The fashion circular economy is not based on science…
By Dr Mark Liu
The “Circular Economy” is the idea that we can create products and endlessly produce new ones from their waste. It has become a benchmark for all fashion companies to show off their sustainability credentials. Accompanied by a series of colourful loopy diagrams, it is often cited with the authority and gravitas of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It is the green philosophy that launched a thousand companies with the name “circular” and “loop” in them. It has spawned a lexicon of buzzwords that fill environmental reports from “closed-loop”, “cradle to cradle”, and “zero waste”. But what actually is the “circular economy”, and how do we know it is beneficial for the environment?
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation. An artistic interpretation of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s 2015 Circular Economy diagram.
The vague definition of “Sustainable” leads to greenwash.
The circular economy sounds trustworthy and creates the impression it is grounded in scientific principles. Yet, if you look for a universally accepted definition of circular economy, you won’t find one. A 2017 industrial ecology paper (Kirchherr et al.) reviewed over 114 different definitions of the circular economy. There are commonly used concepts such as reuse, renew, recycle, repair and repurpose. However, what is remarkable is that anyone can make up their own definition. This is highly problematic for the fashion industry because it is difficult to discuss these ideas in a meaningful way without getting into a definition debate without standardised terms and definitions. The fields of science and engineering cannot measure, accurately observe or make a nuanced analysis without clearly defined terms. In the areas of business and law, it would be impossible to sign a contract, make an agreement, write a law, or even clearly define a goal without proper definitions. The vagueness of the circular economy has made it a dream for companies who want to greenwash their products with misleading advertising.
The origin of the circular economy does not come from scientists or engineers but comes from the field of economics and architecture. The idea was a response to capitalist economies’ desire for the endless exploitation of finite natural resources. In the 1970’s economist, Kenneth Boulding proposed the concept of the “spaceman economy”, where the Earth is a closed system like a spaceship, where everything is the input of everything else in a circular relationship. In the 1990’s environmental economists Pearce and Turner opposed the lack of ecological considerations in traditional economics. They theorised the shift from a linear or open-ended economy to a circular economic system. In the field of architecture, Braungart and McDonough popularised the term “cradle to cradle” as an alternative to the cradle to grave cycle most products follow. They advocated endless circular recycling of organic materials and “technical” or man-made materials such as metals and plastics. The waste supply of one resource becomes the food supply for another resource.
Pioneers of the circular economy created wonderful philosophies and should be commended for applying these principles in the real world. It is not just about building single products but an entire ecosystem to support them. This is the difference between theory and practice, and the circular economy is short of real-world examples. This is because as soon as scientists and engineers look at many of these examples in technical detail, they quickly start falling apart. The circular economy considers materials and draws diagrams that connect different industries to show the flow of waste. However, it is not a working scientific model that can track the flow of raw materials, energy, chemicals released and emissions. It remains a vague philosophy open for anyone to interpret it any way they want.
In the fashion industry, the medium of the fabric itself is often the dead-end in the circular economy. The technology to recycle fabrics barely exists. There is no way for your garments to realistically get to a fibre-to-fibre recycling plant. According to a 2017 paper by the Journal of Science Advances, only 9% of all plastics ever made have been recycled. This is a mature technology with years of established infrastructure. The chance of getting billions of garments from landfills into non-existent fabric recycling facilities using technology that barely exists is absurd. Without a fundamental change in the fashion industry and massive investment in research and infrastructure, this will remain a fantasy.
As fabrics cannot be recycled, fashion companies sell sustainable fashion as products that have a component in them that is recycled. For example, swimwear or activewear with recycled nylon or polyester in it. The problem with these materials is that they are blended with spandex to make them flexible. Unfortunately, spandex cannot be recycled. Fashion companies use these blended materials simply hoping that we will one day invent a solution to this problem. It is also important to remember that anything with stretch material currently cannot be recycled.
When nothing can actually be recycled, fashion companies turn to the star of fashion greenwash, a fabric made from recycled polyester bottles. What could be more circular than taking old plastic bottles and turning them into brand new fabric? McDonough and Braungart criticise this approach in their book Cradle to Cradle, stating: “The creative use of downcycled materials for new products can be misguided, despite good intentions”. They describe how: “the fibres from plastic bottles contain toxins such as antimony, catalytic residues, ultraviolet stabilisers, plasticisers, and antioxidants, which were never designed to lie next to human skin” (2002, p.58). The critical component to this observation is Braungart’s scientific observations as a chemist and how he measures the impact of the materials, not just the designer’s best intentions. There is often a large gap between the intention and the reality. If we cannot ground our actions in science, we are left with vague platitudes and a lot of greenwash.
Fashion companies believe they can build a circular economy while maintaining their fast-fashion business model. Some have released collections using organic or recycled materials. Yet in 2019, fast fashion companies such as H&M created around 3 billion garments. There is nowhere near this kind of recycling capacity on the planet. Any environmental initiative quickly falls apart in the sheer number of garments they produce. Fast fashion companies continue to expand production at a rate of 4-5% per year. Even if fast fashion companies could magically recycle all their garments, they still use a massive amount of energy and materials and create CO2 emissions. If fast fashion companies achieve their circular goals, their overproduction will remain a problem. Slowing down fast fashion companies is our only realistic option to address the climate crisis.