Fashion at COP27: The Shame Old Story

The UNEP report published on 27 October showed that updated national pledges since COP26 have made a negligible difference to predicted 2030 emissions. But that was not the stark message. The warning, in fact, was "we are far from the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C. Policies currently in place point to a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century. Implementation of the current pledges will only reduce this to a 2.4-2.6°C temperature rise by the end of the century, for conditional and unconditional pledges respectively."

The fashion industry's contribution to this callousness was brought forth in a Stand.Earth study which found that of the 10 major companies assessed, only one was projected to reduce their supply chain emissions by 55% compared with 2018 levels, in line with keeping warming below 1.5C. While many brands showed a ‘COVID dip’ in emissions in 2020, eight out of ten brands’ supply chain emissions climbed again in 2021. It's business as usual.

When the 'net-zero' concept started gaining currency, it seemed noble and the right thing to do. Pitfalls have been pointed out earlier, but as Global Witness pointed out in a pre-COP note: "'Net-zero' is not the same as 'zero emissions'. While the latter is what all companies should be aiming for in order to meet our climate goals, the former simply makes it look like you’ve achieved the latter through the use of accounting tricks. Companies can continue polluting as usual while sticking to their net-zero pledges, as long as they include “carbon-negative” activities on their balance sheet. The problem is that there’s very little regulation or standardisation as to what constitutes a carbon-negative activity."

The Global Witness warning on greenwashing was bolstered by a report of the High-Level Expert Group on the Net Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. Its report called out greenwashing and came down heavily on net-zero pledges. “We must have zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing. Today’s Expert Group report is a how-to guide to ensure credible, accountable net-zero pledges,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at the launch of the report.

If one sees this development in the backdrop of #1, that would mean all textile-apparel-fashion companies would need to rework their net-zero strategies and roadmaps. And all organisations and initiatives—from the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to Fashion Climate Fund—will have to advise partners and members to do the needful soon. Real soon.

The biggest failure of COP27 was both the unwillingness and inability of governments to clamp down on fossil fuels. The reason for this should have been obvious. A data analysis of the UN’s provisional list of named attendees by Global Witness and its partners, Corporate Accountability and Corporate Europe Observatory, found that 636 fossil fuel lobbyists had registered at COP27, an increase of over 25% from COP26 held last year in Glasgow. There are more fossil fuel lobbyists registered than representatives of the ten countries most impacted by climate change according to GermanWatch (Puerto Rico, Myanmar, Haiti, Philippines, Mozambique, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Nepal).

Worse, one of the official supporters of the event was Coca-Cola, one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world. As Greenpeace remarked: "Coca-Cola produces 120 billion throwaway plastic bottles a year – and 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, worsening both the plastic and climate crisis. They have yet to even acknowledge that this is a problem or explain how they will meet their climate goals without ending their plastic addiction. This partnership undermines the very objective of the event it seeks to sponsor."

The victory of the oil & gas lobby also means that polyester, that destructive fossil fuel derivative, is not going away any time soon. The way things stand, brands and manufacturers have only been paying lip service to the issue. While many have pledged to move away from fossil fashion, none of the big players have said a categorical "no to polyester" as yet.

The North-South divide still remains clear-cut, both at the climate negotiations events as well as in the textiles-apparel industry. The big players of the fashion industry still come from the West (read, the United States and the European Union). All major international organisations too remain dominated by either these big players themselves, or by individuals hailing from countries in the Global North. All organisations/associations, brands and manufacturers from the West keep announcing initiatives and measures on how they  bring inclusivity and equity into their respective folds, but fail miserably when it comes to bringing the Global South to the decisionmaking table.

Trade policies of Western countries (meaning the US and EU, making up NATO) today are increasingly dictated by the political policies of these nations. The globalisation we knew till the last decade seems on its last legs. The political world is fast being cleaved into what is NATO and what would be anti-NATO. Given this, the last thing that the global textiles-apparel-fashion industry would need is for industry associations from, say, BRICS countries forming their own Global (South) Fashion Agenda.

It is true that climate events don't spare anyone, including the Global North. The recent droughts in the US that wreaked havoc on cotton production would be fresh in everyone's minds. However, it is the Global South that bears the brunt. If climate policies and moves of, for instance, the SAC and GFA continue to be determined by the West, those would eventually come down to nought.

The only positive development at COP27 was the Loss & Damages Fund that will provide support to developing countries in efforts to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. Brands and retailers of US/EU need to follow this up with their sourcing hubs.

Sustainable Development Goal #12 is about "responsible consumption and production". The fashion industry has conveniently redefined it to suit its own purpose. They have been taking it too literally. The letter of the law is undermining the spirit of the law. This stems from the industry, and its consultant advisors, failing to recognise that sustainability is essentially a consumption issue. It is not just about how a product is consumed—it is more about how much is consumed. It is for this reason that brands and retailers, except for those unrelenting exceptions (mostly small players) in industry, do not promise to reduce production, or ask their consumers to buy less.

All this is justified in the name of circularity, backed up by the thesis of doughnut economics. The idea of circularity, in principle, works well for companies because they can keep producing (and selling) as the circle grows bigger by the day. And, production is increasing, as a recent Textile Exchange report has shown.