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For the past few years, New York fashion brand Another Tomorrow has sourced its wool from two farms in Nile, a rural town in Tasmania, Australia. However, one of the farmers has struggled through a series of droughts that dried up forage for his sheep, threatening the supply of wool.
When an unusual amount of rainfall then hit the region this year and forage was plentiful, the farmer thought he was finally getting a break. In August, after shearing the sheep, he sent the wool for testing. The verdict was disastrous: The heavy rainfall had transformed the quality of the wool, making it unsuitable for Another Tomorrow’s fabrics, which required a thicker quality. “The technical quality of the wool changed so dramatically that we couldn’t use it,” says Vanessa Barboni Hallik, CEO of Another Tomorrow. “We had to seek out a new supply.”
Fashion needs to transform the materials it uses to meet its sustainability goals. How it gets there varies by material.
Another Tomorrow is just one of many fashion companies to have faced shortages of raw materials because of unpredictable and extreme weather patterns caused by climate change. From cotton to cashmere, many categories of natural fibres and textiles are feeling the impact.
For cotton, the top six production countries — India, Pakistan, Brazil, China, the US and Turkey — are significantly exposed to climate instability, with north western Africa and western and southern Asia at highest risk, according to a report by Cotton 2040. Some 40 per cent of cotton-producing regions will experience shorter growing seasons by 2040.
It’s not just cotton at risk. Silk production is also threatened in tropical regions, where elevated temperatures will make caterpillars struggle to build their cocoons. The impact on the silk industry could threaten the livelihoods of more than 2 million people. The quality and quantity of cashmere are also diminishing, affected by unstable temperatures and diminishing water supplies as well as overgrazing that has an impact on the growth of goats’ winter coats in Mongolia.
On 17 November, Google announced it was launching the Global Fibre Impact Explorer, a tool built atop Google Earth and Google Cloud to identify and assess the environmental risks of 20 different fibres due to factors including air pollution, biodiversity, greenhouse gasses, forestry and water use. The tool is part of Google’s ongoing partnership with WWF to build a platform that tracks raw sustainable materials, and specifically looks at the connection between climate change and raw materials used in retail. Stella McCartney is the first brand to test the tool, and more have shown interest, according to Google.
The warnings from scientists are stark. “The fashion industry needs to understand that this is what we expect to happen — more crop failures of all sorts,” says Jennifer Francis, acting deputy director of the Woodwell Climate Resource Centre and a senior scientist. “It’s most likely that the crops that are used for fabrics will become even more expensive or just not available.”
Fashion looks for solutions
In 2015, luxury giant Kering warned that the quality and availability of raw materials was already being impacted by the climate crisis. “A lot has changed from five years ago when we were just becoming aware of the potential risks,” says Helen Crowley, head of sustainable sourcing and nature initiatives at Kering. “The sector is now looking for climate solutions.”
One solution is to diversify supply across geographies to ensure that if weather conditions falter in one region, fashion companies can turn to another. Another Tomorrow, for example, is expanding its supplier base to reduce the risks of shortages in future. However, diversification of supply has drawbacks, including making it harder for companies to verify the working conditions of their suppliers. “We believe in having traceable supply for good working conditions,” says CEO Barboni Hallik.
More fundamentally, the diversification of supply does not represent much of a strategy long term. All regions’ climates are expected to become more unpredictable as temperatures rise. “Extreme weather events are happening everywhere,” points out Gail Whiteman, founder of the Arctic Basecamp and professor of sustainability at the UK’s University of Exeter. “We cannot avoid them, we have to adapt to them.”
Climate experts and industry professionals alike are pushing the case for a fashion industry shift towards the development of more sustainable and resilient materials better able to withstand extreme weather patterns. Sustainable farming practices have been proven to increase the quality and quantity of raw materials: growing organic cotton without pesticides, for instance, has enabled 50 per cent higher yields for some farmers, while also improving quality, according to the UK’s Soil Association.
Costs of change
Fundamental changes to the sourcing of materials are necessary. It remains costly for farmers to transition towards regenerative and sustainable farming practices, with few financial or market incentives. Campaigners say heavy investment is required to restore biodiversity in areas cleared for farmland and to improve soil health to create more resilient ecosystems. “It requires completely rethinking the supply chain,” says Crowley. “If we want to transition towards regenerative and sustainable practices, we need to make sure incentives align and that farmers are rewarded.”
Another farmer in Tasmania that Another Tomorrow works with is Nan Bray, a former climate scientist turned farmer. After the 2006-2009 drought season turned her land to dirt, Bray cut down the number of sheep in her flock from 1,800 to 200 in order to prevent overgrazing, resulting in healthier sheep and land that was more resilient when droughts eventually struck again. “If you want a biodiverse environment, you need to reduce the number of grazing animals you have,” she says. “That’s the key to surviving as a producer in a climate change scenario.”
It’s an expensive process. Bray did not turn a profit for years. And now, with fewer sheep on her land, she needs to charge above the market rate for her wool. After years of transitioning towards more sustainable farming practices and also moving up the value chain to develop wool for knitting yarn, Bray is finally reaping the environmental and financial benefits and spreading the word to other farmers by writing articles in the local paper. “It doesn’t have to be scary,” Bray says. “There are things we can do as an industry and as a community to get us there. It might take a generation for that work to show up, but it’s worth it.”
The luxury fashion sector is backing several initiatives, led by the Kering Regenerative Fund for Nature, which supports agriculture projects around the world that seek to transition from current farming methods to regenerative practices. Some successes have been reported. For example, a Kering-backed project to support herders in Mongolia’s Gobi desert to regenerate native grasslands desertified by climate change and increased grazing has resulted in improved yields and better livelihoods for herders. The project has required patience and plenty of upfront investment.
“It takes time to build these relationships, to build these supply chains, to track these outcomes,” says Crowley, noting that the Mongolian project has been underway for six to seven years. “But it’s a win-win when you get there.”
Sourcing more sustainable materials is just one of a mountain of challenges facing the fashion industry as the threat of climate change grows by the year. The fashion sector is currently responsible for 10 per cent of annual global emissions, and 48 per cent of its supply chain is linked to deforestation. The sector also has a heavy negative impact on biodiversity through chemical use and micro-plastic pollution.
The fashion industry is under pressure to do much more to support the goals of the COP26 climate conference. On a most basic level, reputational risks are huge for fashion and luxury brands that do not respond to the climate crisis, say academics. “Being a carbon-intensive industry can be costly,” says Whiteman. “It’s a fine line between being a classic brand and a dinosaur brand.”
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