Millions of tons of deadstock is wasted, but it doesn’t need to be that way

Much of fashion’s waste problem is hard to solve. Post-consumer garments are not easy to recycle, because this involves materials being separated. But often, clothes are made with a blend of synthetic and natural fabrics, like polyester and cotton, and there are things like elastic, zips, and buttons to consider. But yarns of fabric that haven’t been blended or sewn into complicated garments yet are much easier to divert from the landfill. 

Last year, textile tracking and trading platform Reverse Resources conducted an extensive investigation into factory textile waste. The platform predicted that the fashion industry is wasting around nine million tons of textiles every year that could be rescued and made into something new. In other words, there’s a heck of a lot more deadstock being sent to the landfill or the incinerator than there needs to be.

“There’s a percentage of waste material that is actually fine for reuse,” agrees Stephanie Benedetto, the founder of deadstock marketplace Queen of Raw. “That’s as well as the material that was ordered and never used, or excess sample yardage. But historically there has been no avenue to resell it. So it winds up being indefinitely warehoused, or burned.”

Millions of tons of deadstock is created because the world’s biggest fashion brands have a huge overproduction problem. It all began in the nineties and 2000s, when fast fashion giants Zara and H&M were starting to open stores around the world. This duo and companies like them birthed a business model that prioritized fast and cheap production above all else. Now, we’re living in a time when brands make thousands of garments every month to keep up with the marketplace. And all of those designs leave wasted offcuts behind. Remember: 15 percent of every production run isn’t used. “They churn through new styles to make more, faster,” says Benedetto. “That’s what has led to the sheer volume of waste.”

Brands need to dismantle and rebuild their business models. Sustainability is incompatible with overproduction. But until that happens, brands can at least try to minimize their impact by making use of all the deadstock they create. And if anything’s going to motivate them to do so, it’s profits. “Covid has caused a crisis of supply and fundamental uncertainty,” says Benedetto. (She’s not wrong: In Europe, the first year of the pandemic saw clothing sales decline by more than 43 percent.) “So having 15 percent of your bottom line eaten up by waste is something that brands can’t afford to do any more,” she adds. 

Benedetto is leading the way in showing the fashion world just how profitable deadstock can be. Queen of Raw buys up rolls of unused or rejected fabric, and sells them directly to a customer base of 500,000. Some are individuals looking for cheap materials, others are fashion students, while many are emerging small designers and brands. It also sells to Fortune 500 companies, via a resale engine called Materia MX.

Queen of Raw is not alone. Fabcycle, Reformation, Christy Dawn, and OhSevenDays are all examples of brands utilizing or selling on rejected or unused fabric from factories. In fact, the upcycled textiles market is growing. By 2027, it could reach a value of $7.6 billion globally.

The problems with using deadstock in fashion

On the surface, using deadstock seems like a straightforward way to minimize textile waste. But the solution has its drawbacks. Selina Ho, the founder of sustainable fashion consultancy ReCloseted, is a fan of deadstock. But she’s wary that some are cashing in on demand for surplus fabrics, and they are exacerbating, not helping, the textile waste crisis.

As outlined earlier, a lot of deadstock comes from brands overproducing. Ho says some factories take advantage of that, and intentionally produce even more in order to sell fabric to “jobbers.” These are middlemen fabric suppliers, who build a profitable business model around reselling surplus fabric, thus creating more supply and demand for overproduction. In this sense, the excess fabric isn’t really deadstock. It’s just more available stock produced by the factory. To be true deadstock, the fabric should have been rejected or left unused by brands.

Research is limited in this area, and it’s difficult to quantify just how much this is happening. But it’s worth noting that buying and selling surplus fabric isn’t restricted or regulated by any external body, and it’s down to brands to trace their supply chains to ensure factories are being responsible. “There is a general fabric overproduction problem going on,” says Ho. She added that it’s vital that brands “dig deeper and ask questions, even if it’s deadstock fabric that, at the surface level, sounds sustainable.”

Megan Mummery, the founder of OhSevenDays, used to source from fabric middlemen. But now she is digging deeper. She goes directly to the mills, a step that she says allows her more visibility over the entire supply chain. “We said, ‘look this is our model, do you have leftover quantities that we can get directly from you?,’” she recalls. “Rather than going to the middleman and not knowing where the fabric came from. So now we can have a little bit more transparency around our sourcing.”

But there are also problems with the fabric itself to overcome. Genuine deadstock can often be rejected because it’s damaged. “Sometimes, there’s a couple of holes here or there so they can’t really sell it,” explains Mummery. “They call it second quality fabrics.”

She’s careful about her sourcing process; OhSevenDays designs incorporate durable, high-quality sustainable materials, like tencel, cupro, and linen. But ultimately, Mummery admits it’s tricky making clothes this way. “It’s an ongoing struggle,” she says. “You never quite know how to lie the patterns down, or how many pieces are going to end up with faults and how many aren’t.”

Deadstock is not perfect, but it’s better than the landfill

By design, deadstock isn’t without its flaws. But for Benedetto, it represents hope in an industry that is turning into one big ugly pile of waste. Because as well as taking up space in landfills, fashion is quite literally soaking up the world’s water supply. The entire market uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water a year. To break that down further: it takes 7,500 liters of water to make just one pair of jeans.

It might be extra work for brands, but keeping genuine deadstock in circulation can help reduce fashion’s water reliance considerably. According to Queen of Raw, purchasing just one yard of fabric from its marketplace saves 700 gallons.

“The possibility space is massive for everyone, from the startup to the big business,” says Benedetto. “For me, deadstock material is probably the most powerful untapped sourcing mechanism there is. Ignoring it is ignoring an easy way to start moving towards the future the fashion industry and the world needs.”

And when garments do come back damaged because of faults in the deadstock fabric, brands can get creative. They don’t have to throw them in the trash and create more waste. OhSevenDays’ Zero Waste Misfit range offers clothes with stains, rips, or marks for discounted rates, for example. “I was like, ‘this is crazy that such a tiny thing will make this perfect garment go to trash,’” says Mummery. “In my mind, having an area where people can shop for tiny little faulted items makes so much more sense.”

There’s a long road ahead for the fashion industry when it comes to waste reduction. And each step is going to involve acceptance: that it’s producing too much, that the planet and humanity can’t cope under the strain, but also, that, when it comes to building a more planet-friendly future, waste is one of its most valuable assets. 

The department store chain has revealed a new initiative called Target Zero. The idea is simple: every refillable, reusable, compostable, or recycled beauty, personal care, and household product will be marked with the Target Zero icon in stores and online. By doing so, Target hopes to signpost its most sustainable items and encourage consumers to shop mindfully.

