Fashion Industry’s Impact On Climate Change

I'm James Taylor and you're listening to the super creativity podcast a show dedicated to inspiring creative minds like yours. This month witness cop 26 in Glasgow a summit that brings the world together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. To mark the occasion, we decided to record a special series of the super creativity podcast that will focus on sustainability and climate change. For this series, I'll be joined by a co-host for the first time ethical futurist, lawyer, engineer, actor, jazz singer, and sustainability keynote speaker Allison burns. Together, we'll be having conversations with leading thinkers on topics as diverse as sustainable food, fashion, and ESG. Those environmental, social, and governance issues affect business today. Our guest this week is Maxine Beda, the founder, and director of the new standard institute a think and do tank dedicated to turning the industry into a force for good. She is a former lawyer and the co-founder of the ethical fashion brand, ZD. She is also an ambassador at the Rainforest Alliance and has spoken at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and the Clinton Global Initiative. Her groundbreaking book unraveled chronicles the birth and death of a pair of jeans, and at the same time, exposes the fractures and global supply chains and our relationship to each other, ourselves. And the planet. Enjoy the show. So Maxine, fantastic to have you with us today. 

 

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James Taylor  0:00  

We've loved the book Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment. So how does it feel? Your first book, I believe, as well,

Maxine Bedat  1:33  

it is yeah, my first book,

James Taylor  1:36  

it did it did it? How did it feel getting this book out? Because you kind of love that you wrote you say that the research over many, many years for it.

Maxine Bedat  1:44  

Yeah, it took me several years of research. And, you know, I have one human child. And this definitely feels like a book child. It was many years a lot of people's input, traveling around the world, a lot of time doing desk research. And it's been Yeah, certainly gratifying to put it all together.

James Taylor  2:07  

Now, before we go into some of the ideas in the book, I love the way you structured the book as well, taking this life of a pair of jeans and kind of those different stages that we'll go through. And we're just we're here very close to Glasgow where they've had cop 26 is going on just now. We were talking before we kind of came on today, it felt like fashion didn't really get talked about too much during cop 26. This year, there's a lot of things about travel air travel about food about different diets, but not so much about fashion.

Fashion Industry’s Impact On Climate Change

Maxine Bedat  2:41  

Yeah, it is. It's hard. I think, you know, there was some presence of the fashion industry in Glasgow, but as you said, it's not the headline is certainly not the headlining issue, I think we're still really trying to get this on the global agenda and have people understand the global impacts that this industry has, I think it's become so kind of out of sight, out of mind. For so many people in positions of power, that it's kind of inconceivable that this industry can have such an enormous impact. So it hasn't been, you know, put as a priority issue in which it needs to be, you know, based on just the facts of the matter.

Allison Burns  3:29  

I was reading recently, Maxine, that there's something like 92 million tons of clothes go to landfills on a global. And I think as annually, it's quite a shocking number. And obviously, I'm we're still we're just in the final days of cop 26. And, and interestingly, there were some reporters out on the street in Glasgow, talking to all waited age ranges of people just out in the street and asking their views on fashion and fast fashion and, and will the will they continue to buy the same amount of clothes. And actually, there was some awareness but actually, overall, more particularly just from this, I mean, it's anecdotal, but this particular bunch of interviews, it seems to be that younger people seem to be not too willing to give up, you know, the fast purchasing and you they want to change the look, change, change everything on an almost like a monthly basis. So do we really, we really need the fashion industry to take the lead on this because I don't know how to how do you envisage that consumer behavior will change so that they and also consumer awareness?

Fashion Industry To Take The Lead

Maxine Bedat  4:48  

Yeah, it's really um, it's very hard to put that on to young people to change their behavior because, you know, it is often presented as like, this is what The consumer is demanding, but we're ignoring the fact that this, these products are being advertised to young people at an unprecedented pace. So you have social media, you have algorithms, you have the fashion companies, and you have the influencer marketing system, they are constantly exposed to messages to continue to buy these products. So I think it's a little skewed, I think to then, you know, try to turn around and say, the consumer has to change, of course, we all, you know, take responsibility, but that that whole engine, you know, billions of dollars being put to get people to continue to purchase and to really shift from when I was young. You know, clothing was expensive, it was something that you had to really think about because you couldn't, you know, you didn't have one couldn't afford to purchase a lot of it. And the business model, you know, behind the fashion industry has completely changed even since, you know since I was a kid. So that, you know, I think it's, it is a bit unfair, given the system, given the power of the system, you know, to ask consumers to be the ones that are driving the change here.

