Final Podcast Transcript- Eloise Slater - JRN801

Unknown speakers [00:00:00] Everybody, welcome back to my channel. Welcome back to our channel. Welcome back to my channel. Hello everyone, welcome to a new video. I have a massive Zara haul. I've been obsessed with Zara Spring/Summer collection. Back with another new-in Zara haul, you guys love my Zara hauls.  I think it's spent almost over a thousand dollars. I ordered a ton of stuff. New everything, all the time. 

Eloïse Slater [00:00:25] In the midst of a climate crisis, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of environmental issues, which has directly impacted how and where they spend their money. And yet we live in an era of social media promotion pushing for hyper consumption. Despite the general knowledge that fast fashion companies have a huge impact on the environment, their profits continue to grow. The fashion industry contributes around 10 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. That's 1.2 billion tons of CO2 gases every year. 

Eloïse Slater [00:01:01] So why do we keep buying their products? Well, it's complicated, although people are becoming a lot less apathetic about their own environmental footprint, fast fashion brands like Zara, Shein, Urban Outfitters, Asos and H&M, to name a few, are still super alluring with their constant new collections and affordable prices. Some of these brands have even released supposedly environmentally conscious lines to appeal to the growing number of ethical consumers. So when you take an industry whose sole purpose is to promote consumerism, then add in some social media fashion influencers and greenwashing. You get a whole new beast. A beast that is making it increasingly difficult for people to be discerning consumers and adopt a more sustainable lifestyle. Here, we'll take a deep dive into the world of fast fashion and social media influencers. We'll take a look at how the combination of the two impact fashion trends and consumer behavior. And here's my hot take. Just because you're trendy doesn't necessarily mean you've got style. 

Eloïse Slater [00:02:15] Before we get into it, let's break it down. We see sustainability emerging as a new trend across many industries, but the word sustainability is used so much that it's kind of lost its meaning. So, what is sustainability? Well, the general term sustainability means to avoid depleting natural resources, to maintain an ecological balance. Make sense. But corporate sustainability is more complex. It involves much more consideration towards environmental protection, social equity and economic viability. Those are the three pillars of corporate sustainability. So what does this look like in the fashion industry? To help answer this question, I've invited Shelly Haines, she's a PhD student at Ryerson University. Her research is focused on sustainable fashion, particularly from the consumer's perspective, to better understand their motivations and some of the barriers they face as they try to be more sustainable. 

Shelley Haines [00:03:14] I think within the fashion industry, sustainability more generally represents kind of an attempt to transition the current practices of the fast fashion industry, which are generally unethical and wasteful, towards something that is based on equity. And that this model of fashion considers the environment and the societies in which the garments are being made, as well as where they're being sold and worn. 

Eloïse Slater [00:03:41] So how is sustainability measured? 

Shelley Haines [00:03:44] I would say that the short answer really is that sustainability isn't being measured or monitored in any reliable way. Each brand that labels themselves as sustainable has a different definition of what that means. And even in the literature, it's consistently cited that sustainability is there's no consistent definition or no standard definition of what it means to be sustainable. So each brand is interpreting it in their own way. And so for some, that might mean things like paying a fair wage. For others, that could be something like producing small or limited runs in small collections. Some emphasized limited or no textile waste. So they label themselves a zero waste. Others do things like giving back to the community where they're manufacturing or they're getting their resources from. So they're all calling themselves sustainable, but it ultimately means something different for each of them. 

Eloïse Slater [00:04:40] Did you catch that? That's important to keep in mind for later. Let's take Zara, for example, they're one of the largest fast fashion companies in the world. They released 500 new garments a week. That's about 20,000 new designs a year. So they're speeding up an already cyclical consumer tax regime that ultimately pressures individuals to always look their best by buying the latest fashion trends. In total, Zara produces around 450 million garments a year, I can't even imagine what that looks like, let alone its environmental and social impacts. So let's cut the frills. Haines and I are going to walk you through the beginning to end life cycle of a single fast fashion garment: a T-shirt. A typical T-shirt starts its life on a farm where cotton is grown and harvested. To grow enough cotton to make one T-shirt. It takes about 2,700 liters of water. That's about how much water you drink over two and a half years. And on top of that, cotton production actually uses more insecticides and pesticides than any other crop in the world. 