The initiative is a key part of Target’s wider sustainability strategy, Target Forward, which pledges to design, but also elevate, sustainable brands. The strategy also lays out plans for Target to reduce the virgin plastic in its own brand packaging by 20 percent by 2025.

Reducing beauty’s significant environmental impact 

It’s vital that beauty brands, in particular, do everything they can to reduce their impact on the environment. Every year, the industry produces around 120 billion units of packaging.

One example of a beauty brand set to carry the Target Zero badge is Burt’s Bees. The carbon-neutral company isn’t vegan, due to its reliance on beeswax and honey, but it is committed to sustainable packaging. It has even designed lip balms encased in plastic-free metal tins, exclusively for Target. Vegan, cruelty-free beauty brand Pacifica will also carry the Target Zero icon. And another brand, called PLUS, has developed a waterless, solid body wash for the retailer.

According to Target, this is one of the first times it has sought to engage its brand partners in its Target Forward strategy.

The retailer’s senior vice president of corporate responsibility, Amanda Nusz, said: “Target Zero unlocks important progress toward our Target Forward ambitions, each of which requires collaboration from our partners and action from our guests to be realized.”

Jill Sando, Target’s executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, added that the retailer’s aim is to “give brands investing in reduced waste products and packaging an opportunity to have those products highlighted by Target.”

Learn more about Target Zero here. 

Clean beauty is good for the planet and people too

Getting a spot on Alvarez’ website—which serves as a marketplace for clean, sustainable, and ethical beauty brands like Axiology, Naturally London, and Mango People—isn’t easy. The founder’s bar is high: Brands can’t just say they don’t use a few toxic or cruel ingredients and be done with it. They also have to prove it, by offering up their products for the Pretty Well Beauty team to analyze.

The platform’s no-no list is extensive, but among the ingredients it doesn’t allow are wool-derived lanolin and beetle-derived carmine, because of their links with animal exploitation; animal fat, because of environmentally-destructive animal agriculture, and mica, because of its child labour links.

But beyond ingredients, prospective brands also have to demonstrate that their sourcing methods are not exploitative, and that they safeguard the people who work in their supply chains. Because for Alvarez, clean beauty isn’t clean if it isn’t ethical and sustainable too.

To ensure values align, Alvarez sits down with each brand before they are added to the Pretty Well Beauty platform and asks the tough questions about their products. Wishy, washy answers aren’t acceptable, she needs the nitty gritty details. “I can kind of tell within the first few minutes whether or not their ingredients are sourced sustainably,” she says. “When I ask them where they get their products from, and they say ‘oh, you know, we just buy from a third party source in bulk’, that kind of tells me they don’t really know who’s on the ground working.”

Creating a welcoming clean beauty space for people of color

The beauty founder also has another mission: true inclusivity. Years ago, Alvarez headed to the first clean beauty store in New York City. She was eager and excited to see what the store had to offer, but when she stepped inside, her enthusiasm was far from matched. As an Afro-Latina, she felt like she didn’t belong in, what became clear, was a heavily white space. “It felt very exclusive, very elitist,” she recalls.  “My first thought after that experience was ‘I can do something like this, but I can do it in a way that’s more friendly, more welcoming, more inclusive.’”

For people of color, Alvarez’ experience is all too familiar. The beauty world has been dominated by Eurocentric faces for decades, from campaigns to leadership positions to products. In fact, it wasn’t until 2017, when Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty launched, that foundation shades became truly inclusive for people with dark skin tones.

Before she went on to launch her own platform, Alvarez herself was a part of the Fenty Beauty launch. That role, combined with her work on shoots and campaigns for brands like Ralph Lauren and Sephora, gave her a solid foundation of experience to build Pretty Well Beauty. But it didn’t happen overnight. The platform started off as just an Instagram page. “It was just a place for me to talk about clean beauty,” she recalls. “The brands that I felt were really getting it right.” In 2019, Alvarez decided to use her newfound social media presence to leverage a whole business. She left her job at Ralph Lauren, and launched Pretty Well Beauty with 12 brands. Just three years later, it has more than tripled its offering.

Alvarez has big plans for the future, which could include a hair care line and NFTs. But beyond that, she wants to help shape a more sustainable, diverse beauty world. We spoke with the founder about her vision for the future of her industry, how she’s constantly striving to do better for the planet, and why, as a person of color, clean beauty is central to her identity.

Creating a new standard for clean beauty brands

LIVEKINDLY: With Pretty Well Beauty, you are striving to create a “new standard” of clean beauty. Can you explain what that is?

Jazmin Alvarez: I like to use the term “beyond clean.” I consider the entire lifecycle of a product. That means thinking about where the product ends up when it’s going down our sinks. Where is the packaging going once we’ve discarded it? Is it biodegradable if it doesn’t get recycled? Not all clean beauty is created equally. There are ingredients that are indigenous to certain parts of the world that are being grown in places where they’re not meant to grow. They’re stolen from their habitat. But sustainability is about preserving ecosystems and not taking more than what is necessary. It also speaks back to giving back to the communities that you’re borrowing natural resources from. So, making sure that the people who are collecting these ingredients on behalf of your brand are being paid fair wages. They’re not being exploited. That they have economic growth opportunities. It’s making sure that even if packaging were to be tossed on the street, it’s not going to have an environmental impact that would be damaging for 200 years.

LIVEKINDLY: Beauty has a huge packaging problem—it uses 120 billion units every year. How are you working to reduce Pretty Well Beauty’s plastic footprint?

Alvarez: Moving forward, there will be no addition of brands where plastic is their primary packaging and that includes BPA free and PCR plastic. Plastic is not infinitely recyclable. It can only be recycled up to about three times and then it just goes back into our landfills and our oceans.

Clean beauty’s roots go back thousands of years

LIVEKINDLY: You’re a big believer in nature, and the ability of plants to slowly but steadily improve our skin with consistent use over time. Why do you feel such a strong connection to plants and their healing properties?

Alvarez: You know, I’m a person of color. I come from a mixed heritage background, Afro-Latina. Growing up we always used natural ingredients for beauty, for wellness. If I ever got a burn or a scrape, my mom didn’t use traditional drugstore products. She would literally take a piece of fresh aloe plant and rub it on my skin. She would use things from the kitchen to put in my hair like olive oils and eggs. My aunt and I would spend time in the kitchen whipping up face masks using oatmeal, bananas, and avocado. We were just using our instincts. These are things passed down to us from generation to generation.

LIVEKINDLY: So for you, a clean beauty routine is also a connection to identity and heritage?