Allison Burns  6:18  

And it seems to me that that's how the media are even projecting that because even in those, those small snippets of interviews, it's seeing, as all lands on the consumer show shoulders, which is completely like you said, it's completely skewed. Because I remember going, you know, flicking through magazines, whenever when I was younger, and people say, Oh, this is what's a no, we need to go and buy this. So it was all the advertising. And even in that, in those days, it was all in paper form in magazines. But no, it's much more pervasive. It's, it's, it's everywhere on social media, and it's like like you said the influencers? For bad?

Maxine Bedat  6:55  

Yeah, yeah, I think it's just, you know, a very tall asked to, especially for young people who identity is so important, and this market has, you know, really tied on to that, that need for identity and wrapped it up into purchasing new things. You know, more than ever before. And, you know, the industry, I think it is really important to recognize just because I think depending on you know, how you know, where one is just how disposable clothing has come for become for young people. You know, there's, you know, surveys done out of the UK that women find one in three women, young women find their clothing to be old after wearing it just one or two times, that level of disposability that we are now seeing, you know from this very polluting very exploitative, disposable fast fashion that's entering the scene. And then, you know, as we discussed combined with algorithms, social media, influencer marketing, you know, it's just young people's brains. You know, it's, it's really ripe for exploitation in that way.

Where Clothes Are Made

James Taylor  8:12  

Yeah. That you start the book walking around. Okay, an event, I think was in New York, a big sales event of different clothing, different fashion for buyers, they're asking the question, for different items. Where was this made? And I know as they were going through the same same thing, going to shops asking, where is this made? Ask them to like the provenance of something? At that point, you had very vague answers that you were receiving, I guess from them, and it might be something Asia, or maybe China. That was that was that was the thing. If you were to go back, and I think I was that was 2007. I think there was a year of tripping over the year that you first went in that walk around? Yep. So if you went into that same conference, that same exhibition now, would you think it would be any different would people have a better understanding the selling the items? Or that where the actual things came from?

Maxine Bedat  9:10  

That's a great question. Um, I think that there is there would not be more awareness, I would say overall, I would, but I would say there would be more caution to sound so completely clueless, you know, I we got, you know, in walking through that facility, I not facility that conference hall. You know, I remember people you know, saying, China, Asia, the Orient like thing, you know, like language that is just not okay to use in this century. And so I think there would just be a little bit more awareness around those types of issues, but I don't think we've made meaningful progress across the board in the in the industry in terms of a company really knowing Where their products come from. And that, you know, really, part of the aim of the book was to really create that conversation and make sure that that is something that would be changed in the future.

James Taylor  10:12  

One of the things I loved about the book is we've just had some guests on recently who are travel writers. And this book is also a kind of secret travel book, as well as, so you kind of go through these different stages that the, imagine a garment like a pair of jeans would go through, like first age, the growing of the cotton, and you talk about a farmer and text that has to be organic, and other types of cotton there, then you move over to China about the actual textile making. And then you move to Bangladesh, for the cutting and the sewing. And then the kind of back to, I guess, the US again, about the marketing side of things. And then to Amazon, Amazon warehouses for the packaging and distribution. And then finally, we end up in Ghana, of all places for the recycling, and the kind of landfill side as well. So when you were writing this, did you kind of like feel you're also writing a bit of a travel book, as well, because it's a very global industry.

