Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global carbon emissions
Fashion industry greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase by 50% by 2030 if current trends continue
The apparel and footwear industry creates more emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined
It takes about 2700 liters of water to make just one cotton shirt
The fashion industry consumes approximately 79 trillion liters of water per year
20% of global industrial water pollution comes from textile treatment and dyeing
92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced globally every year
The equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second
Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing
Textiles are the largest source of primary microplastics accounting for 35% of global marine microplastic pollution
A single laundry load can release up to 700000 microfibers into the water system
About 2.2 million tons of microfibers enter the ocean every year from washing clothes
Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014 exceeding 100 billion garments annually
The average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing compared to 15 years ago
A garment is worn on average only 7 to 10 times before being thrown away
Carbon Footprint & Emissions
- The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global carbon emissions
- Fashion industry greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase by 50% by 2030 if current trends continue
- The apparel and footwear industry creates more emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined
- Producing a single pair of jeans generates 33.4 kilograms of CO2 equivalent
- One polyester shirt has double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5 kg CO2e vs 2.1 kg CO2e)
- The textile industry burns more coal than the entire UK energy grid to power its factories
- 70% of the fashion industry's emissions come from upstream activities specifically material production
- Buying one used item replaces the need to manufacture a new one reducing its carbon footprint by 82%
- Extending the life of a garment by just nine months can reduce carbon, waste and water footprints by 20-30%
- Nylon manufacturing creates nitrous oxide a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide
- If the fashion sector continues on its current trajectory its share of the carbon budget could jump to 26% by 2050
- Organic cotton farming produces 46% less CO2e than conventional cotton farming
- Online shopping returns in the US alone create 15 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually
- Transporting textiles globally accounts for approximately 2% of total industry emissions
- Synthetic fibers which rely on fossil fuels are used in 69% of all clothing
- The carbon footprint of a garment produced in China is typically 40% higher than one produced in Turkey or Europe due to coal reliance
- Fast fashion's carbon emissions are projected to reach 2.7 billion metric tons a year by 2030
- 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent are released by the textile industry per year
- Processing leather impacts climate change nearly 7 times more than producing synthetic leather
- Every kg of fabric produced generates an average of 23 kg of greenhouse gases
Interpretation
Our wardrobe is secretly a warming machine: the fashion industry already emits roughly 8–10% of global greenhouse gases—about 1.2 billion tonnes a year, more than planes and ships combined—driven by coal-fired factories and fossil-fuel fibres that make a single pair of jeans worth 33.4 kg CO2 and a polyester shirt twice as dirty as cotton, yet buying used or wearing clothes just nine months longer can cut footprints by up to 82% or 20–30%, so unless we mend our habits this runaway industry could consume up to 26% of the carbon budget by 2050.
Consumer Consumption & Lifecycle
- Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014 exceeding 100 billion garments annually
- The average consumer buys 60% more items of clothing compared to 15 years ago
- A garment is worn on average only 7 to 10 times before being thrown away
- UK households sit on £30 billion worth of unworn clothing
- Consumers in the US purchase approximately one item of clothing every 5 days
- The average lifespan of a clothing item in the developed world is just 3 years
- Only 20-30% of the clothes in the average person's wardrobe are actually worn
- Since 2000 garment prices have fallen by 12% in Europe globally encouraging volume purchasing
- One in three young women in the UK consider clothes 'old' after wearing them once or twice
- Fast fashion brands release up to 52 micro-collections per year instead of the traditional two seasons
- Using a clothing item for just nine months longer reduces its environmental impact by 20-30%
- 88% of consumers want brands to help them be more environmentally friendly but consumption rates are rising
- In the last 15 years the duration of garment ownership has halved
- 40% of clothes purchased online are returned often ending up in landfills due to processing costs
- The global apparel market is projected to grow to 1.5 trillion dollars by 2025 driving further consumption
- 33% of women wear an item of clothing fewer than five times according to a UK survey
- Washing clothes at 30°C instead of 40°C saves 40% energy per load extending garment life
- 64% of shoppers buy clothes they don't need purely because they are on sale
- Globally we are on track to discard more than 134 million tonnes of textiles a year by 2030
- The volume of clothes Americans throw away has doubled in the last 20 years from 7m to 14m tons
Interpretation
Fashion's race for cheaper, faster clothes has turned wardrobes into warehouses of unworn items and landfills into seasonal salesrooms, with billions of garments churned out, bought on impulse or returned, worn only a handful of times and discarded even though most consumers say they want greener choices.