Shelley Haines [00:05:56] The pesticides that are used on cotton crops cause damage to the health of farmers, to workers, to nearby ecosystems. And even organic cotton, when it's grown without pesticides, it only represents a very small portion of the global cotton that's being used. I think there's estimates around only one per cent. 

Eloïse Slater [00:06:16] That's right. Organic cotton represents less than one per cent of the cotton produced globally, so it wouldn't be used in our typical T-shirt. The cotton is then shipped to a spinning facility where high tech machines turn it into fabric. The next step is dying, the fabric which comes with risks of its own.

Shelley Haines [00:06:36] There's damages relating to the chemicals that are in dyes. Some dyes have lead in them. They have chromium in them. So not only is that harmful to the workers that are having to use those dyes, that also ends up as wastewater that then contaminates waterways. 

Eloïse Slater [00:06:54] So we already have pesticides, insecticides and cancer-causing chemicals from dyes that harm the workers and our environment. But we still need to turn the fabric into an actual T-shirt, which of course requires human labor. This is where social equity comes into play. Garment factories, most of which are operating in India, China and Turkey, have become notorious for their unsafe working conditions and unfair wages. Remember the Rana Plaza collapse? Over a thousand people died and double that amount were injured in the collapse of a building where garments were being made for Prada, Gucci, Versace, Joe Fresh and Walmart, just to name a few. That was a pretty big wakeup call and yet unsafe working conditions, unfair wages, unpaid labor and even in some cases child labor, remain an industry standard. We just don't really hear about it. So after manufacturing, our T-shirt travels by train, ship and truck, which is what gives the industry such a big carbon footprint of 1.2 billion tons a year, and it doesn't stop there. What happens once our T-shirt is purchased?

Shelley Haines [00:08:07] When the consumer has the garments, they wash it and washing and drying uses a lot of energy, they might end up sending it to a landfill or to be donated, which typically means that it is then sent to another country because our donation facilities are really only selling a small proportion of what they're receiving. So we ship those to other countries where they may sell them, which is wiping out their own tailoring and retail industry, or they process it in a landfill. And that government might sit in the landfill for years because it cannot biodegrade unless it's a model material 

Eloïse Slater [00:08:51] Due to there being synthetic materials in the majority of our clothes. It can take over 200 years for them to decompose in a landfill. That means that the clothes that I've bought from fast fashion brands will outlive me by two or three lifetimes. That's an enormous footprint for a single T-shirt, and it definitely makes you wonder, is it worth it? 

Eloïse Slater [00:09:16] That brings us to greenwashing fast fashion companies like Zara and H&M have been heavily criticized for their negative environmental and social impacts are claiming new sustainability goals with these environmentally conscious lines. But how can a fast fashion company ever be sustainable? 

Shelley Haines [00:09:35] Ultimately, a big part of being more sustainable is consuming less. And it's less of a perpetuation of this idea that we need to consume so frequently that we always need to have the latest in the greatest. And as they introduce new collections weekly, sometimes even less - or even more sorry, they are perpetuating that narrative. So even if those resources that they were using were sustainable, that's not a sustainable model. To be sustainable, we need to limit our consumption, whereas fast fashion is all about consuming as much as possible. 

Eloïse Slater [00:10:12] So a fast fashion company can be more sustainable in their business practices, but they can never truly be sustainable because their business model promotes consumerism. 

Ela Veresiu [00:10:22] So my professional opinion is that these brands are the perfect illustration of the definition of an oxymoron. 

Eloïse Slater [00:10:30] That's Ela Veresiu. 

Ela Veresiu [00:10:31] Absolutely ridiculous to think that these companies are indeed getting away with this idea of sustainably conscious clothing lines for their conscious consumers. 

Eloïse Slater [00:10:43] Veresiu is an associate professor of marketing at York University Schulich School of Business. Here's what she has to say about greenwashing. 

