I noticed, in a recent article by Daily Post editor Bill Hudson, that the Town of Pagosa Springs is considering a menu of “Sustainability Standards” that new homes and commercial buildings would need to meet, in order to be approved by the Town Planning Department.
The intent is to “accelerate the installation and implementation of sustainability techniques to lower carbon footprints, lower energy costs, and add energy resiliency throughout the community.”
The word “menu” has me confused. I always thought a “menu” was a list of (hopefully delicious) foods you can order at a restaurant. But apparently, this is 2023, and a menu is a list of expensive requirements, some of which you must meet in order to get permission to build your house. But you get to choose from the menu.
And you get to make the planet a better place.
But I much prefer idea proposed by Ana Santi, in her article on the BBC Future website. A planet-friendly wardrobe. She wrote:
A report published in 2022 by Berlin think tank ‘Hot or Cool Institute’ suggests that a “sufficient” wardrobe consists of 74 garments and 20 outfits, with purchases of new garments limited to an average of five items per year. Based on the “conservative estimate” that 4% of global emissions come from fashion, the report’s researchers said that the fashion industry would have to reduce its emissions to 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in order to meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C.
The fashion industry produced 2.1 billion tonnes of CO2e in 2018. So we’re talking about cutting the global amount of clothes manufactured in half.
Can we even imagine how many Chinese sweatshop workers would lose their jobs?
And actually, “we’re” not talking about it. A Berlin think tank is talking about it, and it probably sounds more like this:
Die Modeindustrie müsste ihre Emissionen auf 1,1 Milliarden Tonnen Kohlendioxidäquivalent (CO2e) reduzieren, um das Ziel des Pariser Abkommens zu erreichen.
That’s to keep the earth’s temperature from increasing by 1.5ºC (2.7ºF), which is apparently the goal of making everything sustainable.
To prepare for her article, Ms. Santi did the inventory of her own wardrobe, hoping to find that she owned no more than 74 garments and 20 outfits. She found her wardrobe was way over the size limit. (Does a pair of socks count as two garments? Her article didn’t say.)
Ms. Santi included a photo showing herself (on the left) discussing wardrobe choices with Dilys Williams, director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion.
Obviously, Ms. Santi and Ms. Williams are British. Few American women would choose clothes like these for a photography session. Even if they were trying to save the planet.
I learned that there are a couple of ways fashion can become sustainable. The industry could figure out ways to recycle clothes. (The Humane Society Thrift Shop and I already have that one figured out, thank you.) Or we all can just stop buying a brand new outfit every two days. (I also have that one figured out.)
Usually, when I write about something, my editor asks me to find a photograph to illustrate the subject, and I found the following photo on a Hong Kong website… showing the winners of an international ‘sustainable fashion’ competition.
If this is the future of fashion… well, maybe we should just let climate change take its course?
I found plenty of other photos of ‘sustainable fashion’ that I could have used instead. But they all featured women’s fashions. What about us guys? Being a male, I rarely dress in women’s clothes. So I went looking for ‘sustainable fashions for men’.
That was, in fact, the search term I used: “sustainable fashions for men’. Here are a few representative results from that search:
Yes, the ‘sustainable razor’ actually showed up as one of the search results.
I have no idea what qualifies the other clothing examples as ‘sustainable’. They look completely ordinary. Except maybe the orange overalls.
Then we have the ‘sustainable’ underwear for $39 a pack of two.
Writing this article has made me even more thankful for the Humane Society Thrift Store. (But, no, I don’t buy underwear second-hand.)
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.