Fashion Industry A Global Industry

Maxine Bedat  11:11  

And I never thought of it that way. I do remember, a friend had read an early draft. And his feedback to me was, he spent a lot of time working in China. And he's, you know, in reading that chapter, he said, I can tell you've definitely been there before, you know, I think he'd landed on the scene where I'm driving in the car of the assistant of the factory. And, you know, the the guy had, like, Ford was watching like four different movies while driving all texting. And he said that you've definitely been in China. So you know, I think it is definitely a global industry. And the story of a pair of jeans will take you around the world as it as it did in the book. And I guess I just wanted, I really, I felt a lot of pressure to make sure that I wanted through the book that people could see what I was seeing. And I just, you know, I really made an effort, I hope I came across to bring people along with me in the journey that I that I got to take so yeah, I guess it was I, I hope it was a travel journey, because it was for me. So no, it was

James Taylor  12:25  

like that. But it was nice. And perhaps this is the fact that was a book as opposed to a doc TV documentary is that when you went to the China piece, looking at the the Garmin met in the dying especially, you actually went to two different factories. And you kind of showed both the good and the bad that you know, we often think about China in terms of manufacturing, it's going to be very poor conditions. But you actually started that chapter, almost kind of hopeful, obviously, there's still huge environmental issues and other things around it as well, but was a key thing you wanted to try and get across. It wasn't just a black and white picture.

Maxine Bedat  13:00  

Yes, and thank you for saying that, because that is definitely something that I was trying to get across. I, you know, the the the reason for writing the book was honestly quite a selfish one, I wanted to understand better what was happening, I knew that in my role today as director of the new standard institute that we would be advocating for different policy, I didn't want to be advocating for policy, you know, speaking as a lawyer with unintended consequences, because it's a place I've never been our, you know, the people that I've never met. And so I really was struggling, you know, trying to understand, you know, I feel people are so much led by narratives and walking into a space and I, I really tried as much as possible to not have that story in my head before I actually saw, you know, spoke to people, you know, read the research and the data. And, you know, and it is true that a lot of these things. There is nuance there, I think, you know, the, the story of China, and I think in Bangladesh as well, like living standards, just the living ages have gone up in Bangladesh. While I, I still think you can make a lot more progress in the space. But you have to you have to see the nuance, and I think if we're going to get to the solutions which they exist, we need to have that nuance as well.

James Taylor  14:30  

And so when you went to the Bangladesh piece, it was interesting because it almost felt the factory owners there were as interested in your experience of the Chinese factories like what are they doing? What is the technology they're using? You do sense in your writing that there is a fear in a lot of factories in Bangladesh about automation coming through? We were just talking about it before we came on and we were filming this today is in near political Dundee, which you would have had the jute mills in the 1880s 1860s. And it was interesting, you know, there was a women's land movement that came out from that, because a lot of the women that came here came from Ireland. And so the immigrants from Ireland, and there was a whole interesting kind of movement of women, unionization land, which was things that were going on in Ireland at the time as well. And you didn't seem to be that. In Bangladesh, there was a kind of going on. And obviously, the jute factories, they all kind of went away automation came in or different things came in. So what was your sense in terms of when you were in Bangladesh about that kind of automation piece in the unionization side?

Fashion Industry Race To the Bottom

Maxine Bedat  15:37  

Well, I think it's hard. It's interesting that you say that about the women, workers where you are because it was also, in part, the Irish women immigrants in the textile mills in the US as well, together with a lot of Jewish immigrants that were working in the cut and sew sector in New York, that that really pushed for a lot of the early labor movement in the United States. The difference between the United States and the UK, and what's happening in Bangladesh, is that the women were able to make progress because the businesses couldn't just go somewhere else. And that's the issue that's happening in Bangladesh is that women don't have the power workers don't have power there. Because if they start to demand higher wages, a brand will just go to another country. And so that is you know, the real race to the bottom is that governments even if they are not, you know, not corrupt, and want to help their workers, they are a bit stuck and stymied, because they if they start to, to say, Okay, we're going to increase our minimum wage, then the industry will just up and leave to a to a place that is less supportive of workers. And so that I think is, you know, the real difference historically to understand is that, you know, earlier, we didn't live in this globalized, con, globalized world that doesn't have any safeguards for workers. And so now we have an industry that is really part of this race to the bottom. And I think it's, it's important to realize that the fashion industry, why they're kind of the, it's a marquee industry, for this sort of race to the bottom is that, unlike, say, in the tech sector, it still doesn't, it's not very capital intensive to start a factory, it's still just, you know, require sewing machines, and at its most basic level, and so it's, you know, kind of ripe for exploitation, because it's doesn't require a lot of capital. And so this, these industries can move about.