Alvarez: Clean beauty has existed longer than any of us have been here. It’s the oldest form of self care. In Egypt, Cleopatra was using natural products. She was using earth on her skin. She was using charcoal as eyeliner. She was using naturally pigmented dyes for her lips and her cheeks. There were no store-bought things! You had to make it. That has carried on through many, many cultures around the world. Mostly with Black, African, Indigenous, and Asian people. It’s really important to recognize and to honor those experiences. Because for a lot of us, it was just a way of life. It’s now become commercialized and marketed in a way that has lost a lot of its authenticity.

Working with Rihanna on a history-making beauty launch

LIVEKINDLY: Before you started Pretty Well Beauty, you gathered experience working with some of the biggest names in the industry. But getting involved with Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty launch must have been a highlight.

Alvarez: Rihanna is very different from most celebrities. She doesn’t just put her name on something. She was very much involved in every detail. She’s very professional. She’s very decisive. She’s a little hard to pin down! It was an incredible experience. I did the art buying, the production, and the casting, which is a lot for one person to do. Usually you do one of the three, not all three in one go. But it was great. I was up for the challenge.

LIVEKINDLY: That launch changed the beauty industry overnight. Did you realize at the time how much influence it was going to have?

Alvarez: I knew it was going to be big. But I didn’t realize just how much it was going to impact the beauty industry and culture in the way that it did. She pretty much dropped the proverbial mic. For so many years, a lot of large brands would always say that the reason they didn’t carry darker shades is because they don’t sell. And we all saw what happened when Fenty Beauty launched. Everything sold out in seconds.

LIVEKINDLY: Fenty paved the way for a more diverse industry. And with Pretty Well Beauty, you’re helping to shape a more inclusive and sustainable market too. What’s your vision for beauty’s future?

Alvarez: In an ideal world, I’d love to see more authentic diversity and inclusion. There’s a lot of performance that’s happening, which is really upsetting to see. A lot of brands didn’t really give the platforms and voices to people of color before, now they’re doing it, but they’re doing it to profit. I’d love to see more diversity everywhere you look, not just in certain spaces. I want people to feel that regardless of skin color or hair texture, that there is going to be space for them. And to me, that’s what Pretty Well Beauty represents. It’s a space for all humans. I’m not talking about just people of color, it really does mean everyone. It means men. It means non-binary. And of course, all women. 

Find out more about Alvarez and Pretty Well Beauty here. 

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published its latest report, which focuses on the devastating impacts of global warming, as well as potential solutions to the climate crisis.

In food news… Tamearra Dyson, the owner of Souley Vegan, is the first contestant to win on the Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay. You can now order vegan breakfast at select IHOP test locations. And the UK has opened its first entirely plant-based school kitchen.

In the world of fashion, sportswear giant Adidas is phasing out virgin polyester in favor of more sustainable materials.

And a council in Brighton, England, has announced a new policy that makes “bee bricks” mandatory in all new buildings above five meters.

Catch the full news recap in the video above.

Fast fashion is hyper-focused on shrinking the gap between design, production, and sale, and then retailing as cheaply as possible. For the last few decades, young people have worshipped this conveyor belt of affordable, trendy clothing. Right now, many members of Gen Z are the same. Shein (the biggest retailer operating in the U.S.) is the most talked about brand on TikTok, the young generation’s social media of choice. But not all publicity is good publicity. At the time of writing, the “boycott Shein” hashtag has more than 4 million views. “Stop fast fashion” has more than 23 million.

A rising number of young people are rejecting fast fashion, and it’s a reflection of the times we live in. You can’t turn on Netflix without seeing a climate crisis documentary. You can’t look at a news website without seeing a frightening prediction for the future. Social media is also rife with infographics and Reels about the various industries that contribute to environmental problems and human rights violations. Fashion is a big one. After oil, it’s the second biggest polluter in the world. And it exploits the thousands of people who make its clothes. It isn’t surprising that for many members of Gen Z (75 percent of whom name climate as their biggest concern), fast fashion is losing its shine. And ultimately, they’re going to oversee the industry’s demise.

Fast fashion’s dirty secrets: pollution, waste, and exploitation

In 2018, the United Nations published a story called “Putting the Brakes on Fast Fashion.” It linked the industry with nearly 10 percent of annual global emissions and named it as the second-largest water polluter in the world. Similar reports reveal things like: 10,000 individual garments are sent to the UK landfill every 10 minutes. And in 2017, 13 million tonnes of textiles were thrown out in the U.S. The West also dumps clothing overseas. In 2018, Pakistan received around 780 million kilograms of used clothing, most of it from Europe and the U.S. The quantity is too much to cope with, and fast fashion’s choice of cheap, poor quality materials makes it difficult to mend or reuse the garments. So, again, most of this ends up in the landfill.

But dumping waste isn’t the only way that fast fashion exploits the global south. Most of the clothes are made there in the first place, in dangerous and exploitative working environments. In Bangladesh, the garment industry’s second largest manufacturing base, workers are paid just $75 a month. And recently, Swiss watchdog group Public Eye linked Shein to factories in violation of China’s labour laws. They reportedly had barred windows and a lack of emergency exits. Workers received just one day off a month.

Former fast fashion executive Melanie DiSalvo, who is now a sustainable fashion consultant and advocate, saw fast fashion’s abuses first hand. Further up the chain, she recalls assistants and buyers being treated poorly, with many subject to regular hours of unpaid overtime and workplace bullying. “I was in a hopeless situation,” she recalls. “My co-workers couldn’t even get it together enough to not be cruel to one another. So what chance did our factory workers have at getting a little compassion?”

DiSalvo’s account of fast fashion is backed up by depictions in the entertainment industry. Take 2019’s Greed, for example. The satirical film follows the journey of a “self-made” billionaire. It details the appalling treatment of his own team, as well as the harrowing exploitation of factory workers. While the film’s protagonist Sir Richard McCreadie is fictional, it’s widely reported he’s based on Arcadia and Topshop founder Sir Phillip Green.

But this uptick in negative stories has a silver lining. Conscious Gen Zers don’t take kindly to brands that mistreat people and the planet, and they’re more likely to avoid them. One Y Pulse survey notes that 80 percent will boycott brands linked with scandals. And it also affects who they decide to work for. Research from Deloitte notes that 77 percent of Gen Z prioritize companies that value ethics and social impact.

Resale, thrifting, and upcycling could be Gen Z’s future of fashion

Sustainable fashion brands are in abundance. But, ultimately, the cost of a more ethical supply chain demands a higher price point. Gen Z are still young with limited income. However, as their spending power grows, it’s going to be far easier for them to back up their views with their purchasing habits.

