By Abhya Adlakha
03-Jun-2024
In a world where fast fashion reigns supreme, the shift towards sustainable fashion often comes with sticker shock. Those pristine organic cotton tees and ethically crafted dresses can feel like a significant splurge compared to their mass-produced counterparts. As much as one may want to make the switch to becoming a conscious consumer and support clothing brands that not only make you look good, but feel good too, it can be hard to fathom why a plain white t-shirt is making such a huge dent in your wallet.
Sustainable fashion is often rebuffed as a niche catered to an exclusive clientele, but as the world is propelled towards a more precarious future, sustainable fashion needs to become the norm, not the trend.
Sustainable fashion brands focuses on minimizing their environmental impact and promoting ethical labour practices. This approach involves using organic or recycled materials, reducing their carbon footprints, or even adopt practices like using renewable energy sources. And that is why behind the higher price tag of sustainable fashion lies a complex web of factors that come into play when pricing a product. To embrace this crucial change, it’s important to understand those factors.
The Price Disparity: Breaking Down the Costs
Ethical Sourcing of Materials
One of the biggest reasons for the higher cost of sustainable fashion is the use of eco-friendly materials. Natural fibers like organic cotton, hemp, and silk are more expensive to produce than synthetic fibers like polyester, which are essentially plastics.
These materials often require more labor-intensive farming and haarvesting methods, that directly add to the cost of the product. Obviously, by choosing to sustainable materials, brands are committing to processes that are better for the environment but come with their own price.
Fair Wages and Ethical Labour Practices
A cornerstone of sustainable fashion is ensuring fair wages and ethical treatment of workers. Unlike fast fashion brands, that are famous for exploiting labour in developing countries, sustainable brands pay living wages, which reflect the true cost of dignified work. In order to offer equitable income to vulnerable sections, certain other parameters are also considered, such as access to healthcare, transportation, housing and safety nets, including severance and unemployment benefits.
The cost of production increases significantly as a direct result of this.
Small Batch Production
Sustainable fashion often involves producing clothing in smaller batches. This approach reduces waste and oveerproduction but also means that brands can’t benefit from the economies of scale that fast fashion companies do. Producing fewer items at a time leads to higher costs, and these are ultimately reflected in the retail price.
Sustainability really focuses on quality over quantity. So even though you are paying extra for the product, they’re more durable and have a much longer lifespan.
Innovation and Traceability
Sustainable fashion brands invest heavily in innovation and traceability. Developing new eco-friendly materials and technologies requires significant research and development. Additionally, maintaining a transparent supply chain, where every step from raw material sourcing to final production is monitored for sustainability, adds to the cost.
Traceability simply ensures that every garment meets high ethical and environmental standards, but implementing these systems is expensive.
Why It’s Crucial to Embrace Sustainable Fashion
Thee fashion industry is one of the largest pollutors in the world—it contributes to astronomical amounts of waste, pollution, and resource depletion. As of 2023, the fashion industry produced a startling 97 million tons of waste annually, of which 18 million were leftover textiles, 2.5 million were chemical waste, and 3 million were packaging materials.
The mounting toll on the environment, exploitative wage systems, and a need to preserve age-old crafts—the reasons for making the switch to sustainable fashion are multiple and compelling.
By choosing sustainable fashion, consumers can help reduce their own carbon footprint. Moreover, sustainable practices not only play a critical role in combating climate change, but also advocate for the rights and dignity of workers worldwide. Today, ethical brands are ensuring thhat people that make their clothes are treated fairly and paid justly. Altough changes have been made after the painful Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013 that killed more than 1,100 workers in a textile factory in Bangladesh, fast fashion industry still has a long way to go.
Sustainable fashion is also designed to last—while the initial cost may be hiigerr, the durability and quality of these garments offer better value over time. And as people start embracing the timeless trends of sustainable fashion over fleeting fashion trends, they can develop a deeper connection with their clothing and value their pieces for a longe time.
Lastly, ongoing innovation in the fashion industry holds pomise for making sustainable fashion more affordable. Advances in technology can streamline processes, reduce waste, and lower costs.
Sustainable fashion may come with a higher price tag, but it’s a small cost to pay for a more ethical and environmentally friendly world. In an era stained by fast fashion and hyper-production, sustainable brands are pioneering a way for change, introducing a series of quality, durable, and ethically-made pieces to a poorly saturated market.