Ela Veresiu [00:10:51] Companies around the world have been increasingly labeling consumer goods and services as eco-friendly, sustainable or environmentally friendly. And often these products that are labeled in such a way - overall green - sometimes they don't have any real proof that the company is indeed helping the environment in some way. And so overall, greenwashing, in a sense, is deceptive marketing designed to portray a product or company as truly caring for the environment. So when sustainable marketing and branding are done in authentically and superficially, I think that they can have very serious consequences for people and the planet. 

Eloïse Slater [00:11:38] Veresiu conducted a study in 2014 where she found that as much as individuals around the world were increasingly describing themselves as responsible or ethical consumers, they didn't see issues such as poverty, global warming or environmental concerns as grounds for stricter government interventions. Instead, they saw them as an opportunity to make more ethical consumption decisions, you know, by purchasing products labeled as sustainable, green or eco-friendly. Well, it seems like this mentality may have backfired. Remember what Haines was saying earlier? 

Shelley Haines [00:12:14] Sustainability isn't being measured or monitored in any reliable way. 

Eloïse Slater [00:12:19] Well, that sucks because varices research shows that people care whether or not a company is sustainable and they're actually willing to pay a higher price for sustainable products. So by rebranding themselves, not only are these fast fashion companies playing directly into the hands of responsible consumers, they're also turning sustainability into a trend. Because they know that slapping an eco-friendly label on their clothes allows them to charge more for it - without even providing how it's beneficial to the environment. And it makes consumers feel better about buying from them. 

Ela Veresiu [00:12:55] On the one hand, you have consumers, especially millennials and gen Z, that are increasingly caring about social justice and environmental issues. And they do want to purchase brands, products and services that claim to care about the same issues that the consumers care about. But on the other hand, these consumers are finding it more and more difficult to tell the difference between those companies that are genuinely dedicated to making a difference and those that are using this so-called green curtain to just continue the status quo and business as usual and continue polluting the environment.

Eloïse Slater [00:13:36] by this point. You must be wondering, how is this allowed? Aren't there regulations in place that dictates what companies are allowed to advertise? Well, of course there are. 

Ela Veresiu [00:13:46] That's the nice thing about the Canadian government. There is such a thing called the Canada's Competition Bureau, which has published a number of enforceable and enforcement guidelines to help industry professionals, marketers and advertisers comply with legislation which prohibits false and misleading advertising. Specifically, the guidelines discourage the use of unsubstantiated and vague environmental claims. Such claims may only be used if they detail the exact environmental benefit or benefits in such a way that they can be verified in relation to the specific product. And green marketers in Canada, at least, must ensure that all environmental claims are true, not only in relation to the final product, and this is very, very important to spell out, but also in relation to all relevant aspects of the product's lifecycle. So there must be an overall net positive impact on the environment. And if advertisers are not following these guidelines, there could be penalties involved. 

Eloïse Slater [00:14:58] Think back to her typical fast fashion T-shirt, if it was made with 100 per cent organic cotton, but everything else stayed the same. Would that make it sustainable? Well, no, because there are still significant environmental and social concerns in the overall process. But that doesn't necessarily mean they won't use green marketing. So that begs the question, are these consequences and penalties enough to deter companies from falsely advertising themselves as sustainable? 

Ela Veresiu [00:15:29] I would hope so, but at the end of the day it depends on the size of the company and how much it will impact their bottom line. 

Eloïse Slater [00:15:41] So in the case of a huge company like Zara, these penalties are barely a drop in their bucket of profit. And of course, there's some wiggle room.

Ela Veresiu [00:15:51] Still, even though there are clear guidelines that are enforceable that have consequences for companies, sometimes labels continue to be very poorly defined and also too broad so that the real meanings behind the words used in labeling, marketing and advertising are likely to be misunderstood by the consumer. 

Eloïse Slater [00:16:17] This means that the responsibility of due diligence falls on the shoulders of individual consumers to figure out whether a company's sustainability claims are honest or simply part of their marketing strategy. And what about small companies that actually have sustainability as a fundamental value? How can they compete in a market saturated with greenwashing and misleading language? Luckily, new types of influencers are gaining popularity, micro and sustainable influencers. And they could be making a difference. 

Megan Radford [00:16:49] A micro influencer is basically just anyone using their platform to talk about a specific topic, I guess, and to just get information out there to whoever's following them. 