That said, young people are already doing a pretty good job of finding sustainable bargains. Just like the years before fast fashion, a lot of young consumers now trawl through vintage shops and websites. They thrift, and they devote hours to clothing resale apps, like Depop. In 2020, the popular resale company’s annual revenue hit $70 million. It credits a lot of that success to Gen Z.  

In a bid to understand its key consumers better, Depop recently put together a report called “Futureproofing: How Gen Z’s Empathy, Awareness, and Fluidity Are Transforming Business As Usual.” It found that 70 percent of Gen Zers on the platform prioritize fair wages and safety in fashion; around 60 percent prioritize a reduced carbon footprint; and around 90 percent have made changes to become more environmentally conscious. 

Gen Zers quest to be considerate of people and the planet has also seen them embrace the sewing needle in a way that young people haven’t for decades. Mending and upcycling are growing in popularity. In fact, a WGSN 2021 report on “Youth Culture” found that searches for sewing machines jumped by 400 percent in 2020 in the U.S. Again, a simple TikTok hashtag search finds more than 1.4 billion views for #sewingtiktok.

Fashion student Ellie Chalk, who boasts more than 100k TikTok followers, gave up her high street clothing addiction to start upcycling her late grandmother’s clothes. “When it came to clearing away my nan’s stuff, I couldn’t do it. So I decided to learn how to upcycle,” she recalls. “My clothing now means more to me than ever before. Fast fashion can’t compare to that.”

Chalk began posting videos of the process, and soon after, she started getting tagged in videos of others who she had inspired to start upcycling too. Now, she dedicates her TikTok to educating other young people about the realities of fast fashion. “I truly believe that if everyone knew the extent of how awful fast fashion is, it would not be a thriving industry,” Chalk says. “Brands are just so good at covering it all up and then selling you the dream on top of that.” 

Greenwashing can’t save fast fashion forever

To Chalk’s point, fast fashion brands are aware that their target market is becoming more conscious by the day. Often, brands turn to greenwashing to persuade consumers they’re more ethical than they really are. They debut “conscious” collections that feature recycled materials or a small percentage of organic cotton, for example. But really, these ranges do nothing to mitigate the impact of the thousands of garments fast fashion brands churn out every day. 

“We see growth every year in Gen Z consumers looking to understand the impacts of the brands they know and to shop more sustainably,” notes Sandra Capponi, the founder of sustainable fashion directory Good On You. “Ultra fast retailers know this and have also amped up the greenwashing to appeal to our values, even when their actions tell a more alarming story.” 

Boohoo, for example, has a “sustainable” section on its UK website. But it uploads more than 100 new garments a day, according to a Vice investigation. Many are made with polyester, a plastic-based fabric that can take up to two centuries to biodegrade.

But fashion’s greenwashing is on a time limit. In an unprecedented move, New York could be the first in the world to actually hold companies accountable through the law. If passed, the new bill will see those who don’t clean up their supply chains subjected to naming and shaming and fines. It’ll also prevent them from selling in one of the biggest fashion markets in the world. To comply with legislation, they will have to produce science-driven targets and concrete plans for improvement. 

“It’s no longer enough to just produce products from sustainable materials,” says Ana Kannan. As the Gen Z founder of sustainable fashion platform Toward, she is emblematic of the young conscious consumer of the future. (She even recently introduced customer spending caps in a bid to reduce overconsumption.) Kannan says she was “elated” by the New York bill. “Brands need to look deeper into the full lifecycle of their products,” she adds. “Ultimately, some of these measures might come from outside pressure.”

As Gen Z grows up, they will be the ones holding brands accountable for change. But it’s worth noting that the fashion industry as it stands may not last forever. For better or worse, our time spent in the digital world is consistently increasing. Gen Z already spends an average of 10 hours online every day. And that is going to change the way we consume everything; fashion is no exception.

A digital future could change fashion completely 

In universities, fashion students are learning more about how technology intersects with design. Some recent graduates have even set up their own virtual fashion brands, which specialize in non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These are essentially one-of-a-kind digital items, like pieces of virtual artwork. While copies can be made, the actual NFT only exists in one form. (Just like there is only one real Mona Lisa, but you can buy a reprint of the Leonardo da Vinci classic on a postcard or a tote bag.)

In the fashion world, Hermès has competition from digital artist Mason Rothschild, who sells NFT MetaBirkins. Nike has launched Nikeland, a virtual gaming world where players can buy digital versions of its products. To illustrate how rapidly this sector is evolving, the NFT market value is now worth $41 billion. (The centuries-old traditional art market is $50 billion.)

NFTs can’t replace your favorite pair of jogging bottoms or your underwear, of course. But they might change how we view status items loved for their aesthetics, like a designer bag or a beautiful dress. The more time we spend in the virtual world, the less important physical versions of these items become. 

“Fast fashion brands might want to look at what people are using clothing for. Is it for spending time online or social media?” says Patsy Perry, a researcher from Manchester Fashion Institute. “If it’s the latter, we don’t even need to produce a physical garment. Digital fashion is really interesting. If young people are spending more time online than in the real world, arguably, a digital garment would fit and look better than something you buy in real life.”

The future of NFTs is still unpredictable. It’s a way of consuming that we’re not really familiar with yet, so time will tell just how much a virtual economy will dictate our buying habits of the future. But digital society or no digital society, fast fashion’s coffin will see its final nail in the coming years. 

Fast fashion is built on exploitation as a means for quick, cheap, overconsumption. It’s not a foundation that can innovate to keep up with Gen Z’s ever-increasing desire for fair and sustainably-made garments. If major brands want to look past this model, emerging themselves in the resale, vintage, or digital markets, they may have a seat at Gen Z’s future table. But if they don’t, they’ll be left outside in the cold. Not even the warmest of polyester jackets will save them then. 

From recycled denim jeans to vegan face cleansers housed in recycled aluminum bottles, Amazon’s new brand features “consciously created” everyday essentials. The brand’s products are made from a wide range of materials, such as organic cotton and recycled polyester, as well as bio-based ingredients.

The products—which sport a “Climate Pledge Friendly” badge—feature third-party sustainability certifications that are part of the company’s Climate Pledge Friendly program. These include ClimatePartner’s climate-neutral certification and Global Recycled Standard, which indicates that products were made using 50 percent recycled materials. Amazon launched the program back in 2020 to make it easier for customers to find sustainable products on its website. 

