“Environmental Impact: The True Cost of Our Wardrobes” 

How much did you pay for the clothes in your closet? If you have the receipts, you can calculate this. However, there is a cost behind each dress, pair of jeans, shirt, and sock that goes unnoticed by most people: the cost to the environment.According to figures from the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Enviroment), it takes 3,781 liters of water to make a pair of jeans, from the production of the cotton to the delivery of the final product to the store. That equates to the emission of around 33.4 kilograms of carbon equivalent.If that is for just one pair of jeans, imagine the environmental cost for the fashion and textile industry. According to the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, around 215 trillion liters of water per year are consumed by the clothing and textile industry. Of the total fiber input used for clothing, 87 % is incinerated or disposed of in a landfill, the fashion industry is responsible for 2-8 of annual global carbon emission, and every year a half a million tons of plastic microfibers are dumped into the ocean. The danger? Microfibers cannot be extracted from the water and they can spread throughout the food chain, according to the UN Environment. Fast fashionThe fashion industry’s operating model is exacerbating the problem by stepping up the pace of design and production. Collection launches are no longer seasonal; the replacement of clothing inventories has become much more frequent.Many low-cost clothing stores offer new designs every week. In 2000, 50 billion new garments were made; nearly 20 years later, that figure has doubled, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The dizzying pace of apparel manufacturing has also accelerated consumption: the average person today buys 60 % more clothing than in 2000, the data show. And not only do they buy more, they also discard more as a result.The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that every year some USD 500 billion in value is lost due to clothing that is barely worn, not donated, recycled, or ends up in a landfill. The industry should reinvent itselfThe fashion industry is key for economic development: it is valued at some USD 2.4 trillions globally and directly employees 300 million people throughout its value chain, according to the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion. This makes it a challenge for clothing makers to grow without being an enemy of the environment, to become allies of the climate while also promoting better conditions for workers in the sector.In 2017, the Boston Consulting Group took the pulse of the fashion industry. With a score of just 32 over 100, the management consulting firm found that the industry is slow to improve its sustainability. Some mid-sized and large companies have made strides, but half of the market has done little to become more sustainable in production. The study found that most fashion executives had not made environmental and social factors a part of the guiding principles of th