There’s room to apply the nature-based approach elsewhere in the supply chain. Reducing the amount of water and harmful chemicals used in manufacturing, for example, can go a long way to mitigating the impacts on local ecosystems. And while the industry urgently needs to replace fossil fuels in the supply chain with renewable energy, efforts to decarbonise also have to involve eliminating petroleum-based chemicals and materials, such as polyester, which critics say add to the industry’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“The big question after seeing this IPCC report is: will brands shift to the right solutions or continue to seek false promises?” says Muhannad Malas, senior climate campaigner for fashion at the advocacy group Stand.Earth. He says the industry has relied too heavily on partial fixes, such as switching from coal to natural gas or biomass and choosing recycled polyester or other materials that have a lower footprint than their conventional counterparts but still have “high ecological impacts”.
As consequential as these decisions are, a more profound change for many brands might be in how they devise their sustainability strategies in the first place.
The report makes clear that marginalised communities have been overlooked, around the world, to the detriment of both the communities and the planet as a whole: “Indigenous knowledge contains unique information sources about past changes and potential solutions to present issues,” the authors write in a technical summary. “Nature-based activities, endemic knowledge and unique insights about plants and animals are being lost. As 80 per cent of the world’s remaining biodiversity is on Indigenous homelands, these losses have cascading impacts on cultural and linguistic diversity and Indigenous knowledge systems, food security, health, and livelihoods, often with irreparable damages and consequences.”
Strengthening relationships throughout the supply chain is the only way to push sustainability in an equitable way, advocates and suppliers say.
“It’s about treating others the way you treat yourself in the simplest form. ‘Others’ need not necessarily only be other humans, but others can be the ecosystem we live in with millions of animals, organisms, plants and trees that surround us,” says Oshadi’s Chopra. “Each supply chain has its own nuances. It’s really understanding our supply chain from the ground up.”
At its core, the crisis is as much a moral one as it is about health, the environment or economics, says Dieterich.
“It’s just profound. Let’s just stop and think: we have these communities least responsible for climate change and they’re facing the greatest threats. They’re facing increased floods and droughts and storms and increased temperatures, and solutions should centre these most vulnerable groups,” he says. “It’ll make the world a better place as well if we just do that.”
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