In 2019, Amazon co-founded the Climate Pledge, a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. It vowed to make 50 percent of all shipments net-zero carbon by 2030, transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2025 (according to the company, it’s the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world), and put 100,000 electric delivery vehicles on the road by 2030. Amazon has also pledged $2 billion to support the development of decarbonizing technologies and $100 million for reforestation projects.

Why Amazon is falling short of its sustainability goals

Amazon Aware is undoubtedly an attempt at convincing consumers that Amazon is making great strides with its sustainability initiatives. 

“Amazon Aware also allows us to test and learn, and we will continue to innovate and create products and programs that help us reach our climate goals,” an Amazon spokesperson told LIVEKINDLY. “We know we have more work to do and we’re energized to continue to move forward.”

Amazon has ensured that all products included in the new collection are carbon neutral. In order to achieve this, the company offsets carbon emissions through carbon credits—tradable permits that allow the holder to emit one ton of carbon dioxide per credit. For example, a company that emits less carbon than its specified target amount can sell surplus credits to a company that emits more, otherwise the latter company would face a fine.

According to the brand’s 2020 progress report, it has achieved 65 percent renewable energy so far. But the report also shows that the company’s carbon footprint actually increased by 15 percent compared to the previous year. 

In 2020, Amazon’s operations emitted the equivalent of 60.64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—1.64 million tons more than the country of Belarus emitted that same year. This is up from Amazon’s 2019 emissions, which were 51.17 million metric tons. The company reported the increase in emissions was due to the surge in online shopping amid the pandemic. But herein lies the flaw of the company’s business model: it cannot co-exist with Amazon’s sustainability goals. The company’s aim is to increase profit and ship more (hello, Amazon Prime), and adding a collection of “climate-friendly” goods to its website will not mitigate this impact.

In 2021, a new study by Pacific Environment and Stand.earth found Amazon to be among the top ten polluters in overseas shipping, joining the likes of Walmart, Target, and Nike. The company is also contributing to the world’s e-waste crisis. The same year, an investigation by ITV News alleged that Amazon warehouses in the UK destroy millions of unsold and returned items each year, from books to hairdryers and even laptops.

Despite Amazon’s foray into eco-friendly goods, the company—as a whole—is still anything but sustainable. While it’s progress, a program of over 200,000 Climate Pledge Friendly products does not mitigate the impact of the billions of unsustainable items Amazon sells each year. Not to mention the exorbitant fossil fuels and the sheer amount of plastic packaging used in shipping. The company generated 500 million pounds of the latter in 2019 alone. Ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana found that more than 22 million pounds of that figure wound up in oceans and rivers.

According to Amazon, it has reduced the weight of outbound packaging with each shipment by 36 percent and made progress in terms of sustainable shipping. In 2008, the company introduced Frustration-Free Packaging to incentivize manufacturers to package their products in 100 percent recyclable packaging. And in 2019, it launched a fully recyclable paper padded mailer.

Despite this, in 2020, Amazon’s plastic packaging waste surged to 599 million pounds, a 29 percent increase from the previous year, according to Oceana.

Amazon workers demand more from the company

If Amazon wants to truly meet its commitments, it’s going to need to step it up on the sustainability front. Even its own workers are calling for change.

Unhappy with the company’s climate policies, Amazon workers launched the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice coalition. In April 2019, the group penned an open letter to Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos and the company’s board of directors urging them to make greater strides in the fight against the climate crisis. 

“We, the undersigned 8,701* Amazon employees, ask that you adopt the climate plan shareholder resolution and release a company-wide climate plan that incorporates the principles outlined in this letter,” they penned. The group’s proposal was rejected. In September 2019, Amazon employees walked out in support of the Global Climate Strike to protest the company’s inaction towards climate change.

Since Amazon is the leading e-commerce site, it has an incredible opportunity—and responsibility—to set the standard for environmental stewardship. Instead of creating a new brand of sustainable products, Amazon should be more stringent in ensuring its existing items are planet-friendly.

In the fall of 2020, a consortium of four fashion powerhouses—Lululemon, Adidas, Kering, and Stella McCartney—revealed they’d been granted exclusive access to biotechnology company Bolt Thread’s innovative vegan leather, Mylo. The material is made from mycelium, the root-like structure of mushrooms. Sustainable apparel and accessories were on the way. 

Fast forward to February 2022, and Lululemon’s fungi-based debut was ready to be swooped up into the online shopping carts of the fashionable masses. The vegan leather was featured in two limited-edition bags: The 2-in-1 Meditation and Yoga Mat Bag and the Barrel Duffle Bag. But while the bags make use of the sustainable vegan leather, the problem is that Lululemon hasn’t made Mylo a permanent fixture in its material rolodex. 

As the number-one athleisure brand, Lululemon generated about $4.4 billion in net revenue in 2020, according to market research firm Statista. Not only is the company backing out of what could have been an incredibly impactful collaboration, but it’s also not doing its part to mitigate the environmental impact of the thousands upon thousands of items it generates—which are largely made with non-biodegradable materials like polyester, nylon, and spandex. 

In order for Lululemon to make good on its promise of joining the ranks of truly planet-friendly fashion brands, it must transform its business model entirely—using sustainable fabrics, not just in a few one-off items, but in all of its products.

Sustainable revamp or marketing scheme?

Lululemon isn’t the first brand to partake in a little greenwashing. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, there’s been a 71 percent surge in Internet searches for sustainable items in the past five years. Fashion and beauty brands know that consumer trends translate into sales, and they are scurrying to appease consumers’ growing demand for eco-friendly products.

Case in point: Chanel’s new not-so-eco-friendly-eco beauty line, N°1 de Chanel. The packaging was more sustainable than its previous products, sure. But its use of red camellia ​​extract promotes an over-reliance on the natural world. Then there’s Louis Vuitton’s new luxury sneakers. Their most sustainable kicks yet, the shoes are made with recycled rubber, corn bioplastic, and regenerated nylon. That’s great, but what about all the textile waste the brand generates? 

And lest we forget Garnier’s new No Rinse Conditioner, which comes sealed in a cardboard-integrated tube. Per the company, the conditioner saves 100 liters of water per tube and boasts a 92 percent smaller carbon footprint than its wash-out counterparts. Again, round of applause. But what about Garnier’s other chemical-laden, water-intensive products that come housed in plastic bottles? Even Adidas, a leader in making truly sustainable upgrades to its products—such as low-carbon running shoes and kicks made from ocean plastic—seems to be missing the point: sustainability and mass production are at odds.

To be fair, Lululemon’s website does boast plans for upping its sustainability metrics (LIVEKINDLY reached out to the brand to elaborate on its sustainability metrics and is awaiting a response). For example, they’re innovating more sustainable materials, creating circularity, and using less water. By 2025, the company aims to use 75 percent of sustainable materials in its products and reduce freshwater use by 50 percent. 

