hello and welcome to gravitas plus i'm palki sharma padhyaya it's the 24th of october 2021 we're just a week away from cop 26. so here's a thought are you polluting the environment by wearing what you're wearing right now okay let me rephrase this is your fashion sustainable h m swears its collection is conscious levi says you're helping the planet by wearing its jeans h m is offering a discount in exchange of recyclable clothes in 2019 the search for sustainable fashion increased 75 percent brands were happy to oblige so sustainable fashion became the new trend companies today are offering guilt-free fashion ethical fashion vegan fashion recycled fashion organic fashion eco-friendly fashion and of course sustainable fashion zara says it will make its clothes 100 sustainable by 2025. h m says a lot of its clothes are already sustainable and that it will run on 100 renewable energy by 2040. prada says it is reusing plastic in its nylon backpacks adidas make similar claims levi stross says it will soon cut greenhouse gas emission in the in-house facilities by 90 percent valenciaga claims to be eco-friendly so does burberry court says it won't destroy unwanted merchandise anymore uniqlo has even appointed doraemon as its sustainable ambassador but here's the problem uniqlo is not nobita so how can doremon the fictional japanese cat help uniqlo achieve its sustainable goals h m says its collection is conscious but it doesn't explain how the alternative materials are better for the earth also where did h m's conscience go when in 2019 it over produced 4.3 billion dollars worth of goods what happened to them some of zara's clothes have the joint life tag it is stamped by the forest stewardship council the problem is the stamp is just for the tag which means the tag and only the tag is eco-friendly when chanel says it is climate conscious it does not mean the clothes are harmless it means it has committed 35 million dollars to install solar panels in california to make up for its environmental sins in 2018 burberry destroyed 36.8 million dollars worth of excess merchandise like i mentioned burberry claims to be an environment conscious brand here's what the eu commission found 42 of green claims by companies are exaggerated false or deceptive fashion houses say they're sustainable without saying how there's a word for this it's called green washing meaning distraction from the real issue the real fact the real fact being fashion is inherently unsustainable it emits greenhouse gases uses a very large amount of water and also pollutes the water did you know that it takes 594 gallons of water to make a single t-shirt 594 gallons that equals to 2248.534 liters that's the amount of water a person drinks in two and a half years how does a t-shirt need so much water it takes 20 000 liters of water to make one kilo of cotton one kilo of cotton is just about enough to make a t-shirt and a pair of jeans the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water every year that's enough to fill 37 million olympic swimming pools in uzbekistan 50 years of cotton farming dried up the aerial sea water is also needed to dye a piece of cloth this synthetic water is then released into river streams and oceans where do the micro plastics end up in fish and then it served hot onto our plate let me also tell you about carbon emission the fashion sector is responsible for eight to ten percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that's more than the emissions of aviation and maritime shipping industries put together what's more there is also waste fashion produces four percent of global waste fast fashion is a threat to this planet zara adds new designs every two weeks it puts at least 24 collections every year h m offers anything between 12 to 16 collections per year today there are at least five fashion seasons back in 2000 there were just two clothing production has doubled since the year 2000. in 2014 for example people bought 60 more clothes than in 2000 but they kept those clothes for half as long fast fashion has become a mantra changing fashion is the new trend monograms are currently in not too long ago they used to be tacky one day neon is hot the next day it's not square front heels were out 10 years ago today everyone is wearing them all over again before you know it they will be discarded again estimates say nearly three-fifths of all garments end up in incinerators within years of being made 93 million tons of used clothes go to landfill every year a lot of this is burn how much is 93 million tons you ask enough to fill a truck with clothes every second for one year can you imagine the scale also that's enough to fill the sydney harbour every year the same designs return to the market within years it no longer takes an error for puff sleeves to return you no longer have to wait a decade for printed denims to become fashionable again can you save your clothes till then well that's not an option either today your clothes are designed to tear estimates say we purchase nearly 150 billion garments every year 150 billion the more the production the worse the material the cheaper the clothes the more the pollution have you noticed how most of the clothes online today are polyester that's because it's cheap also extremely polluting polyester releases two to three times more carbon than cotton it also does not break down in the ocean also speaking of oddline there are influencers on instagram ready to sell you the latest trend every day thousands of articles are schooling you on how to club a print with another there is fashion police in every room there is a dress code for every event and this is the business model of fashion it is designed to keep you shopping well who pays the bills the planet and you 100 billion new garments hit the market every year the production of apparel and footwear is expected to rise 81 by 2030 the world will then be producing 102 million tons of these fashion goods every year the u.s apparel market is expected to be worth over four billion dollars by 2028 the fashion houses will not stop so should government step in and do something well france has banned burning of surplus fashion goods canada has slapped carbon tax governments can regulate they can stop the word sustainable from being abused governments can also spend on research and development to eco-friendly fashion they can cap production because fashion houses just won't hit the break this is an industry that feeds on your insecurities forces you to believe that it is impolite to repeat clothes it bombards you with discounts forces you to buy in excess it already has you believing that fine clothes an expensive bag and the perfect shoes can make you a champion a lot of them lie about being eco-friendly so that your shopping experience is also guilt-free well this is marketing the fashion industry knows that most of us are not even aware of our own carbon footprint let alone taking time out to go check up on theirs or fact check their claims who has the time the fashion industry knows that we will blindly pick a garment or a bag that reads organic just like we pick a bag of organic vegetables over the regular variety but you see food labels are regulated in most countries sellers can be punished for falsely using the organic tag but sustainable is not a regulated term a fashion ceo will not land up in jail for selling normal cotton as organic cotton which by the way is not proven to be truly better so who are we really kidding sustainable fashion is a hoax currently 35 of all micro plastics in the ocean are from washing our clothes 35 the fashion industry remains the second largest consumer of water the water used for dying alone could fill two million olympic sized swimming pools every year cotton fields use 11 percent of the world's pesticides you see fashion thrives on over purchase and over production because fashion houses will make money only till the time they make more clothes when they stop their fun stop but profit and planet are mostly incompatible in the case of fashion it is inherently unsustainable [Music]