Climate Change: Australia’s fashion industry needs urgent, transformative action

Jul 14, 2023
Blue ball of yarn on a stand for the Globe.

How many times does Australia need to be told that national actions by all stakeholders across industries or sectors are urgently needed to address climate change challenges and to avoid the destructive impacts of GHG emissions?

The challenges and the impacts have been so thoroughly identified in so many reports and significantly the IPCC reports. And keeping it up to date, a new report issued today How To Make Net Zero Happen, a collaboration of lofty University leaders, reiterates that Australia needs to accelerate its actions to eradicate fossil fuels and save the planet. As succinctly put by one of the leading authors of the report, Emeritus Professor Robin Batterham: “Our priority should be to plan well, get on with it, and adapt to the lessons we learn.”

The Australian Government stakeholder is seriously behind in its role to get planet-saving projects going. There appears to be a flawed view that joining global groupings for climate change action is the end in itself. And a lack of comprehension that the ambitions or objectives of the collective relate to what the individual members of the collective must undertake.

The IPCC final report in March 2023 described the international groups of UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement as ‘supporting rising levels of national ambition’. And went on to further describe how the Paris Agreement has led to policy development and target-setting at national and sub-national levels.

The recent announcement by Prime Minister the Hon Anthony Albanese MP that Australia had joined the G7 Climate Club appears to demonstrate his view that joining the Club is Australia’s part of a global response to addressing challenge. In the Press Conference with the Chancellor of Germany Olaf Schulz Mr Albanese expressed his delight at joining in the ‘high-ambition initiative’ of the Climate Club. And went on to say that ‘…you can’t address climate change as just a national issue. It has to be, by definition, a global response.’

With due respect to our Prime Minister, his stated view that climate change requires a global response and is not just a national issue is not supported by the Climate Club itself. The Climate Club fairly and squarely puts the mandated actions on its member nations.

The ambition of the Climate Club as outlined in this summary released by the European Parliamentary Research Service in March 2023 is to foster the implementation of the Paris Agreement and accelerate the transition towards net-zero emissions by 2050.The Terms of Reference expressly spell out the mandated activities:

  • members will engage in actions to advance climate change mitigation policies.
  • members will support initiatives to transform national industries

Australia as a member of the Climate Club has a lot of work it must do under the Club’s Charter. Actions to start transforming the Australian fashion industry must be a priority (can’t even say that actions need to be ‘accelerated’!).

It has long been documented that the fashion industry is one of the largest polluting industries in the world and that its activities have a devastating impact on climate change:

  • use of textiles made with fossil fuels which are plastics – polyester, polyurethane, PVC – and also shed micro-plastics into the environment
  • use of toxic dyes in materials and fashion pieces
  • heavy water consumption
  • transportation for online shipping order contributes hugely to annual GHG emissions
  • waste with an estimate of 85% of textiles going to landfill each year

In June 2023 the Australian Fashion Council (AFC) established the National Clothing Product Stewardship Scheme (NCPSS) – aka Seamless – giving itself a 12 months transition phase to be working. So far 6 businesses have signed up: Big W, David Jones, Lorna Jane, Rip Curl, R.M. Williams and The Iconic.The AFC proclaims that Seamless ‘will change the way Australians make, consume, and recycle their clothes’.

The level of confidence I personally have in the Seamless program having implemented by June 2024 the codes/standards/whatever being akin to legislation that regulates the fashion industry in required dimensions is close to zero. With all due deference to their early sign-up to Seamless, The Iconic does not appear to understand what is required of its Sustainability Policy with its impressive goals and targets. It has a distinct ‘hero’ sustainable path with its initiative of Considered Edit. A brand included in this category is Canadian brand Matt & Nat which makes handbags in ‘100% recycled polyvinyl’. That material is polyvinylchlorine (PVC) – described by Greenpeace as ‘the single most environmentally damaging type of plastic’. How is that product included in Considered and how does it meet the criterion that ‘The main material of this product is made with at least 50% of materials that have a lower environmental impact compared to their conventional alternatives.’?

How many times does the Australia Government need to be told that the fashion industry needs urgent transformative action because of the known harms it causes to people and planet? Australia’s membership of the Climate Club demands appropriate national actions and no amount of ‘global response’ obfuscation will work. Government action is a requirement. None more so than when it comes to a campaign to change consumer behaviours – which is the subject of a separate discussion.

Image Supplied

In closing, the words of Emeritus Professor Robin Batterham could not be more apt:

“Our priority should be to plan well, get on with it, and adapt to the lessons we learn.”

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