In the spring of 2021, the company launched a pilot trade-in and resale program called Like New “to accelerate progress towards a circular ecosystem by 2025.” Customers can trade in gently used Lululemon apparel in exchange for a gift card. The company reinvests 100 percent of resold items’ profits to in-house sustainability initiatives. 

Last year, the company somemade headway on its goal of producing more sustainable materials. It announced the launch of its plant-based, Bio-nylon leggings, made in partnership with San Diego-based biotechnology company Genomatica. But while the leggings could (heavy emphasis on the word “could”…) help cut nylon-related emissions by 90 percent (conventional nylon is made from ​​crude oil-derived plastic)—they don’t biodegrade.

“We’re actively exploring other sustainable materials, including natural, biodegradable ones,” the company’s CEO, Calvin McDonald, said at the time. “But our partnership with Genomatica comes out of the realization that we can’t really afford to wait. We need to make these immediate improvements while simultaneously working on next-generation materials.”

But waiting is exactly what Lululemon is doing. The company, which has been around since 1998, has had more than enough time to wholly lessen its environmental impact. If its goal is to be kinder to the planet, why not implement real changes now? Why continue to use original fabrics like Luon—which are made from the likes of polyester, nylon, and spandex, all synthetic materials that are non-biodegradable? In lieu of these, the company could use materials that are actually sustainable, such as Mylo, which is readily available, so why are they skimping out on using them?

Lululemon: Go green… like, for real

A number of brands are already making terrific strides in terms of sustainable fashion. As the leading athleisure brand, it’s about time Lululemon joined the club.

Seattle-based Girlfriend Collective is one such company that puts the planet over profit. The activewear brand emphasizes sustainability and minimal production. The company garnered a Good On You’s best environmental rating, “Great,” for using recycled materials, reusing fabric scraps to minimize textile waste, and reducing water waste. (Good on You is a third-party evaluator of ethical and sustainable fashion. A source for brand ratings, it ranks fashion brands on a scale from 1 (We Avoid) to 5 (Great). To put this into context, Lululemon scored a 2 (Not good enough). 

Girlfriend Collective’s list of eco-friendly materials includes recycled polyester, fishing nets, and plastic. (Its best-selling pair of leggings is made from 25 recycled water bottles.) The company’s Regirlfriend program recycles most of its old pieces to turn them into new clothes. It also uses 100 percent recycled and recyclable packaging. 

The list of truly sustainable athleisure brands—which Lululemon could and should be taking notes from—continues. Founded in 1991, People Tree (which sports a “Great” Good On You rating) uses sustainable materials like organic cotton and Tencel, a material made from wood pulp, as well as non-toxic dyes. If Lululemon wants to be truly sustainable it must move away from unsustainable materials like nylon and polyester entirely, opting for recycled and/or eco-friendly materials instead—and not at a later date. Now.

Of course, sustainable fashion isn’t about one specific product or one specific brand. It’s a collective effort—solutions that must be applied across the entire fashion industry, from sourcing and production to sales and marketing. Similar to its consortium with Adidas, Kering, and McCartney, Lululemon would benefit from partnering with brands like Girlfriend Collective, People Tree, and the like. Instead of hoarding their sustainability secrets, brands could collaborate and share their proprietary knowledge on best plant-based friendly practices and fair working conditions.

The truth is, Lululemon won’t be sustainable until it changes its business model. It must reduce the amount it produces and transition to using sustainable materials across all of its collections, not just a few one-off products. 

The views expressed in opinion pieces are those of the author(s) and do not represent the policy or position of LIVEKINDLY.

Every year, makeup and skincare produces around 120 billion units of packaging. And the growing fast beauty market—which encourages consumers to buy new products constantly, sometimes offering delivery times as short as 2 hours—contributes to the detrimental impact of the shipping industry. (As a whole, shipping emits nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.) Consumers are aware of these environmental problems, and it shows in their buying habits. In fact, according to a 2021 survey, more than half of adults consider sustainability when purchasing cosmetics.

Not all celebrity beauty brands are created equal, or sustainable

These days, it’s rare that any brand debuts without at least a little sustainability-focused marketing. But the beauty industry is not a monolith, and neither are celebrities. While some big names genuinely seem to be launching skincare and makeup companies with impact missions and a commitment to low-waste packaging, others are lacking.

For example, when Selena Gomez founded Rare Beauty, she also started the mental health-focused foundation Rare Impact that would benefit from the launch. Her brand also has a website page dedicated to sustainability, where it details its commitment to recyclable, compostable, and refillable packaging options.

In contrast, some stars have teamed up with big fast beauty brands to launch collections. Makeup Revolution, for example, frequently partners with celebrities and influencers to help sell products. In these instances, while the formulas may be touted as vegan or cruelty-free, the sheer size of the corporation, and the rate at which it encourages consumption, just isn’t sustainable. (More on how to spot a fast beauty retailer here.)

The growing celebrity slice of the cosmetics market reflects what’s going on in the wider industry. Greenwashing is rife, and there are few regulations to control terms like “vegan” or “zero waste,” or even define them and how they should be used. But there are still things we can do to purchase more consciously. Before you buy from a celebrity beauty brand or collection, ask yourself: does it provide any details on how it reduces its environmental impact? Is it embracing low-waste innovation, like refillable packaging? Is it mission driven?

As consumers, we can do our own research, and hold all brands to the same standard, celebrity face or no celebrity face. We’ve pulled together some examples of celebrity brands from 2021 and 2022 that have been open about their sustainability and social impact commitments. Plus three new announcements to watch.

By upcycling waste, we can mitigate beauty’s environmental impact

According to 2019 research, upcycled products have a global market value of $150 million. Emerging and established fashion designers often repurpose plastic, deadstock fabrics, and even food scraps to make clothes and accessories. Previously, Adidas and Stella McCartney partnered to create an athletic product line made with recycled ocean plastic. And Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams teamed up with French fashion house Coperni to turn discarded apple peels into vegan leather handbags.

In beauty, forward-thinking brands like Three Ships Beauty are also reusing discarded food, plant byproducts, and even leftover lumber scraps to reduce waste. The brand’s approach is simple: use ethically sourced ingredients that don’t compromise the environment or the integrity of its goods, but also have valuable skincare benefits, like anti-inflammatory properties. 

The company’s co-founder Laura Burget says, “We wanted to look at our ingredients from the lens of sustainability to see how we could reduce our impact on the environment.”

