Climate Change - We Need to Consume Less

I was in the middle of this blog post when I realised there were other posts on the internet discussing the implications of last week's Climate Change talks and agreement in Paris, and what the fashion industry is doing. So, I'm not going to focus too much on what's happening, you can read about it here.
Well, it's great to see that companies are doing something to reduce their carbon footprint - upcycling factory textile waste or plastic bottles instead of taking from nature, or even using factories that are energy efficient.....  I wrote about it in my Fashion Designers Do Good series.


Image: http://designtoimprovelife.dk/recycle-sub-sahara/

But is this enough?

1. 80 billion clothes are manufactured every year, and we buy 400 percent more clothes than we did 2 decades ago (True Cost)
2. Fashion has become dispensable - on average a woman will wear an item only seven times before throwing it away, and it ends up in a landfill or incineration plant.

If fashion brands overhaul their supply chains and source alternative materials, will this be enough if we continue to consume clothes the way we do? C'mon people!

[Note: The agreement calls for greenhouse gases emissions cuts and will come into effect in 2020.  These cuts will ensure that the rise in global temperatures do not exceed 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, with an additional aim to cap this at 1.5 degrees C. Scientists warn that a 2 degrees C rise is a recipe for disaster and could result in catastrophic environmental changes, such as extreme weather, accelerated melting of the polar ice caps and dangerous rises in sea levels.]