{"id":12465,"title":"Illustrating the issues: Fashion needs a redesign","description":"The fashion industry is now worth more than 2.5 trillion dollars. It's responsible for 10% of humanity's carbon emissions and one of the world's larger polluters. Being serious about sustainability means fashion needs a redesign. When it comes to communicating exactly how your brand is having an impact or why you chose to build your brand with Teemill, it's important to know about the problems you're helping to solve. That's why we've created an illustrated library of impactful stats about the fashion industry that you can download and share from Drive. Use them to start important conversations about sustainability and talk about how your brand breaks the business-as-usual mould.","content":"

1.92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced every year<\/a>. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of humanity's carbon emissions (World Economic Forum) and is one of the world's largest polluters. Being serious about sustainability<\/a> means fashion needs a redesign.<\/p>

When it comes to communicating exactly how your brand is having an impact or why you chose to build your brand with Teemill, it's important to know about the problems you're helping to solve. That's why below you'll find our illustrated list of stats that show the impact of the fashion industry.<\/p>

Your products provide solutions. The below stats contrast greatly with how your Teemill products are made - low waste, using organic materials and renewable energy and designed to be remade as part of a circular economy. <\/strong>You can download the stats from Drive <\/a>for easy sharing and start important conversations about sustainability - make sure to tell customers how your brand is working to change them.<\/p>

Water<\/h3>

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According to the World Economic Forum,<\/a> this is enough for one person to drink at least eight cups per day for three-and-a-half years. Your t-shirts are special because the fields that grow the organic cotton for your products are in the North of India. There, the monsoons fill reservoirs that supply almost all the water needed, rather than drawing on water that could be used for drinking.<\/strong><\/p>

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Textile dyeing <\/strong>is the world\u2019s second-largest polluter of water, since waste from the dyeing process is often dumped into ditches, streams, or rivers.<\/a> Where your fabrics are dyed, the water is recovered, cleaned and recirculated.It's even clean enough to drink<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>

Carbon<\/h3>

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That\u2019s not just the air freight emissions from rushing stock into stores for fast fashion seasons, it\u2019s the pesticide and fertilisers that go into conventional farming, or the oil that\u2019s extracted to make polyester and other plastic fibres. These emissions<\/a> equal more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Using natural materials in your products means no fossil fuels, only super soft organic cotton.<\/strong><\/p>

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If business-as-usual continues, fashion's share of the carbon budget will jump to 26% by 2050, according to a 2017 report <\/a>from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. To counter this, our factories use renewable energy from the wind and sun and your store can get involved in tree-planting<\/a> offers to recover CO2 from the atmosphere too.<\/strong><\/p>

Farming<\/h3>

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This is despite the conventional cotton farming only using 3%<\/a> of the world's fertile land. Your products being certified organic means that no chemical nasties are used on the organic cotton crops and our fields help wildlife in the area thrive.<\/strong><\/p>

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This is an extra 115 million hectares<\/a><\/strong>,<\/a> and five times the size of the UK. That\u2019s land that will displace biodiversity in those regions. By making clothes that are designed to be remade, less land and fewer resources are needed to make new stuff again and again - this is the philosophy behind all of your products.<\/strong><\/p>

Plastic<\/h3>

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The proportion of synthetic fibres in clothing has gone up to 60%<\/a> in 2019. Synthetic fibres don't biodegrade and will be around for hundreds of years. By contrast, your products and packaging are always made from plants, not plastic.<\/strong><\/p>

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Washing clothes releases <\/a>the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles of microplastics every year but each tiny fibre <\/a>is small enough to be absorbed by plankton and go upwards into our food chains. Polyester does not break down in the ocean so it can never be cleaned up by nature. Organic cotton, on the other hand, is a biodegradable, natural material. That means no pollution on land or in the sea as your products use no plastic whatsoever.<\/strong><\/p>

Waste<\/h3>

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Most clothes are designed to be thrown away<\/a>, instead of preserving the material. Your products are designed from the start to be sent back so they can be remade into new products, again and again - this is called a circular economy.<\/strong><\/p>

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The average person also buys 60% more items of clothing a year than they did 15 years ago. This means that clothes are kept for half as long, according to Greenpeace<\/a>. Your products are specifically designed <\/a>to be versatile and timeless, instead of going after short term trends. Your customers are more likely to love them for longer.<\/strong><\/p>

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In the UK alone<\/a>, textile waste is worth \u00a3140m and three hundred thousand tonnes <\/strong>of clothing still ends up in household bins<\/a> every year. While recycling leads to a little bit more use out of a material, it doesn\u2019t close the loop and prevent waste for good. Your customers can send back any product from your store to be remade into something new as part of our circular economy so it never goes to landfill.<\/strong><\/p>

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Combine the fact that 15%<\/a> of clothing is wasted at the cut-off stage of production with the knowledge that clothing production has doubled<\/a> since 2000, with fashion companies releasing more and more collections <\/a>every year, and it's easy to see why there are mountains of waste piling up. The solution can't simply be to slow down fashion as we'd be heading the same way, just slower. We've made the system circular instead by remaking worn out material.<\/strong><\/p>

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And most of these trees <\/a>then go to waste. The base for materials like rayon and viscose wastes approximately 70%<\/a> of the trees<\/strong> they're made from. On our organic cotton farms, every part of the plant is used. The waste seeds are pressed into cakes which are sold for organic cow feed and vegetable oil is squeezed out for use in food products.<\/strong><\/p>

Sustainable consumption<\/h3>

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The value of the ethical clothing market increased by nearly 20% <\/strong>annually in recent years, according to the Ethical Consumer <\/a><\/u>Market Report. That means there are more and more people out there searching for brands just like yours.<\/p>

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This stat<\/a> shows how important design for longevity is. All your products are designed<\/a> to stand the test of time using high quality printing methods and natural materials.<\/strong><\/p>

Your brand is part of the solution<\/h2>

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--Remember to share how your brand is contributing to sustainable solutions such as remaking worn out products. You can give hope as well as the hard facts.<\/em><\/p>

You're already part of the solutions to these issues with products made using natural materials, in factories powered by renewable energy. They're vegan-friendly too. Even better, all your orders arrive in plastic-free packaging. Through promotional offers<\/a>, your brand can also get involved in tree-planting and plastic recovery. You can track your impact easily on your Analytics page.<\/a><\/p>

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--You can find out more about how your products go from seed to shop on our Journey page<\/a> and add this page to your own site too, for customers to explore.<\/em><\/p>

Every item is designed from the start to be remade so your customers can send them back when they're worn out. There's no waste, just natural materials flowing round and round. That's circular fashion. Encourage your customers to send their products back to be remade and get all the details on our Circular Fashion page<\/a>.<\/p>

To keep learning...<\/h2>

If you want to learn even more about how we can work together to make fashion sustainable, you can check out the below resources and post your own in the comments:<\/p>