For years known as the world’s garment factory, Asian manufacturers are now embracing a tectonic shift in consumption towards sustainable fashion to ease out fast-changing fashion trends that are choking landfills and accelerating climate change.
European regulators are working towards introducing rules by 2030 that would aim for all textile products sold in the bloc to be made of recyclable, long lasting and materials free of hazardous substances. The US also appears set to follow suit over the long term, South China Morning post reported.
Globally, just 12 per cent of clothing are recycled, and most end up as waste due to fast-changing fashion trends, but the trend promises to change.
A pioneering garment maker for leading global brands, Hong-Kong based TAL Apparels says the writing is on the wall to pivot from the era of hyper consumption where clothes are bought and discarded every fashion season.
“There’s a whole movement of people that wants to get sustainably going in the apparel business,” Delman Lee, vice-chair of TAL, told This Week in Asia.
TAL, which aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by half from a baseline of 2018, says it has adopted a multipronged approach across its supply chain for procuring fabric and raw cotton in the region such as Thailand and Vietnam
The company produces garments from these inputs – supplying premium US fashion brands such as Brooks Brothers and JC Penney.
One of the key ways it is working towards the goal is by replacing coal with renewable energy for production, including encouraging its upstream suppliers to do the same for energy-intensive processes such as weaving and dyeing, Lee said.
“The fabric mills that do the weaving and the dyeing use a lot of water and heat, and heat is generated with coal,” he said.
Between 2009 and 2018, TAL reduced its greenhouse gas intensity per unit of production by 21 per cent. This translated to the avoidance of 23,450 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from operations, or about 54,292 barrels of oil.
The company has also zoomed into use of better cotton to lower its environmental impact.
The cultivation of cotton, which is one of the most widely used natural fibres in the world, can have a significant impact because of traditional farming methods that can lead to soil degradation, water scarcity, and the use of harmful chemicals.
“We have a project where we work directly with farms that grow regenerative cotton, and we commit to buying cotton from them, so that they can grow it,” Lee said, adding that farmers need such a commitment because the buzz about sustainability has yet to percolate to the farm level.
“So we go directly to the farmer and say, if you grow your cotton in such a way, and get certified to be organic and regenerative, we will commit to you and hopefully is a way to trigger the whole system working in a little bit of a demand and supply,” he added.
Regenerative farming practices aim to leave the land in a better condition than the previous cycle, whereas organic practices focus on preventing damage to the soil as well as surrounding ecosystems like recharging groundwater.
Generally, farmers stand to get higher prices for such produce, but Lee said that the process of switching completely to organic crops can take up to two years.
Even smaller businesses are gearing up for the trend.
Singapore-based Rachel Lio, founder of local fashion brand Rock Daisy, last month launched a range of apparel made completely from natural fibres, primarily designed for Asian women. The company uses Tencel, a fibre derived from eucalyptus trees.
The fabric was developed by Austria-based company Lenzing, and the firm sources it from Indonesia, and works with weavers in the country’s West Java region.
“As I understood more about how polluting the fashion industry is, and polluting in so many different ways, it was really just a wake-up call. So I decided to start Rock Daisy,” said Lio, who worked overseas in corporate jobs for several years.
The cost of the fibre is about seven times higher than polyester, a petroleum derivative.
Lio says it has been a “strong start” since the launch, but sometimes it takes a conversation for people “to understand why the price tag”.
According to the European Commission, a truckload of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second, primarily because of the “fast fashion” trend.
Christina Dean, founder of Redress, an NGO accelerating circularity in fashion, says it is imperative for Asian garment manufacturers to imbibe sustainability.
“Asia accounts for around 60 per cent of exports of garments and textiles. Therefore, getting it right with Asian garment manufacturers is very, very important,” she said.
There are several Asian manufacturers who are technologically advanced, but brands have to be willing to pay more for sustainable production because they cost more, she added. “The real challenge is that brands are generally not dipping into their pockets.” /BGNES