Allison Burns  17:52  

That's interesting, because I'm an animal advocate, and I, I remind myself daily, to focus on the victim, focus on the victim and keep the focus on that. And that kind of guides me ethically in relation to how I think about things and what I do. And do you think, do you think the fashion industry now really needs to start focusing on on the victim within the fashion the victims within the fashion industry? I don't mean, you know, that everyone's suffering, but there is, you know, there's, there's unfairness and the planet suffers. The animals suffer, and, and been exploited, and also inevitably, as women and girls, who are being paid less and less. So how can that change? How can that change happen? You know, it's like, if slaughterhouses had glass walls, people would think differently about how do you shine a light into the opaqueness? Or, you know, how to how do you see that?

Agriculture Is Also Clothing

Maxine Bedat  18:50  

Yeah, I mean, the book is definitely an effort to do that. And, you know, I think about the food movement. And, you know, it seems like it's about 10 years ahead of the fashion, you know, progress in the fashion industry. And I just think about how many books, how many movies, how many documentaries, how many news programs, how many podcasts that have been, you know, written about the subject of food and land use, we also neglect the fact that agriculture is also clothing, not just-food. Yeah. And that, you know, we need to insert this industry into those conversations, because they haven't been included yet. And so I think it is, you know, part of the effort of the book is getting those stories out there so that it becomes a priority. And then the work that we continue to do at the new standard Institute now is then, you know, how can we then shift that greater awareness to actually policy change? And I think that is how we're going to see progress because the industry itself has, you know, been speaking about sustainability for over a decade now. And we're just seeing greater and greater emissions, greater impact, more exploitation of people and land. And you were talking about women, the, it's hard to find very solid figures, but the best figure out there is that 80% of garment workers are women that aligns with what I see, you know, in the many, many factories that I've been to. So it is it's an industry that exploits women and

James Taylor  20:29  

children. Yeah. We were talking the other day, about we needed to get some new stage clothing. Allison's also jazz as well as being a lawyer, jazz singer, and speaking and lawyer. So she's always asking, Okay, you're trying to find ethically sourced kind of clothing, it's hard when you go and most places don't know where that fabric came from, where that material came from, where it's being manufactured, was being made. And, and we kind of like, usually defaulted to because we don't wear like maybe animal products and wool products. So we default to this kind of faux vegan leather and other things. But what I found I found very interested in the book is towards the end of the book, you started talking about the fossil fuel side. I think once that in a bit, was it by 2050, that fashion clothing could account for 25% of all carbon dioxide, something like a really huge, ridiculous mind-blowing number. And then you can have led that to the point saying, well, some of these vegan clothing these fabrics take leathers for example. Okay, you may not be harming an animal in the making of that fabric. But it requires petroleum. Because it's, you're wearing plastic, by one way or the other. So that was a virus for me, that was one of the many lightbulb moments in the book.

Enormous Global Impact

Maxine Bedat  21:48  

Yeah, it's a thing that people don't realize, you know, I again, with the news coverage about the plastics issue, it is very much associated with plastic bottles. And uh, you know, you rarely hear in the plastic conversation, the fact that the number one fiber source today, in this disposable fashion world is plastic. And, and so, you know, it's, it's on us, it's on organizations like ours, it's on, you know, books like this to help shift that narrative to just reflect reality, I think 13% of all plastic produced is going into these synthetic fibers. So it's a very significant part of the plastic puzzle. And as you said, we've moved away from an industry that has, you know, where our clothing comes from the farm to where our clothing comes from the oil rig, I also just, I do need to add that it's, if you just switch to natural fibers doesn't mean that you've solved the climate problem, because, in fact, the biggest part of the impact, regardless of what fiber you're using, is how that fiber is turned into a textile. That's really when we think about the carbon hotspot of the lifecycle of a garment. It's there, it's at the textile mills because it takes enormous amounts of energy. And we're doing it in places like China, which still uses a coal-based iron grid, sorry, coal-based energy grid, to turn that fiber into it, spin it in to get it all going in one direction, spin it into yarn, get that yarn woven, or knit into textile and dyed and finished, you know, into the clothing that we're wearing today. So yeah, it's we're both moving to fibers that are based on fossil fuels. And then we're using a whole lot of fossil fuels to turn that fiber into a textile. And then we are changing our relationship to clothing from really caring for and keeping our clothing and having a value in our clothing, to a relationship of disposability, and it's that combination together, which is why we have an industry that has such an enormous global impact.