Eloïse Slater [00:17:03] That's Megan Radford. She works in nonprofit communications and writes about ethical fashion and beauty for her blog and a variety of magazines.

Megan Radford [00:17:12] An ethical influencer, there's again like many different categories, so some people focus on the zero waste. Some people focus on lifestyle. Some are pretty much exclusively fashion. What I talk about is fashion, beauty and some lifestyle as well. 

Eloïse Slater [00:17:29] Since incorporating ethical and sustainable practices in her everyday life is important to Radford, she's also a micro influencer herself. 

Megan Radford [00:17:38] I'm just a regular person basically who tries to incorporate it into my everyday life. I don't do everything perfectly like everybody. Sometimes I do have to shop fast fashion when I'm on a budget or like last year when all the thrift stores were closed. 

Eloïse Slater [00:17:55] Today, influencers have completely changed the way we interact with information, trends and products. In the digital age, we're getting increasingly annoyed by ads. So influencers offer a more covert way for brands to advertise. Influencers seamlessly integrate content consumption with the ability to shop, and in that sense, they hold an immense amount of power. They set the trends and we follow them. 

Megan Radford [00:18:23] I think for the larger ones it's pretty obvious like they can have a product sell out in minutes or hours, right? So there's that kind of direct impact. But I think with micro influencers, it's a bit more organic. And I do know of people on there who've bought things that I've talked about, but for others, maybe it's just getting them to think about the fact that there are alternatives to their kind of mainstream products or mainstream stores. And I think that's also a win for what I'm doing. I'm not necessarily saying like you have to buy this brand, but just how could you think about your consumption in a different way? 

Eloïse Slater [00:19:04] So if we have sustainable alternatives and consumer trends show that people are trying to be more sustainable and ethical, we should expect to see a drop in fast fashion sales, right? Well, maybe not. Here's Haines again. 

Shelley Haines [00:19:20] We're seeing this rise in consumer interest in sustainable fashion, but as it stands fast, fashion consumption is also continuing to rise. They're both going up in tandem, so you would expect fast fashion to be leveling or going down ideally, but it's still rising. It's tempting, I think, for a lot of consumers. It's advertised so well and it also perpetuates the narrative of what's in. And fashion is still very much tied up as a symbol of status, as a way of conveying status, wealth, privilege. So that cycle of consumption is really tied up in having the latest and the greatest in those brands that are releasing things so frequently. It makes it hard for consumers. They feel that pressure to keep up. And then it's also for consumers in North America, for many of them, it's really accessible. I mean, we're seeing fast fashion and grocery stores. In Canada. We have Joe Fresh in Loblaws. So it's just so easy to get our hands on.

Eloïse Slater [00:20:25] By tempting us with new styles every week, fast fashion brands are setting the narrative of what it means to be fashionable, and with mass production, they've created a homogenous ideal. And listen, I'm not trying to make you feel bad about your consumption habits. No one is perfect. I certainly am not. I'm a broke student, so sometimes my only option is buying fast fashion clothes, even without greenwashing and vague labeling, simply caring about the environment and wanting to be a responsible consumer doesn't mean that it's in reach for everyone, 

Megan Radford [00:21:00] For the entire ethical industry, whether it's food and veganism, whether it's fashion. There's a lot of privilege involved. You know, like it's expensive if you want to eat organic and if you want to shop from small fair-trade businesses, it's really expensive and it's also size exclusive a lot of times. There's not as many slow or ethical fashion brands that cater to those who are plus size. So it does exclude like large populations of people who can't afford that or can't fit into it or have trouble with accessing it. So I think that's important to keep in mind. And it's another reason why I've definitely eased up on my approach and kind of taken a softer, kinder attitude towards it. 

Eloïse Slater [00:21:48] We're also seeing some accessibility issues with second hand and vintage stores. 

Shelley Haines [00:21:53] We're seeing some implications with things like thrift stores becoming more popular, which is making it less accessible to those that rely on those resources. So they're closing down in areas where they're needed or the prices are increasing. So they're just no longer as accessible as they once were. And sustainable fashion options are generally only accessible to those with power and privilege. So there's starting to be a gap there. So I think that there's just kind of like a general unequal distribution of power within the fashion industry, but that is heavily perpetuated by the fast fashion industry. 

