The fashion industry worldwide has been consistently plagued by an acute data crisis. There are far too many unsubstantiated claims and vague assumptions. In other words, there was never really a starting point ever. This report provides one, at least for Germany industry. Your comments, please.
That’s correct. While data on economic factors associated with the global fashion industry has relatively good coverage in higher income countries, in lower income countries it is sometimes difficult to understand even how many people are employed in the fashion manufacturing industry. On environmental factors, the data situation is much more sparse: it is hard in many countries to find the sort of data that is needed by policymakers to understand the impact that is being made. So, as we say in the report, understanding and measuring something is the first step towards addressing negative impacts, and this report helps to do this at least for the German fashion industry.
The study looks at GHG emissions, water/energy usage, etc, but does not look in depth at the usage of chemicals (there are some passing references to chemicals/dyes). Why is it so? Chemicals are a major concern, right from textile processing to usage, for example, in zippers. Please elaborate.
The use of chemicals may not necessarily be the largest concern if they are handled and disposed of correctly. However, it is surely the case the chemicals used in the fashion industry are not always disposed of properly, particularly in countries that lack the resources to effectively police those causing environmental pollution. A large issue where improper chemical disposal causes a problem is water contamination. We include a very conservative estimate of this issue in our estimates of the “grey water” footprint of the German fashion industry globally. This is an estimate of the amount of water polluted by chemicals. However, it is understood that the real impact of this is many times larger than we have been able to estimate, as we simply don’t have the data to form a more accurate picture.
The study also did not look into waste. I do not mean industrial waste, which is mentioned. I mean post-consumer waste, which would very much be a contributor to the industry's eventual environmental footprint.
Indeed, we have all seen photos of the products of the fashion industry collected in vast piles after people have disposed of them, and hear stories of people in high-income countries wearing garments once or twice before disposing of them. This is surely a major concern and one that would be very useful to look into: however again, there simply is not robust data on this issue unfortunately.
The study was elaborate and the methodology outlined was comprehensive. Do you think other industry organisations elsewhere can use this as a template to work with?
Oxford Economics has developed a very in-depth model for estimating the environmental footprint of companies and industries that can be used around the world, expanding on our existing economic impact models. We hope to work with other organisations in the future to determine their environmental footprint, which will help them towards reducing this impact. The methodology appendix included in the report also provides others with a blueprint for seeking to estimate their own impacts.
What sections across the textile value chain and which geographies were taken into account to arrive at the data that the German fashion industry required a total of 535,000 terajoules of energy across its direct and supply chain activities in 2019? Was the data computed similarly when work stopped the world over during the pandemic?
For this analysis we included every country in the world and every industry of the global economy. This starts by looking at the clothing and footwear manufacturing industry in Germany, and looking at their direct supply chains. We then also look at the imports of fashion products into Germany, understanding where these imports were manufactured, and then assessing the environmental footprint of the fashion manufacturing industries in those countries and along their supply chains. We looked at 2019 as that was the most recent “normal” year before the pandemic. Economic and environmental data often take some time to be published before we can use them, so a good understanding of how the pandemic has affected everything is not yet available.
Your report says that the German fashion sector supported a GDP contribution of €66 billion, and employment of nearly 1.3 million in the country. Before that you mention that “economic output in the German clothing manufacturing sector fell by 91% in real terms between 1980 and 2020. In fact, even ten years ago in 2011, it was reported that less than 5% of the clothing sold in the home market came from domestic factories”. Which sectors across the textile value chain is Germany active in? How big are those segments and how “green” are they?
Germany, of course, has a large presence at the end of the textile value chain: the wholesalers and retailers of fashion items, with Germany being a major global market for fashion products. Aside from this, we understand that Germany is an important player in the development and production of advanced textiles, including performance fabrics for sports and medical purposes, and the emerging industry of “smart” textiles incorporating electronics. We also understand that Germany is an important producer of textile-making machinery. Beyond the fact that Germany has a higher share of renewable energy in its electricity production mix than some other countries, we didn’t look into how “green” these industries are, in particular.
The domestic German fashion sector is responsible for just 0.4% of the country’s emissions. Was this finding in line with what you had expected initially? After all, most popular estimates are much higher, both at country levels as well as globally. Do you think this needs to be done at a global level too? Especially given that the fashion industry is one of the most reviled industries.
The fact that less than 5% of the clothing sold in the home market came from domestic factories of course leads to this finding that only a very small percentage of the country’s overall emissions is produced by the domestic fashion manufacturing industry. I believe it is common knowledge that most of the fashion items we buy in Europe are produced overseas, but the fact that it is high as 95% might be surprising to some readers and fashion consumers. It is absolutely important to consider the global impact of the items that we buy: the fact that much production happens overseas blinds us to the damage being caused by our current consumption habits. If the damage caused by those purchasing the end products was highly visible then it may cause people to think again about how much they need and how they use the items they buy.
Once a study is done, one always feels something more could/should have been done. Any thoughts on this?
At Oxford Economics, we have poured a lot of time and energy into developing our environmental models as far as the available data can take us. I don’t think there are many areas that we left unexplored for this study within the available data. However, I very much hope that better data availability in the future allows us to look more deeply at the aspects mentioned in your questions above—in particular, the level of water pollution and post-consumer waste as mentioned here.