James Taylor  24:13  

Yeah, it was, as I was reading a book, and I think we were in the kitchen a time as I was reading it, and I kept every so often I would stop and I would shout over to Allison if you never guess but did you know but everything. So she's probably quite annoyed by the end of the evening because I just know but I'm one of the ones and this is totally new to me was the whole influencer side. And also the stylists, those red carpet moments that that you know, you can have guessed that many celebrities are paid to wear certain clothing as well. But at no point is either an influencer whether it's TikTok, or what or whether it's that celebrity on the carpet. Did there seem to be any kind of ethical or sustainable sense to what was going on? It was kind of I find it very interesting because we think I think this younger generation is coming through as some of the most conscious of environmental things. But it seems to be as soon as you get onto TikToK Oz, then it kind of all goes away. So in some ways, someone's actually felt a little bit sorry for the celebrities, because you told a story about what they have to do about why they have to wear certain things. But another part was thinking, well, they had this huge opportunity to save the stylist, you're going to not just have to get me something that makes me look great on that catwalk or that red carpet, but it has to be sustainably sourced.

Influencer’s Part

Maxine Bedat  25:34  

Yeah, I mean, I think when you start to look at celebrities, as the as their accountants do, um, you know, as a business, you really do get to see how, you know, for many celebrities, their movies are sided gigs, the real moneymakers is their relationship with brands. So they are, you know, just like Amazon workers, very integral parts of the fashion industry. And, you know, and, and we've been doing even research on this further, when you, when you listen in on quarterly earnings calls, from some of these brands, they are seeing their biggest success is celebrity engagement, that is what's driving their business, their entire, you know, marketing is through these celebrities, especially for these, like the Boo, who's the kind of next-generation fast, fast, like super-fast fashion players. And so I think that is important, I think there hasn't been enough conversation at all kind of making celebrities and influencers aware of the, you know, that they are the engine, you know, of all of this. And I think that that conversation needs to be had, I think there needs to be more awareness. I feel like, you know, because of the work we do we engage with celebrities, and, and influencers. And what you, you know, what you see in the back end is managers are there to kind of just maximize how much money they make, and there isn't that sort of conscious step, you know, in between, between the managers and the celebrities of like, maybe this will make me money but is this the sort of brand I want to align with? And I think that you know, we really need to all of us, you know, with the jobs that we take, and you know, the celebrities as well, to really think about what, you know, what they're making money off of? Because I think, you know, I would be hard-pressed to think that a celebrity would endorse a cigarette brand or a cold, cold, you know, coal mine. It's odd, then that they are so quick to endorse a fashion company, which is just based on coal.

James Taylor  27:55  

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, as you go through the book, it's, there's so many fascinating, it's great that the work you're to do in terms of finding the data. So it's, everything's properly kind of support. Obviously, that's your legal side, they're just ensuring that as back the facts are there which is great. So it's, it's was properly researched book. And as you're kind of going through, but there's all this kind of aha moments, I think those lightbulb moments. And at first, I was thinking, Oh, this is going to be quite a depressing book, as I'm reading it, because you kind of, you kind of get in there. But there's the there's little shot and chains of light. And then right at the very end of the book, you describe your you caught your 2030 vision about what this looks like if we get it right. If we go a different track, can you maybe just like, talk us through what that vision looks like? Because I think that would help us. It also provides a useful juxtaposition of where we are now.

