Sustainable and Ethical Fashion: Let’s Get Some Clarity
Climate change and human rights have raised awareness like never before. Companies and consumers are starting to become more vigilant and reactive to these environmental and societal threats. At Cadini we are conscious of the fact that an unsustainable behavior can’t be condone any longer. Let’s untangle the complex world around sustainable and ethical fashion starting from the basics:
What is the difference between sustainable and ethical fashion?
These two buzzwords has been overused for some years now. People use them interchangeably, as synonyms, others focus only on one of the two, neglecting the other as less important. Lets make some clarity:
Sustainable fashion focuses on the environmental crisis, finding ways to preserve and restore the natural resources of the planet. More specifically, sustainable fashion focuses on what clothes and accessories are made out of and the methods in which they are produced and distributed. Connected to this topic can be linked also the concept of circularity, which aims to recycle or upcycle fashion products in order to produce new pieces with the same or higher quality for an ideally infinite amount of times.
For sustainable fashion the bottom line is to achieve carbon neutrality or positivity, ban the use of hazardous chemicals and avoid water waste and pollution. On this regard, also the choice of fibers is fundamental, favoring organic cotton, linen, mulesing free wool, and vegetable tanned leather among the many possible choices.
Ethical fashion focuses on the human aspect, ensuring workers are receiving a fair living wage, have freedom of association and can work in a safe environment. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building happed in 2013 in Bangladesh where over 1.100 garment workers died was the wake up call for many companies. Becoming Fair Trade certified ensures costumers that the certified company supports fair labor practices, helping the local communities of artisans and workers earning a living wage and work in safe conditions.
The ultimate goal for fashion companies should be to implement both aspects to the business, being aware of the environmental and societal outcome of their practices. Moreover, strengthen customers knowledge to what concerns the topics of sustainable and ethical fashion pushes companies to a higher level of accountability. At the end, we all have to do our part if we want to live in a happier and greener world.