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![Prices index of input costs and output prices in the US textile and apparel industries (1953-2001) [8]](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Galaad-Preau/publication/344228898/figure/fig3/AS:935363610689540@1600019471775/Prices-index-of-input-costs-and-output-prices-in-the-US-textile-and-apparel-industries_Q320.jpg)
![Share of lower-income countries in apparel exports, in value (1970-1987) 9 [12]](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Galaad-Preau/publication/344228898/figure/fig4/AS:935363610701825@1600019471810/Share-of-lower-income-countries-in-apparel-exports-in-value-1970-1987-9-12_Q320.jpg)
![Share of lower-income countries in footwear exports, in value (1970-1987) 10 [12]](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Galaad-Preau/publication/344228898/figure/fig5/AS:935363614887936@1600019472034/Share-of-lower-income-countries-in-footwear-exports-in-value-1970-1987-10-12_Q320.jpg)
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Sustainability and Globalization in Fashion: Can the fashion industry become sustainable, while remaining globalized?
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This paper is made of 4 chapters - 2 chapters of context and 2 of analysis - aimed at answering the following question: « Can the fashion industry become sustainable, while remaining globalized? »:
1. The first chapter provides a data-driven, historical perspective on the global fashion industry, from its first industrialization in the 19th century to today’s globalized fast fashion system. It focuses mostly on the industry's developments since the 1960s, with the progressive globalization of textile, clothing, apparel and footwear supply chains, and the growth of fast fashion until today. It concludes on current trends and where they could take the industry in the next years.
2. The second chapter lays out all the social, environmental and economic consequences of the global fast fashion system depicted in the previous chapter, linking them to the key drivers of the system and to the reasons why decision makers overlook them. These impacts question its sustainability for our societies, but also more and more for all the market players involved in the industry. The argument ends with some of the reasons why progress has been so slow in tackling these negative consequences so far.
3. In opposition to globalized supply chains, the third chapter consequently investigates the more local models of nearshoring and re-shoring, intended as more reasonable solutions for a sustainable fashion industry. While these models feature many advantages, the analysis also shows how they still come along with substantial weaknesses, especially in terms of scalability, impact on lower-income countries and control over their supply chains.
4. The fourth chapter thus moves on back to globalized models, with the aim of understanding whether they can remain so while becoming sustainable. Examples of offshore-produced sustainable brands’ and factories’ initiatives allow to deduce that it is indeed achievable, but looking at the data shows how limited these examples still are and what an unrealistic growth they would need to transform the whole industry by themselves in a reasonable timeframe - especially in terms of GHG, to achieve the below 2 degrees scenario. It is thus put forward that even though niche sustainable initiatives, whether nearshore or offshore, are great steps forward, global fast fashion brands’ engagement is indispensable to make the fashion industry sustainable. The end of this chapter is consequently devoted to assessing these brands’ current sustainability policies, and concludes that much more effort is needed, in the medium term, to achieve a noticeable impact. As free market mechanisms have not seemed to drive this transformation efficiently so far, due to a continuous lack of customer engagement, ambitious interventionism from the world’s governments is becoming more and more urgent.
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Microplastic (MPL) abundance is a well-elucidated problem in the marine environment but not so much in the terrestrial environment. In order to contribute to this research gap, a field study was performed in the Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin. Due to their heterogenous nature and difficulty in characterization, a diverse set of pictorial training data from µ-Raman was used to perform transfer learning on 2 CNNs of interest: GoogLeNet (GN) and ResNet-18 (RN). In the first trial, using 10% of the initial training dataset, the CNNs exhibited high levels of accuracy rates, generally above 90%. Irrespective of spectroscopic mode, marginal improvements in accuracy rates were seen, with the best improvements occurring in the Raman-based models (U[GN(FTIR), RN(Raman), GN(FTIR), and RN(Raman)]: 39, 42, 38.5, and 34.5; p-value: 1, .6753, .9719, and .4978). However, for the external trial, pictorial data from Primpke (FTIR) and DongMiller (Raman) was predicted less accurately, with the largest loss occurring across the following sets: U[GN(Raman) and RN(FTIR)], 45.5 and 35; p-value:, .3268 and .5476. However, set RN fared marginally better, and due to the usage of µ-Raman, and its performance in the 10% trial, RN18_ADAM_.0011 was selected as the champion model for the field study data. In the unknown microparticle (MP) trial, generally, the most ID’d polymer type was CA, PET, and PE representing a relative concentration range for a given water source and area (MPL/MP) of 4.17–37.5%, 4.17–8.33%, and 4.17–8.33% for CNN and OpenSpecy (OS). A FEDS algorithm, equipped with natural and synthetic polymer standards and biological material, used to compare the strength of each model determined similar frequency in ascertaining positive MPL results across both models with corroboration between the CNN and OS around 1/3 of the time. Results indicate the models detect MPLs with similar frequency elucidating comparable strength of the CNN as well as a focus on particle type distribution rather than individual identification. Moreover, the largest influential factor in this study appears to be either laundry wastewater effluent or atmospheric deposition, which is stressed as a primary focus of remediating MPLs in similar freshwater environments. Lastly, it appears that these MPL are of primary origin as opposed to secondary in the oceanic and coastal environments.
