In trying to slow down fast fashion, regulators should focus on overproduction

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🗞️ Driving the news: Fashion retailer Shein represents a prevailing ethos in the fashion industry that prioritizes profits over sustainability, labour conditions, and quality
• The Hot or Cool Institute's report titled "Unfit, Unfair, Unfashionable: Resizing Fashion for a Fair Consumption Space" highlights the environmental and social challenges facing the industry, including the industry's potential to double its emissions within the next decade

🔭 The context: The fashion industry is one of the top global polluters, responsible for 4.8% to 10% of global climate-warming gases
• Rapid fashion cycles, complex artificial fabrics, and practices like destroying unsold items or shipping second-hand clothes to landfills exacerbate the problem

🌍 Why does it matter for the planet: Poorly designed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies can shift burdens to low-income countries and allow brand owners to greenwash while increasing profits
• Properly designed, EPR could enhance recycling, make fashion brands accountable for environmental damage, alter clothing design, and ensure fair practices

⏭️ What's next: The European Parliament's June 2023 resolution calls for a paradigm shift to end overproduction and unsustainable consumption
• Policymakers in the EU and US are preparing legislation to extend fashion brands' responsibility across supply chains

💬 One quote: “Power asymmetries between suppliers and global buyers, as well as harmful purchasing practices, exacerbate the risk of labour rights abuses" (European Parliament Statement)

📈 One stat: Emissions from the fashion industry would need to fall by 50-60% within the next seven years to stay below 1.5-degree increased warming
• The industry is on track to double its emissions to around 2.7 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030

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