Fashion’s Thirst for Change: Steering the Industry Towards Water Sustainability

Water is the essence of life, a symbol of purity and indispensable to all life on Earth. Every cell on Earth is surrounded by a membrane, of which water is fundamental in providing a structure, a form of existence. Water is a shapeshifter, an intelligent being that communicates throughout its physical transformation, which researcher Veda Austin has documented with macroscopic photography for the past decade.

Water Rights and Personhood: A Bridge Between Worlds

Viewing the natural world as individual sentient beings, including rivers, lakes and lands, has provided the groundwork and framing for building a bridge between Indigenous knowledge, Western legal systems and decolonisation. From the Amazon River to New Zealand’s Whanganui, Canada’s Mutuhekau Shipu (or Magpie River) and the United States’ Klamath River, bodies of water have been given legal rights and granted personhood based on Indigenous people’s ancestors being embedded in the landscape. Legally defining an inherent right to live and thrive questions existing, extractive and polluting structures within the fashion industry.

On this year’s World Water Day, March 22, as the globe turns its attention to the indispensable role of freshwater as a source of life and as a being in itself, a new narrative unfolds — one that intertwines the fashion industry’s vibrant tapestries with the multi-coloured, toxic shadow their production casts on the world’s water resources. Only last year, scientists discovered that humanity’s unquenchable thirst and dominance over the Earth’s freshwater reserves caused the Earth’s axis to shift. The excessive extraction and draining of groundwater, particularly observed in northwestern India and the western United States, have shifted the Earth’s poles, presenting yet another dramatic illustration of human influence on our planet and underscoring the profound duty we bear for its care. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility.

Leveraging Water for Peace: This Year’s Theme

Leveraging Water for Peace does more than celebrate the essence of water; it illuminates the inherent conflicts that are globally increasing, often sparked by water, its availability and its instrumentalisation. Furthermore, it spotlights the industries that significantly sway our water’s purity and availability. Among these, the fashion realm emerges as a notable protagonist in water pollution and, therefore, water scarcity, weaving a complex story of beauty, consumption, and consequence. With chemically laden rivers running black and red throughout Bangladesh and China, consequently displacing communities, our objective lenses and legal frameworks have not been adequately reframed. 

The UN World Water Development Report from 2023 sounded an alarm on the looming threat of a worldwide water crisis, pointing out that nearly 30% of the global population faces water scarcity. It further projected that by 2050, almost 3 billion people living in cities could be affected by prolonged droughts. A global dilemma requires global cooperation, and the fashion industry, with all its production innovations and powerful corporations, can lead the charge.

The fast fashion industry is a voracious consumer of water, 79 trillion litres of water per year to be exact, and a significant polluter responsible for a staggering 20% of industrial water pollution. With apparel consumption projected to surge by 63% to 102 million tons by 2030, the clock is ticking louder than ever.

Fashion’s Thirst: A Torrent of Consumption and Pollution

Vibrant colours often come at a cost: the chemical dying processes are some of the most polluting, responsible for 3% of global CO2 emissions — a figure set to leap beyond 10% by 2050. The World Bank has identified 72 toxic colours that stem solely from textile dyeing. What initially reads as numbers paints a dire picture, flowing into the waters of countries leading the dyeing industry, such as China, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Indonesia, where the lack of stringent regulations and price pressures colours their waterways with the vibrant but deadly wastewater from these processes. This toxic discharge, a mélange of carcinogens such as azo dyes, salts, forever chemicals and heavy metals, not only causes deep environmental scars but also destroys vital drinking water sources.

The blue footprint of fashion is colossal, with its annual consumption enough to fill 37 million Olympic swimming pools. The quest for the perfect blue jeans, requiring thousands of litres of water per pair, and the season’s trending colours, quickly outdated, demand an arsenal of chemicals and dyes. The impact of fast fashion on water pollution demands a paradigm shift that is impossible to ignore when faced with these numbers and images, almost too grand to imagine.

From Commodity to Companion: Rethinking Our Relationship with Water

The fashion industry, armed with influence, innovation and vast financial resources, has the tools to champion the sanctity of water. It is urged to embrace the perspective of personhood, which views water not merely as a commodity but as an indispensable partner. This sentiment is echoed in the Maori proverb, ​“I am the river, the river is me,” highlighting the essential connection between humanity and nature.

This year calls for radical collaboration in a world marred by numerous conflicts and with only a handful of nations recognising access to water as a fundamental human right within their constitution. The fashion industry’s tale of water pollution serves as a reminder of the interconnectedness of all our actions and the health of our planet. Every dye and fabric choice weaves into the larger tapestry of our environmental future. The decision-makers can enact new forms of radical collaboration and extended producer responsibility (EPR).