W dzisiejszym społeczeństwie moda przekracza konwencjonalne funkcje, stając się nie tylko formą ochrony przed niekorzystnymi warunkami atmosferycznymi, ale także wyrazem indywidualnej ekspresji. Koncepcja fast fashion, odnosząca się do masowej produkcji niskiej jakości odzieży utrzymującej niskie ceny, wykształciła się w kontekście zmieniających się preferencji konsumentów oraz optymalizacji procesów logistycznych. Wzrost świadomości społecznej, szczególnie w krajach wysoce rozwiniętych, na temat negatywnych konsekwencji generowanych przez fast fashion, w tym nadmierną produkcję odpadów, prowadzi do zmiany perspektywy na tę branżę. Celem niniejszej pracy jest zrozumienie wpływu świadomości na temat fast fashion na decyzje zakupowe konsumentów. Badanie skupia się na ocenie, w jaki sposób rozwijająca się świadomość oraz dostęp do informacji wpływają na wybory konsumenckie w dziedzinie mody. Przeanalizowane zostało, czy konsumenci coraz bardziej zwracają uwagę na cele zrównoważonego rozwoju, etyczną produkcję i trwały styl życia, czy też kontynuują egoistyczne podejście do zakupów, pomijając te aspekty.
The textile sector is one of the most environmentally harmful industries in the world. From 1974-2004, trade in textiles was subject to quota-based restrictions that effectively limited global apparel production. Since these quotas were phased out in the early 2000s, global clothing production has roughly doubled. Despite this, there is currently no literature – legal or otherwise – assessing the environmental impacts of such a major change in global trade policy. This paper shows how the textile quota phase-out has enabled the ‘fast fashion’ phenomenon, and exacerbated the environmental consequences that accompany it. In addition, it assesses the legal viability of reintroducing some form of textile quotas under current international trade law. Based on this analysis, it concludes that reforms in trade-related policy and jurisprudence are urgently needed and ultimately inevitable.
The fashion industry is the second largest industrial polluter after aviation, accounting for up to 10% of global pollution. Despite the widely publicized environmental impacts, however, the industry continues to grow, in part due to the rise of fast fashion, which relies on cheap manufacturing, frequent consumption and short-lived garment use. In this Review, we identify the environmental impacts at critical points in the textile and fashion value chain, from production to consumption, focusing on water use, chemical pollution, CO2 emissions and textile waste. Impacts from the fashion industry include over 92 million tonnes of waste produced per year and 1.5 trillion litres of water consumed. On the basis of these environmental impacts, we outline the need for fundamental changes in the fashion business model, including a deceleration of manufacturing and the introduction of sustainable practices throughout the supply chain, as well a shift in consumer behaviour — namely, decreasing clothing purchases and increasing garment lifetimes. These changes stress the need for an urgent transition back to ‘slow’ fashion, minimizing and mitigating the detrimental environmental impacts, so as to improve the long-term sustainability of the fashion supply chain.
The apparel industry contributes significantly to the economic development of many developing countries. Between 1974 and 2004, the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA) heavily regulated this industry. Since the total abolition of the MFA in 2005, competition in apparel trade has increased many folds and some developing countries, such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, have been successful while some others, such as Mexico and the Philippines, are struggling to meet this challenge. This study presents a historical evolution of the apparel industry before and after the introduction of MFA and analyzes the factors that enhance apparel export performance during the post‐MFA period. The analysis reveals that cheap labor, firm size, product quality, foreign ownership, availability of local input materials, new product development, preferential market access and working conditions are the major factors that help gaining competitiveness in apparel exports during the post‐MFA period. These observations provide new insights to the policy makers and business managers to formulate and implement appropriate policies in order to become competitive in apparel exports.
