In the USA, a piece of clothing is worn on average only 40 times before discarding.
- 21% of people in the UK own clothes they have never worn.
- The average woman in the UK hoards £285 worth of unworn clothes in her wardrobe.
- Fast fashion brands release up to 52 micro-collections per year (one per week).
- Consumption of clothing is projected to rise by 63% by 2030, reaching 102 million tons.
- 33% of women consider clothes "old" after wearing them fewer than three times.
- The resale market is growing 11 times faster than traditional retail.
- 1 in 6 young people say they won't wear an outfit again if it has been seen on social media.
- Washing clothes at 30°C instead of 40°C saves 40% energy per load.
- Doubling the useful life of clothing from one year to two years reduces emissions by 24%.
- Overproduction is estimated at 30-40% each season due to difficulty predicting consumer trends.
- Consumers in the UK have an estimated $30 billion worth of unworn clothing in their closets.
- 9 out of 10 Generation Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues.
- Secondhand clothing market is expected to reach $84 billion by 2030.
- 19% of clothes in wardrobes have not been worn for at least 12 months.
- 60% of millennials say they want to shop more sustainably, though price remains a barrier.
Interpretation
Fashion has turned into a high-speed treadmill of waste, with production and purchases skyrocketing while we wear garments fewer times, hoard billions in unworn clothes, and discard items after only a handful of wears, yet simple fixes like longer-lasting pieces, cooler washes, and booming resale markets offer a real way to slow the damage.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of humanity's carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.
- The apparel industry's global emissions are projected to increase by 50% by 2030 if current trends continue.
- Polyester production for textiles released about 706 million tons of CO2e in 2015.
- Making 1kg of fabric generates an average of 23kg of greenhouse gases.
- The fashion industry consumes 98 million tons of coil oil and gas non-renewable resources per year.
- Production of a single cotton t-shirt generates approximately 2.1 kg of CO2e.
- A pair of running shoes generates approx 13.6 kg of CO2 emissions.
- 70% of the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions come from upstream activities such as materials production and processing.
- If the fashion sector continues on its current trajectory, its share of the carbon budget will jump to 26% by 2050.
- Online returns in the US alone created 15 million tonnes of carbon emissions in 2020.
- Nylon manufacturing creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
- Buying a used garment extends its life and reduces its carbon, waste, and water footprint by 82%.
- Organic cotton farming acts as a carbon sink and produces 46% less CO2e compared to conventional cotton.
- The footwear industry causes 1.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
- Shifting to renewable energy in the supply chain could reduce emissions by 37%.
- Air freight of clothing emits 40–50 times more CO2 than sea freight.
- Keeping clothing in use for just nine extra months can reduce carbon footprints by 20-30%.
- Ironing and washing clothes during the consumer use phase accounts for significantly varying emissions, with tumble drying alone accounting for 60% of user-phase energy.
- Replacing 40% of virgin polyester with recycled polyester could reduce GHG emissions by 5%.
- Producing a single pair of denim jeans results in 33.4 kg of CO2e.
Interpretation
Fashion may make the world look good, but it is responsible for up to ten percent of global carbon emissions, more than international flights and shipping combined, and with one kilogram of fabric averaging about 23 kilograms of greenhouse gases, polyester and nylon production spewing massive emissions, upstream materials causing roughly 70 percent of the footprint, and current trends set to push the sector toward consuming a quarter of our carbon budget by 2050, the only genuinely stylish move is to keep clothes longer, buy used, swap to organic or recycled fibers, power supply chains with renewables, and stop wasting emissions on air freight and needless returns.
Materials & Chemical Usage
- Cotton cultivation uses 4% of all nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers worldwide.
- Synthetic fibers (mainly polyester) represent over 60% of total fiber production globally.
- Cotton farming is responsible for 16% of global insecticide releases.
- 43 million tons of chemicals are used in textile production every year.
- 98% of future fiber demand is expected to be met by synthetics.
- Approximately 8,000 synthetic chemicals are used to turn raw materials into textiles.
- Over 150 million trees are logged every year to transform into cellulosic fabrics like viscose.
- Less than 1% of global cotton production is organic.
- Producing polyester requires more than double the energy needed to produce the same amount of cotton.
- 342 million barrels of oil are used each year to produce plastic-based fibers for textiles.
- Chromium-6, a toxic carcinogen, is used in 80-90% of leather tanning processes globally.
- The use of non-renewable resources for textile production is projected to reach 300 million tonnes per year by 2050.
- Aldehydes and parabens are commonly found in new clothing to prevent mold during shipping.
- Glyphosate is applied to 90% of US cotton acreage.
- The production of viscose fiber can emit carbon disulfide, a neurotoxin affecting factory workers.