Eloïse Slater [00:22:35] And this gap is widening as sustainability moves away from a movement and lifestyle, towards a trend that is now tied up in power and privilege. 

Shelley Haines [00:22:44] We're starting to see sustainable fashion moving away from a more of a mindset and a way of consuming to becoming an esthetic. And that that esthetic has a particular price tag and partly for a reason. We need to be sustainable; we need to pay the workers a fair wage. And that inevitably means that the product is going to be more expensive. But that's not accessible and attainable to all. And I think that there needs to be a slight revision of what it means to be sustainable and that it's not exclusively tied up in that particular esthetic of expensive. 

Eloïse Slater [00:23:24] This brings us to a new sustainability movement and my personal goal, slow fashion. It's all about reducing the amount of clothes you buy and the ones you do buy are second hand or repurposed. It's about making use of what you already have. And my favorite part, it encourages you to define your own style and to be individualistic about it, as opposed to just following fashion trends. 

Shelley Haines [00:23:49] I think slow fashion represents a subset of sustainable fashion. So it's more about a mentality to consume less as well as a commitment to investing in the clothing that you already have, whether that means modifying it, repairing it, just investing in what you have, and less about replacing those garments. And I think that also slow fashion, which builds on the slow food movement, is about also the health of the consumer is part of that definition. Where it's less stressful to always have to be following the latest trends, to have to be consuming so frequently, and it kind of considers that slowing down and reconnecting with what you have and less about kind of following those external pressures. 

Eloïse Slater [00:24:45] So you want to change your consumption habits, but you're not sure how to navigate the sustainability world? Here are some useful tips and tricks I've gathered from Veresiu, Haines and Radford. First, don't be fooled by a label. Inform yourself on the products you're buying and the companies behind them. Look for sustainability initiatives within the company to figure out whether it's actually a part of their goals and values or just superficial marketing. 

Eloïse Slater [00:25:13] Second, invest in the things you already have. Think about how you can repurpose, alter or fix the garments you already own to make them work for you. The biggest part of being sustainable is reducing your consumption, so even if you do have to buy from fast fashion brands, try to make those items last. Learning a sewing stitch or two will help extend your clothes' lifecycle. And if you can't wear them anymore, you can upcycle them into... A dishrag for example. The DIY community is always coming up with new ways to repurpose stuff, and a quick Google search will give you hundreds more creative ways to upscale clothes than just a dishrag. 

Eloïse Slater [00:25:54] Third, define your style by buying unique, one-of-a-kind items from vintage or secondhand stores. Trendy is often tied up and fashionable, but you can define your own style beyond the external pressures of social media and the fashion industry. Step outside of the homogenous ideal imposed by fast fashion. By being creative and personalizing your style. You can disrupt the industry by changing the narrative of what it means to be fashionable. 

Eloïse Slater [00:26:22] And lastly, take care of yourself. Sometimes the ethical and sustainable world is kind of aggressive and can make you feel judged or even guilty. But no one can be 100 percent sustainable 100 percent of the time. Our current society just simply doesn't work that way. So be kind and patient with yourself. 

Eloïse Slater [00:26:43] This all still begs the question, how can the lifestyle changes we make as individuals be significant enough to make a difference, when the industries we depend on aren't held to the same standards? These fast fashion brands have the ability to make some changes, like paying their garment workers fair wages, or by releasing new clothes less often, or by being transparent about the way they operate. That way, we can at least hold them accountable and turn sustainability into an industry standard. At the end of the day, a lot of us are just trying our best to minimize our environmental impact in a capitalist society - and that is not an easy thing to do - but don't underestimate our collective power as consumers. If we want environmental protection and social equity, it's up to us to pressure these huge companies, hold them accountable, and demand that the regulations in place be enforced. 

Eloïse Slater [00:27:39] I know that's a pretty tall order. So, again, try to be kind and gentle with yourself. Keep doing what you can while being informed. In the words of Sylvia Earle: "Change always starts with someone, and no one can do everything, but everyone can do something."

Eloïse Slater [00:27:58] And remember, fashion trends come and go, but true style is timeless.