This paper reviews studies of the environmental impact of textile reuse and recycling, to provide a summary of the current knowledge and point out areas for further research. Forty-one studies were reviewed, whereof 85% deal with recycling and 41% with reuse (27% cover both reuse and recycling). Fibre recycling is the most studied recycling type (57%), followed by polymer/oligomer recycling (37%), monomer recycling (29%), and fabric recycling (14%). Cotton (76%) and polyester (63%) are the most studied materials.
The reviewed publications provide strong support for claims that textile reuse and recycling in general reduce environmental impact compared to incineration and landfilling, and that reuse is more beneficial than recycling. The studies do, however, expose scenarios under which reuse and recycling are not beneficial for certain environmental impacts. For example, as benefits mainly arise due to the avoided production of new products, benefits may not occur in cases with low replacement rates or if the avoided production processes are relatively clean. Also, for reuse, induced customer transport may cause environmental impact that exceeds the benefits of avoided production, unless the use phase is sufficiently extended.
In terms of critical methodological assumptions, authors most often assume that textiles sent to recycling are wastes free of environmental burden, and that reused products and products made from recycled materials replace products made from virgin fibres. Examples of other content mapped in the review are: trends of publications over time, common aims and geographical scopes, commonly included and omitted impact categories, available sources of primary inventory data, knowledge gaps and future research needs. The latter include the need to study cascade systems, to explore the potential of combining various reuse and recycling routes.
Textiles release fibres to the environment during production, use, and at end-of-life disposal. Approximately two-thirds of all textile items are now synthetic, dominated by petroleum-based organic polymers such as polyester, polyamide and acrylic. Plastic microfibres (<5 mm) and nanofibres (<100 nm) have been identified in ecosystems in all regions of the globe and have been estimated to comprise up to 35% of primary microplastics in marine environments, a major proportion of microplastics on coastal shorelines and to persist for decades in soils treated with sludge from waste water treatment plants. In this paper we present a critical review of factors affecting the release from fabrics of microfibres, and of the risks for impacts on ecological systems and potentially on human health. This review is used as a basis for exploring the potential to include a metric for microplastic pollution in tools that have been developed to quantify the environmental performance of apparel and home textiles. We conclude that the simple metric of mass or number of microfibres released combined with data on their persistence in the environment, could provide a useful interim mid-point indicator in sustainability assessment tools to support monitoring and mitigation strategies for microplastic pollution. Identified priority research areas include: (1) Standardised analytical methods for textile microfibres and nanofibres; (2) Ecotoxicological studies using environmentally realistic concentrations; (3) Studies tracking the fate of microplastics in complex food webs; and (4) Refined indicators for microfibre impacts in apparel and home textile sustainability assessment tools.
This book examines key aspects of the increasingly important phenomenon of reshoring – the decision of companies to reverse offshoring by bringing manufacturing back from overseas. The aim is to equip readers with a full understanding of the current extent of reshoring, its drivers, and the associated opportunities and challenges. The impact of governments’ economic policies on the location choices of entrepreneurs in an era of globalization is carefully analyzed, drawing on experiences in the United States and Italy, where contrasting encouragement is provided for reshoring decisions. The effect on reshoring of recent developments regarding technology, the environment, and other factors is assessed in depth, and readers will also find close scrutiny of the relationship between reshoring and manufacturing performance. The book will be of interest to all academics, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in the manufacturing industry and will be an excellent teaching aid for a variety of courses in different disciplines at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
This book contains seven papers, of which three are country case studies of India, Indonesia and S Korea. As well as an overview paper, authors examine the changing trends in global textile technology and trade, the past, present and future of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement: East Asia's dynamic role in the restructuring of the textiles and clothing industry, and the place of that industry in global economic development.
This major textbook is designed for students studying textiles and fashion at higher and undergraduate level, as well as those needing a comprehensive and authoritative overview of textile materials and processes. The first part of the book reviews the main types of natural and synthetic fibres and their properties. Part two provides a systematic review of the key processes involved first in converting fibres into yarns and then transforming yarns into fabrics. Part three discusses the range of range of finishing techniques for fabrics. The final part of the book looks specifically at the transformation of fabric into apparel, from design and manufacture to marketing. With contributions from leading experts in their fields, this major book provides the definitive one-volume guide to textile manufacture. Provides comprehensive coverage of the types and properties of textile fibres to yarn and fabric manufacture, fabric finishing, apparel production and fashion. Focused on the needs of college and undergraduate students studying textiles or fashion courses. Each chapter ends with a summary to emphasise key points, a comprehensive self-review section, and project ideas are also provided.