We Are Now

Maxine Bedat  28:52  

Yeah, no, and thank you for that I really made a lot of effort. It was hard. So I wanted to, you know, explain what the situation was, and not kind of sugarcoat it. But also, the whole reason to explain and not sugarcoat was to say that we actually can change this. And so you know, it was very much like a, how do I, you know, give people the little bits of sugar on the way so they keep reading so we can get to that most, you know, the most important part of the book, which is like, we have the capacity to changes it doesn't have to be this way. And so, you know, I think for what 2030 can look like it's, it's, you know, really starting with our own relationship to clothing, because, you know, through this book, I and through my general work, I get to speak to a lot of shoppers about their relationship with their closets and if you spent any time really thinking and talking to shoppers like it gets, you know, they have a very complicated relationship, I think especially women because of all the marketing messages. a complicated relationship with their wardrobes. It's not something that they feel great about, they don't have a great relationship with their clothes. And so I think just starting with that, really regaining that, or not maybe regaining, but like gaining for the first time, a relationship with clothes, so that the things that you do buy and have you like them, which is not actually a thing that we can assume. So that's the start is like actually having a wardrobe that doesn't feel overwhelming. You know, that isn't one of the shoppers I spoke to, she was expanding out, you know, taking over another room for her closet. of it, even though she said she only wears, like, 5% of the things that she has. And as she was talking, she like, kind of realized how crazy it all sounded. And so I think, you know, starting with that, while at the same time, really understanding and seeing that our greatest role is one as citizen, not as this kind of consumer that we've been, you know, so bred to believe. And through that, through that shift, being able to engage with policymakers get this on the agenda, create the, you know, the basic rules of the game for how companies can operate, and what does the you know, what would those basic rules mean? Well, if you're going to create a garment, the people that you are, that are working in your supply chain, they're going to be paid a decent wage, they're not going to live, you know, be paid so little that they can afford food that they live in a room, you know, the size of my arm span, that they can actually live decent lives. What it means is that a company is operating within the Paris Agreement talking about Kopp, that they are actually working with their suppliers to make energy efficiency upgrades, and to move to renewable energy, all of this is technology that already exists, it's just a matter of the will to get it done. And then it means actually managing the chemical usage within within the product, like, you know, as I, you know, talk about in the book that the industry in the places where the industry exists operates is just a series of ever more black rivers. And, and that isn't that can be managed, this isn't rocket science, it's just if you're cutting corners all the time, this is inevitably going to happen. So it's having clean rivers that are full of fish that were full of fish just a generation ago, bringing that back. And, and, and all of it is very much a win win. And there's still plenty of profit to be made. You know, on top of that, um, you know, there has been some research on what it would cost for a garment if the, the garment workers are receiving a living wage, and it was something like 10 or 15 cents on per gram.

James Taylor  32:54  

That's that blew me away. When I saw that. And I that was one of the ones I turned out and said Did you know and I think if more people just knew that number, they would realize just how shocking. Yeah, what's going on?

Maxine Bedat  33:08  

Yeah, it you know, and the area that we're really focused on now at new standard Institute is, is policy because, you know, we, you know, we live, I talk about neoliberalism quite a bit in in the book, like, we live in a profit maximizing world at the moment. And so if we, there's every incentive for a company not to do the right thing. And so we need to step up with basic laws to have a common, you know, set of rules for how we operate, how this industry operates. And it's something that the industry itself has started to ask for, which is good, that they, they need these basic rules of doing business because at the moment, without laws in place, a company becomes uncompetitive by doing the right thing, and that is the wrong system to have. We need it to you know that it's just the cost of doing business to operate in a in an ethical and sustainable way. And these things can be achieved. We just need, you know, putting the lawyer head on the rules of the game ticket to get us there.

Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment 

James Taylor  34:12  

Well, it's a fantastic book Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment, thank you so much for coming on today. This is so many great, I mean, amazing stats in the book that can just surprise you and to take your breath away. But there's also some fantastic stories and some very hopeful stories. I love the one at towards the end about the Ghanaian young John Taylor that was making some pretty amazing clothes and being very creative and going to re mixing things and, and making new with with old. So, Martin, thank you so much for coming on today and just sharing your amazing story. And there's some incredible things that are in this book.

Maxine Bedat  34:46  

Thank you so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.

Allison Burns  34:49  

Thank you, Max.

James Taylor  34:51  

You can subscribe to the super creativity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts while you're there. Please leave us a review. I would really really Appreciate it I'm James Taylor and you've been listening to the super creativity podcast

Fashion Industry’s Impact On Climate Change