Utilizing innovation from the fuel industry

Upcycled beauty is an example of green chemistry. This is the design of chemical products that will either reduce or completely eliminate hazardous substances. In green chemistry, the chemical process of upcycling ingredients is formally known as biorefinery. 

Biorefinery is intended to help create and promote a circular economy by utilizing plant materials in their entirety. Whether it’s using food waste or lumber scraps, the goal is to functionalize the remaining product in order to reduce the amount of waste that enters a landfill. Three Ships Beauty upcycles leftover lumber industry wood scraps, which are valuable in skincare as they target dryness and pH imbalances. Beneficial bioactive chemicals are extracted from the leftover bark. The remaining byproduct is used to create renewable energy.

Whether or not you’ve heard of the term biorefinery, it’s likely you’re already familiar with this innovative technology in action. In the early 2000s, biorefinery was a new and developing technology intended to disrupt the petroleum fuel industry. Dozens of starry-eyed startups set out to do the seemingly impossible: repurpose renewable plants into biofuels. Corn ethanol, for example, was one biofuel produced. At the time it was thought to be more eco-friendly than traditional oil (although this theory is now debunked).

But just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither were inexpensive and effective biofuels. In order to recoup lost costs and develop new streams of revenue, biofuel companies such as Pacific Biodiesel and Amyris pivoted toward beauty.

Utilizing the same biorefinery and green chemistry technologies, companies began creating eco-friendly ingredients such as upcycled macadamia nuts and fermentation-derived vegan squalene that could be used in beauty products. Amyris now boasts an impressive beauty portfolio, including the likes of JVN, Rose Inc., and Biossance. (As for biofuel, inexpensive alternatives like sugarcane-based biofuel have finally leveled up, with the global market valued at $141 billion and growing.)

Now biorefinery, whether used for beauty or biofuel, is becoming more widely accepted as a viable method for slowing the depletion of the earth’s natural resources. While it’s still a largely unexplored territory, this innovative form of green chemistry presents unique research opportunities.

“Many ingredient suppliers are starting to invest time and money into developing and sourcing upcycled ingredients,” says Burget. She explains that beneficial properties still exist in discarded food and plant waste, and upcycling gives them a second life. It also reduces the production of harmful greenhouse gasses, like methane, and preserves vast amounts of water.

Repurposing ingredients reduces pollution and saves water

Discarded waste, which includes 133 billion pounds of tossed food, emits 68 megatonnes of methane into the atmosphere each year according to the IEA. Methane is particularly destructive when compared to other greenhouse gasses. According to the US EPA, it’s more than 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

By leveraging biorefinery to upcycle, the beauty industry can begin to reduce these emissions and help to mitigate climate change. But when used strategically, leftover byproducts used in upcycled beauty can also replace petrochemical processes that otherwise cause greenhouse gas emissions. Take Three Ships Beauty’s upcycled squalane, for example, which is extracted from 100 percent renewable sugarcane. Just like the upcycled lumber scraps, any leftover sugarcane remains are used as biomass fuel, sustaining its own energy consumption. 

UN Water estimates that 2.3 billion people currently live in water-stressed countries, and 72 percent of all water withdrawals are used by agriculture. But upcycling can also help to mitigate this impact.

Bee Shapiro, founder of sustainable perfume company Ellis Brooklyn, says: “When it comes to sustainability, upcycling is a great way to cut down on waste and reduce water usage.” This is because the process of creating upcycled ingredients requires less water than harvesting new crops. But upcycling can also combat water pollution; discarded materials can break down and pollute water systems in many countries where ingredients are sourced, like Vietnam, Brazil, and India, sustaining negative ecological effects.

Not only that, but directly sourcing ingredients has led to over-cultivation, resulting in soil exhaustion and land degradation. Take Atlas Cedarwood, a popular ingredient found in many cosmetics and household products. Over-cultivation of this sought-after crop has led to its near extinction, officially landing it on the IUCN’s list of endangered species. Ellis Brooklyn opts for upcycling a different species of cedarwood in its Super Amber fragrance. This not only reduces the over-cultivation of an endangered species, but it also repurposes byproducts that may have otherwise been discarded.

Young consumers drive the growth of upcycled beauty

Upcycled beauty might still be a small part of the industry, but it’s growing bigger with the help of young conscious consumers. 

A 2019 study by First Insight found that Generation Z and millennials are more likely to purchase upcycled products than any other generation. They’re willing to pay more for them too—by as much as 10 percent. The majority of Gen-Z and millennials polled also perceived upcycled goods as higher quality and more valuable than all-new material goods. Three Ships Beauty takes this positive feedback from its young customer base into account. “Our customers love that we use upcycled ingredients because it makes them feel great knowing the positive impact they are having on the environment,” says Burget. “Consumers are demanding more transparency and sustainability from the brands they use,” she says. “I foresee upcycling becoming baseline from a sustainability perspective in the next decade.”

Pioneers like Three Ships Beauty are leading by example, and more cosmetic companies will soon follow suit. Other skincare brands such as Le Prunier, Loli Beauty, and UpCircle have long made upcycled ingredients a focal point of their brands. Even Gen-Z TikTok star Addison Rae has released her own fragrance line using upcycled plant ingredients.

There isn’t one solution for combating the current climate crisis, but upcycling provides ample benefits for both the environment and for consumers. For Three Ships Beauty, it will always be built into its ethos. “We’re not just launching products for the sake of expanding our product line,” says Burget. “We are actively in the development of several new products, all using upcycled ingredients.” 

The effects of climate change, pollution, and the depletion of natural resources have compounded, sustaining negative environmental consequences. Consumers are actively seeking more sustainable products and are calling on the industries they buy from to deliver. Upcycling and other forms of green chemistry are essential for the future of sustainable beauty, making the verdict crystal clear: upcycled beauty is not just a trend—it’s an entire movement.

The athletic apparel market, in particular, needs to make urgent improvements. This is largely because of the materials it relies on to make stretchy, durable clothing: fabrics like polyester and nylon, which are both made with oil-derived plastic. Adidas, which is often looked to as a leader in the sustainable athletic apparel space, is trying to phase out virgin polyester for good in favor of more planet-conscious options. But is this enough to reduce the sportswear giant’s environmental impact?

Adidas swaps polyester for wood pulp

In the 1950s, a “miracle fabric” hit the clothing aisles. It was durable, yet inexpensive, and could be washed over and over again without losing its shape. Named “polyester,” it was a clothing retailer’s dream. So it’s no surprise that polyester is now as common on a garment label as centuries-old cotton—with more than 50 million metric tonnes produced every year. But the world’s love affair with this miracle fabric has a major downside.

