
Is Doubling the Lifespan of a Garment a Sustainability Panacea?
Doubling the lifetime of a product reduces its impact by 50%.
Repair and reselling, sure, but why are so few talking about durability in fashion?
The average number of times a piece of clothing is worn decreased by 36% between 2000 and 2015. In the same period, clothing production doubled.
These gains came at the expense of the quality and longevity of the garments. The average t-shirt in Sweden is worn around 22 times in a year, while the average dress is worn just 10 times.
In the UK, continuing to actively wear a garment for just nine months longer could diminish its environmental impacts by 20 - 30%.
Product longevity beats many other sustainability efforts in orders of magnitude.
A doubled lifetime of garments would in theory mean that only half the amount of garments would need to be produced, and the impacts in the production phase would be reduced by half.
Tackling the underlying reasons for why we over-purchase, yet underuse, clothes could also help.
Trending
-
1 How IoT is Revolutionizing Sustainability: A Brighter Future Beckons
Susanna Koelblin -
2 How The Water Treatment And Desalination Will Change The Environment For The Better
Daniel Hall -
3 How Intermediate Bulk Containers Enhance Environmental Sustainability
Daniel Hall -
4 Hybrid Cars and Their Key Benefits
Susanna Koelblin -
5 UK Faces Wettest July in Recent Memory
Daniel Hall
Comments