The globalised Textile supply chain and its general impact

In short, the fashion supply chain could be summarized as follows:

Despite this apparent simplicity, this supply chain is for many firms highly complex, with a large geographical widespread, extending to over 150 countries.

Textile industry is nowadays one of the most important economic activities worldwide, and provides work to great amount of population in each country, since textile products are usually marketed at a constant and massive rate. At the same time, it is a source of enormous controversy, given that it is recognized as a great polluting sector, and that this globalized industry allows constant geographical relocation, which sometimes translates into unworthy working conditions and wages.

The Textile Sector, at a global level, is generating environmental impacts mainly in five stages of the value chain:

• Extraction and production of raw material in the production areas, where different related environmental impacts are generated with water consumption, land use, soil contamination, etc. Many raw material production areas are in areas with little environmental protection.
• Textile production, where impacts related to water consumption and pollution are mainly generated, air pollution, GHG emissions and those related to the use of chemical substances such as dyes, detergents, etc. Again., many production areas are in areas of little environmental protection.

The Use of toxic and/or dangerous substances both in the cultivation (in the case of cotton, for example) as well as in production processes, can negatively affect the soil, water, farmers, factory employees, etc. Another very relevant and controversial aspect is that related to safety conditions (harsh working conditions) and hygiene (exposure to hazardous substances) of people employed in this Sector in developing countries; normally associated to poor working conditions (schedules) and wages.

• Transportation of goods from distant production centers to points of consumption. Associated logistics that generates a significant carbon footprint.
• Consumption and hyper-consumption derived from low cost. Impact derived from the use and washing of garments (consumption of water, energy, detergents, release of microplastics, etc.). While the global consumption raise, increased by the access of developing countries to mass consumptions models, the utilization rate of clothes decreases. Thus, another important challenge is the customer behaviour, to change the mentality of consumption from the thought of use and throw away consumption more “circular”
• Waste Management: Generation of waste once users get rid of garments and/or textile products. The function of the collection and management system that exists (if any) and how accessible it is for users, the type of management and destination that will be given to these residues also is an important source of important environmental impact.

This waste management question is very complex, as it applies to the entire supply chain and not only to production. It is for instance very important for the end of life of the clothes, but also during the use of the textile products by the customers:  In recent years, the textile sector has been identified as one of the largest contributors to the presence of plastics in the oceans. It is estimated that around 0.5 Mt of plastics in microfibers reach the oceans annually when they are released during the washing of Plastic-based textiles such as polyester, nylon, or acrylic.

Thus, the currently existing linear system does not allow to take advantage of any type of economic benefit, it stresses the reserves in natural resource, pollutes and degrades the environment and ecosystems, and promotes important negative social impacts at a local, regional and global scale.

Additionally, the value chain is highly relocated and transcends borders, making it difficult to generate comprehensive circular economy models that ensure the closure of cycles, as well as the identification of the agents involved.

Currently, circular models are rarely adopted by the industry, clothes are, in the majority of cases, not reused, and less than 1% of the material used to produces clothes comes from recycles material, which means that the textile waste are not properly managed.

To summarize this section, textile and fashion industry faces huge challenges in several key aspects and at several stages:

• Agricultural pollution linked to the production of row materials (cotton)
• Chemical pollution (for instance, for dyeing)
• Water use and other wastage
• Transport pollution due to import and export practices
• Human rights (delocalized workforce)

Also, the transparency and traceability in the textile and clothing is a key question towards sustainability.