Here’s What It Takes For Fashion Brands To Be Sustainable. Can The Industry Be Saved?

By now, the fashion industry’s harmful effects on the environment are well-known. With natural resources being used faster than they can be renewed, and more clothing produced by brands (and thrown out by consumers) than ever before, the environmental impact of the industry, as it currently operates, is catastrophic. “In the U.S., 11 million tons of textiles go into landfills every year,” says Kristy Caylor, CEO and co-founder of For Days, a zero-waste, organic line of basics. “When these clothes decompose, they release methane which is more harmful than CO2.” With this in mind, many fashion brands have been reconsidering their practices over the last few years. In 2015, Mara Hoffman, the founder of the eponymous fashion brand, made a turn for the sustainable. “The switch was prompted by discomfort. When I started to learn about the fashion industry’s harmful impact on the environment, I realized that I wasn’t willing to move the company forward in this way any longer,” Hoffman tells Refinery29. “It also came from a heightened awareness of having a kid who was three at the time, and understanding what my actual ‘legacy’ would be and what his reality would be, dealing with the stuff I left behind. This left us with two options: to close shop or completely change our methods. So we chose to change our methods.” Read more at Refinery 29.