Is sustainable overproduction a valuable strategy?
Do you know the paradox of sustainability? The paradox is this: making many more garments labelled as green products. In other words, it means perpetrating the same old overproduction pattern and marketing it as sustainable.
If that’s how you make money, why should you change? Okay, but the planet is dying, and we are facing a climate emergency the fashion industry should care about! Well, the attention towards this topic is just a facade.
In fact, according to Edited, “In the past four years, the number of clothes described as ‘sustainable’ has quadrupled.”
Green overproduction: the paradox sustainability
Yes, we know we write about this topic a lot. But when the data we ran across confirms our impressions and perplexities, it is appropriate to address it over and over.
Is sustainable overproduction a valuable strategy? Specifically, is that how we plan to save the planet? Making four times the stuff we made before is our strategy?
If this is true, we are far from reducing our impact on the planet. Of course, that is not sustainability. And it doesn’t take a genius to understand it. So, let’s call it by its name: this is marketing! This is greenwashing!
Sustainable fashion, like eco furniture, food, tourism or whatever, has become a profitable business. And more than an effective change of direction, it represented a change of marketing. Just call it green, and you’re going to sell it! Whatever object or service you are trying to launch on the market.
The solution the fashion industry ignores
Let’s be clear: sustainable fashion, rather than making new garments and new stuff in huge green quantities, is a matter of educating people towards conscious consumption. Indeed, the solution is producing way less garments. At the same time, we reuse, resell, recycle and upcycle existing clothing.
But, instead of educating people, for the fashion industry, it is easier to make money by flooding the market with sustainable products. Which, in the end, aren’t sustainable at all.
And so, this is the paradox of sustainability: making four times more garments and naming them sustainable. Unfortunately for us and for the planet, it is not a joke!
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