- 2.5% of the world's cultivated land is used for growing cotton.
- Recycled polyester (rPET) is derived primarily from plastic bottles, not old clothes.
- PFAS (forever chemicals) have been found in the stain-resistant coatings of major fashion brands.
- Approximately 50% of the chemical dyes used in the industry are Azo dyes, some of which degrade into carcinogenic amines.
- It takes 4 pounds of chemicals to process 1 pound of textile for consumer use.
Interpretation
If fashion were a patient, it would be in intensive care: an industry gorging on petrochemicals, barrels of oil and millions of trees, dousing cotton with fertilizers, insecticides and glyphosate, bathing fabrics in thousands of toxic dyes and finishing chemicals including carcinogens and forever chemicals, and sprinting toward a polyester-dominated future while truly recycled and organic fibers remain vanishingly rare.
Waste & Landfills
- 92 million tonnes of textile waste is created annually worldwide.
- Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned.
- Less than 1% of materials used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing.
- The average American generates 82 pounds of textile waste each year.
- Synthetic fibers like polyester can take up to 200 years to decompose in landfills.
- In the Chilean Atacama Desert, over 39,000 tons of discarded clothes are dumped annually.
- Textiles make up approximately 7.7% of municipal solid waste landfills in the US.
- 87% of the total fiber input used for clothing is ultimately incinerated or sent to a landfill.
- The average EU citizen discards about 11 kg of textiles every year.
- Annual textile waste is expected to increase by 60% by 2030.
- The cost of landfilling creates a loss of over $500 billion USD in value annually due to underutilization of clothing.
- Ghana’s Kantamanto market receives 15 million garments a week from the West, 40% of which ends up as immediate waste.
- 30% of clothes produced each season are never sold and are often destroyed (deadstock).
- Pre-consumer waste (scraps from cutting rooms) accounts for 15% of all fabric used.
- Only 12% of worldwide material used for clothing ends up being recycled in some form (mostly downcycled to insulation).
- In the UK, 300,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in household bins every year.
- Landfills release methane from decomposing biodegradable natural fibers like wool and cotton.
- The volume of textile waste in the US has increased by 811% between 1960 and 2015.
- France was the first country to pass a law forbidding the destruction of unsold non-food products including clothes.
- Sorting recycled textiles is labor-intensive, with automated sorting technology encompassing less than 30% of the market.
Interpretation
Every second the equivalent of a garbage truck of clothes is burned or buried, yet less than one percent of textile materials are recycled, synthetic fibers can persist in landfills for centuries, and with waste set to surge sixty percent by 2030 we are not just trashing fashion but squandering over five hundred billion dollars of material value while burying communities and ecosystems under mountains of deadstock and discarded garments.
Water Usage & Pollution
- The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide.
- It takes about 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton shirt, enough for one person to drink for 2.5 years.
- Textile dyeing and finishing are responsible for approximately 20% of global industrial water pollution.
- A single pair of jeans requires between 7,000 and 10,000 liters of water to produce.
- The fashion industry uses approximately 79 trillion liters of water annually.
- 35% of all microplastics released into the ocean come from laundering synthetic textiles.
- About 0.5 million tonnes of microfibers are released into the ocean every year from washing clothes.
- The Aral Sea has shrunk to 10% of its original size largely due to cotton farming irrigation.
- In China, 32% of all wastewater comes from the textile industry.
- Leather tanning utilizes high volumes of water, requiring up to 50 liters per kilogram of hide.
- Cotton farming is responsible for 69% of the water footprint of textile fiber production.
- A single laundry load of polyester clothes can discharge 700,000 microplastic fibers.
- By 2030, water consumption in the fashion industry is predicted to increase by 50%.
- Finishing treatments (like stone-washing) can increase water usage for a garment by 400%.
- Viscose production often releases hazardous chemicals into local waterways, causing "dead zones".
- 85% of human-made debris on shorelines around the world is microfibers.
- Only 15% of the water used in fabric dyeing is recycled in developing nations.
- Producing one kilogram of leather typically requires 17,000 liters of water.
- Approximately 200,000 tons of dyes are lost to effluents every year during textile operations.
- The Citarum River in Indonesia is considered one of the most polluted in the world due to over 200 textile factories lining its banks.
Interpretation
Fashion may dress us for the moment, but behind the scenes it guzzles about 79 trillion liters of water a year, with a single cotton shirt costing roughly 2,700 liters and a pair of jeans between 7,000 and 10,000, while dyeing, tanning and viscose mills dump toxic effluents that have shriveled the Aral Sea and fouled rivers like the Citarum, and laundering synthetic clothes accounts for roughly 35 percent of the microplastics now choking our oceans.
References
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