Because it’s made from plastic, polyester doesn’t biodegrade. So even when it’s thrown out of closets, it still hangs around, causing havoc in the soil and the oceans in the form of microplastic. In fact, it’s estimated that nearly 75 percent of microplastics in the Arctic come from polyester. (Read more about the damage they cause here.)

To reduce its reliance on the pollutive material, Adidas recently announced a new partnership with Spinnova. The Finnish company makes low-emission, biodegradable, plastic-free fibers with wood pulp. According to Marwin Hoffman, Adidas Outdoor’s global vice president of marketing, Spinnova will help the retailer phase out virgin polyester and “change how sports apparel will be made in the future.” Its first garment to feature the sustainable fabric is its Adidas Outdoor Terrex HS1 Hoodie, designed for hikers. 

By 2025, the company is aiming for nine out of 10 of its products to feature “a sustainable technology, material, design, or manufacturing method,” says Hoffman. He adds that the switch will help the company to reduce the carbon footprint of each product by 15 percent.

Honestly it’s about time. While Adidas isn’t the only retailer searching for a way out of their reliance on destructive synthetics, it’s one of the biggest global brands. In 2020, the Adidas Group produced 465 million units of apparel (379 million pairs of shoes alone). That means the impact of incorporating truly sustainable practices would be huge. But they’re not there yet.

While Adidas and other major brands are working to integrate sustainable fabrics into their supply chains, they haven’t gotten over their need for colossal levels of production. And without slowing this down, a sustainable future of fashion is hard to imagine. 

Sustainable materials need to go hand in hand with a drop in production

Selina Ho—the founder and CEO of sustainable fashion consulting platform Recloseted—believes that Adidas’ Spinnova partnership, and others like it, is positive progress. She understands why brands take a cautious approach first, often debuting new sustainable textiles in one or two products before a bigger launch. “In my opinion, that’s a more conscious approach because it’s important to assess demand and work out any kinks before you scale,” she explains. “Otherwise, there could be a lot of wasted product that doesn’t get sold or pass quality control inspections.”

That said, she notes that introducing sustainable innovation needs to go hand in hand with a slow down in production. “If a brand really cares and wants to prioritize lowering the amount of textile waste they’re sending to the landfills, then they absolutely should look at how much they’re producing,” says Ho.

Adidas’ head isn’t totally in the sand when it comes to overproduction. Hoffman told of Adidas’ commitment to pursuing circularity. He outlined the Choose to Give Back program, which encourages consumers in the US to send their used clothing and accessories, regardless of branding, back to Adidas. The company then passes the goods on to online thrift store ThredUp for refurbishment and resale.

At first glance, the Choose to Give Back program seems a noble endeavor. But its limitations are reflected in its name. The onus is on customers to do the right thing by choosing to send back their old garments. Some will, but many won’t. Putting the responsibility on individuals to make a circular system work is tricky, because you’re up against individual human nature, and in many cases, accessibility problems too.

According to a 2019 poll by NPR/Marist, 91 percent of US consumers rarely or never return things they buy online. Not all of these purchases are faultless, but rather people are busy, lazy, flawed. None of us are perfect. The poll stated that most online shoppers don’t return items purely because of the hassle.

When it comes to recycling, there are similar problems. According to a recent survey by the World Economic Forum, 16 percent of people find recycling inconvenient, while 15 percent lack trust in recycling programs. And for some, it’s not about choice at all. More than 40 percent of consumers said they lacked the resources to recycle. Adidas itself doesn’t offer Choose to Give Back everywhere. It sells in 160 countries, but the project is currently just in the US, although Hoffman confirmed it does plan to expand in the near future. 

Fast fashion companies can reduce production through rental and resale

Despite good intentions, fashion is still far from reaching anywhere close to real circularity. Every year, 92 million tons of textile waste is created around the world. In the U.S., 85 percent of all clothing waste is burnt or sent to a landfill. And for every person in the UK, 1.7 kilograms of textile waste is created every year.

This is disheartening. And when it comes to a sustainable future of fashion, Ho shares that sentiment. “If you think about it, the most sustainable thing for us to do would be to sit at home in the dark, walk everywhere, wear rags, and make our own food,” she says. “But that’s not realistic in today’s society. I don’t think it’s possible for a major brand to be truly sustainable because that would look like completely ceasing operations and going out of business.”

It’s grim, but we don’t have to lose hope. Instead, Ho believes the best brands can strive for is balance. And when companies pour money into sustainable materials, they are getting closer towards reaching that balance. But, put simply, it isn’t enough. Adidas could, and should, be doing more to limit the amount of garments it’s putting out into the world. In fact, it’s absolutely essential for tackling the climate crisis. 

While it’s undeniably striving to do better, another key material Adidas uses now is recycled polyester. It’s better than producing more virgin polyester, but recycled polyester still releases microplastics every time it’s washed (just one cycle can release more than 700,000 plastic fibers into waterways, according to one UK study). It’s also not a permanent solution: polyester can’t be recycled forever.

According to a new report by the Stockholm Resilience Center, plastic and chemical waste has already gone way beyond safe limits, and slowing down production across industries is now a necessity. Bethanie Carney Almroth, one of the study’s authors, said: “Maybe we have to say, ‘enough is enough.’ Maybe we can’t tolerate it anymore. Maybe we have to put a cap on production. Maybe we need to say, ‘we can’t produce more than this.’”

According to Ho, resale, consignment, and rental are potential alternatives for major fashion retailers. None are perfect, with shipping impact to consider, but like we’ve established, a flawless solution to fashion doesn’t exist. But each keeps the same garments in circulation, and reduces the need to produce more and more.

And maybe there is room for these options in Adidas’ business model. It has already dipped a toe into resale with Choose to Give Back, and it has experimented with rental too. It piloted a platform in France last year. But when questioned specifically on the project’s progress and if there were plans for expansion, Hoffman vaguely stated the pilot was part of the company’s “wider aspirations towards a circular economy.”

It’s admirable that Adidas remains dedicated to the sustainability conversation. Its stores have “sustainability zones,” says Hoffman, where customers can learn more about its commitments to the environment. Its website’s sustainability section also goes in depth on issues like plastic waste and innovation. But the bottom line is, correcting fashion’s monstrous environmental impact is going to take more bravery from major retailers than they are currently displaying. 

Instead of swapping out a few plastic cogs and hoping that’s enough, Adidas and retailers like it have to dismantle the entire machine and start fresh. The bottom line is: a wood pulp hoodie is great, but if you want to save the planet, stop producing so many clothes. There’s nothing else to it.