Microplastics & Chemical Contaminants
- Textiles are the largest source of primary microplastics accounting for 35% of global marine microplastic pollution
- A single laundry load can release up to 700000 microfibers into the water system
- About 2.2 million tons of microfibers enter the ocean every year from washing clothes
- 43 million tonnes of chemicals are used to produce textiles every year
- Cotton production accounts for 16% of global pesticide use despite covering only 2.4% of arable land
- The textile industry uses over 8000 different chemicals to turn raw materials into textiles
- Microfibers have been found in the deepest parts of the ocean including the Mariana Trench
- 73% of fish caught at mid-ocean depths in the Northwest Atlantic contained foam microparticles from textiles
- Heavy metals like lead and cadmium are frequently used in textile dyes and fixatives
- Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) used for water repellency in fashion are "forever chemicals" that do not break down
- Azo dyes used in fashion can release carcinogenic amines when they break down
- Nearly 10% of global microplastic pollution comes solely from synthetic tyre wear and synthetic textiles in cities
- About 60% of synthetic fabrics are made of polyester which sheds microplastics with every wash
- Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) banned in the EU are still frequently found in imported clothing items
- Formaldehyde is used in clothes to prevent wrinkling and mildew and is a known carcinogen
- We ingest the equivalent of a credit card's worth of microplastic every week largely from fibers in water
- One kg of chemicals is needed to process one kg of textiles
- Conventional cotton cultivation uses 4% of all nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers globally
- 80000 tonnes of microfibers end up in sludge applied to agricultural land in Europe alone
- Potassium permanganate used to distress jeans causes heavy metal toxicity in workers and waterways
Interpretation
Your wardrobe is a silent polluter: textiles cause 35% of marine microplastics, a single laundry load can shed up to 700,000 fibers and about 2.2 million tonnes of microfibers enter the ocean each year, the industry uses 43 million tonnes and over 8,000 chemicals to make clothes while cotton consumes disproportionate pesticides and fertilizers, forever chemicals, heavy metals and carcinogenic dye byproducts contaminate water and seafood, microfibers have been found from the Mariana Trench to our dinner plates where we ingest a credit-card’s worth of plastic weekly, and hazardous processing agents like formaldehyde and potassium permanganate are poisoning workers and soils.
Textile Waste & Landfill
- 92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced globally every year
- The equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned every second
- Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing
- 87% of the total fiber input used for clothing is ultimately incinerated or sent to a landfill
- Textile waste is estimated to increase by about 60% between 2015 and 2030
- The average American generates 82 pounds of textile waste each year
- Textiles occupy nearly 5% of all landfill space
- Synthetic clothing takes between 20 to 200 years to decompose in a landfill
- 15% of fabric used during garment manufacturing is wasted on the cutting room floor
- 30% of clothes produced each season are never sold and are often destroyed
- The Atacama Desert in Chile receives 39000 tons of discarded clothing annually
- Ghana's Kantamanto market receives 15 million used garments weekly 40% of which ends up as immediate waste
- Luxury brands destroyed over $500 million worth of unsold goods in 2018 alone to protect brand value
- In the EU textile waste amounts to approximately 4 million tons per year
- Only 12% of the material used for clothing ends up being recycled in some form often as insulation or cleaning cloths
- Sending clothing to landfills costs the US economy over $3 billion annually
- Polyester does not biodegrade it only breaks down into smaller pieces in landfills
- 60% of consumers throw away clothes rather than donating or recycling them
- Between 2000 and 2015 the number of times a garment is worn before being thrown away decreased by 36%
- Australia sends 6000kg of fashion waste to landfill every 10 minutes
Interpretation
Fashion today is a glamorous arsonist: it produces a garbage truck of textiles every second, recycles less than one percent of what it makes, buries or burns most fibers for decades to centuries, drowns deserts and markets in unwanted clothes, and destroys both value and the planet while costing billions.
Water Consumption & Pollution
- It takes about 2700 liters of water to make just one cotton shirt
- The fashion industry consumes approximately 79 trillion liters of water per year
- 20% of global industrial water pollution comes from textile treatment and dyeing
- A single pair of jeans requires approximately 7500 liters of water to produce
- Textile dyeing serves as the second largest polluter of water globally
- The Aral Sea has shrunk to 10% of its former volume largely due to cotton irrigation
- 2.6% of the global water footprint is attributed to the productions of cotton usage
- In China 320 million people lack access to clean drinking water partly due to textile industry contamination
- Producing 1kg of cotton in India consumes on average 22500 liters of water
- 85% of the daily water needs of the entire population of India would be covered by the water used to grow cotton in the country
- The Citarum River in Indonesia is one of the most polluted rivers in the world due to over 200 textile factories lining its banks
- Textile mills generate approximately one-fifth of the world's industrial water pollution
- Around 200 tonnes of water are used per tonne of fabric in the textile industry
- Leather tanning requires highly toxic chromium which often leaks into local water supplies
- Viscose production is linked to the dumping of toxic wastewater in lakes in China and India
- 5.9 trillion gallons of water form the annual global apparel and footwear water footprint
- The water footprint of a pair of leather boots is roughly 14500 liters
- Conventional cotton farming is responsible for 16% of global insecticide releases into waterways
- Runoff from textile factories affects 70% of China's rivers and lakes
- One load of laundry uses about 40 gallons of water contributing to water stress
Interpretation
Every new outfit carries an invisible water toll: one cotton shirt can gulp about 2700 liters and a pair of jeans around 7500, yet the fashion industry drains and poisons tens of trillions of liters a year, causes roughly one fifth of industrial water pollution, has shrunk the Aral Sea to a tenth of its size, left millions without safe drinking water, and depends on chromium, viscose and pesticide‑laden processes that turn our wardrobes into public‑health and environmental liabilities.
References
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