Why we shouldnt be talking about sustainability

[Music]

okay

fast fashion eco fashion sustainable

fashion

conscious fashion there’s just too many

terms out there that we need to deal

with now

um and it’s strange to me how new things

keep getting thrown away

take the example of the food industry

first we were told sugar is bad then

fats were bad

then came vegan diet keto diet

paleo diet it’s just a whole bunch of

information that is so confusing we

don’t know what to do anymore

and at the end of the day the answer was

simple

just follow a balanced tire right

and it’s the same with sustainability

sustainability is so

innate in all of us that we don’t need

to be talking about it

it comes naturally to us it’s just

we’ve forgotten what it means

now india culturally has always been

sustainable

to think about the most basic definition

of what sustainability is

it’s the avoidance of the depletion of

natural resources

in order to maintain an ecological

balance

what that simply means is what you take

from nature you give back

and keep everything in balance and

everyone’s happy

india being like i was saying india has

always been culturally sustainable

uh we have the culture of

hoarding where you know we keep

everything

uh in in whatever we get we keep it in

our cupboards my mom would

uh for every gift boxes we would get she

would store the gifts uh the gift boxes

and use it for something else

or we’re very thrifty uh you know where

we reuse

and and hand give our old clothes to

someone else

um i would wear all my clothes from um

my cousins would pass it down to me or i

would give my old clothes to my other

cousins

or our old t-shirts would be turned into

kitchen rags

and we led a very simple life

like even the first proponent of

sustainable fashion

was mr gandhi and he used to make his

own fabric

he would spend it on the loom uh we are

one of the

the our water consumption is the least

compared to the other

developed countries um and we were very

happy

like as as indians we’ve been very happy

living a simple life

um being in sync with nature

even our texts uh like the ayurveda

yoga they all preach about

living a simple life and not wanting too

many materialistic possessions

so how did we lose our way what went

wrong

um with the advent of industrialization

there was a boom in the economy

more people were engaging with each

other there were there were

trade was picking up people were

consuming a lot more

uh many many brands were coming up

enticing people to buy more

and the great thing about some of the

best

advertisements you see is they’re very

simple

but they’ll influence you in a way where

you just have no control over yourself

you just you want that product you want

it now

and and and that’s it and it keeps

businesses happy

it keeps economies growing it makes uh

investors happy and and it’s it’s all

good

so this brings me to our main subject

today which is fashion

i come from fashion i love fashion i

grew up reading vogue

um i wanted to become a designer i did

end up doing footwear design

um and it’s a very exciting and a very

glamorous field

today you have many fast fashion brands

that i’m sure most of you go to and most

of you are wearing right now

we love these brands because they speak

to us and

it’s it’s something we

you know we like being a part of

something uh bigger than us

and it’s the stories they sell that

really

resonate with us

and then you have these brands use

fashion influencers fashion bloggers to

really

make it even more exciting and you see

someone you like or someone you look up

to wearing something from a brand and

you want it immediately

even so just like campaigns big

companies create

campaigns you walk across a store you go

to any mall

you see huge hoardings and and you want

them you want those pieces the way

they’ve been styled the way they’ve been

designed it’s

it’s it’s it’s something you can imagine

yourself wearing and it’s it’s

it’s it’s just it’s it’s you know it’s

appealing it’s attractive

sustainability on the other hand is seem

to be boring

um or that’s what it’s sort of uh

that’s the image people have of

sustainability that it’s all

vegan food it’s you know it’s people

hippies wearing

jude clothing and it’s it’s it’s it’s

boxy

it’s very simple too basic uh not that

exciting

well the two don’t have to be mutually

exclusive and that’s what i’m here to

tell you

it there are brands out there a case in

point being all birds it’s one of my

favorite brands

they make hundred percent sustainable

sneakers

out of merino wool out of sugarcane out

of

natural rubber it’s completely

biodegradable and it looks really good

like some of the biggest tech

giants in silicon valley are their

consumers

then the second example would be of

reformation this is my new favorite

brand that’s

also us-based uh reformation is known

for creating some really attractive

styles for women

they celebrate femininity and uh they

celebrate the environment as well so for

every piece of clothing that they make

that tell you how much water has been

used what kind of carbon emissions were

released

per item of clothing which we’ll come to

in a little bit

so the reason why we are even talking

about any of this why i’m speaking about

sustainability

in fashion why these two are so

important

is because every single piece of

clothing you buy today

has a story and and it’s not

that great it has a dark side to the

textile industry which

more and more consumers are now becoming

aware of because of all the information

that’s out there

um and

it’s it’s it’s something that we

we don’t even think about the t-shirt or

the pair of jeans we wear who’s behind

them who’s making them

how much water was used how many

resources were utilized

um and this idea really came

to me

when i watched a documentary uh about

three years ago it’s called true cost

uh it focused on the working conditions

of garment makers in factories that were

making clothes for

fast fashion brands across the

developing countries like india

bangladesh

and it was very

it was a grim reality of how

how our clothes are made and how when

you see these exciting campaigns and you

see fashion bloggers

looking really cool you don’t see the

people who’ve made the clothes

you don’t see the garment workers who

are working

in who are overworked who are not being

paid fairly

um there was in fact like a huge

disaster that happened in bangladesh

where

1200 workers died because the entire

building

which was making clothes for all the top

past fashion brands collapsed

and the reason for that was the factory

owner did not care for the safety of his

workers he cared more about

providing the cheapest clothing to any

of these brands

because how brands work is they go to

the vendor who will

offer them the best price and then

brands add their margins to it

and the bigger the margin the more money

the brand makes and

you think you’re buying something so

cheap for 500 rupees the margin on that

is like almost 100 percent

so the garment worker is being paid five

like two rupees

for a t-shirt you’re wearing for 500

rupees which you’re going to throw in

three months or six months time

so the cost of the unseen cost of making

your garment is very high

and most of these clothes you discard

within a span of

uh six months or whatever

goes up in landfills goes into landfills

and

landfills are basically wide areas that

have been provided to people to

actually discard waste uh it was fine

up till a certain point where we were

there was not enough wastage being

generated

but now it’s reached a point where

people are throwing

way too much not using it for too long a

time

and and that’s causing like an

ecological imbalance

in fact the statistics are so bad and i

don’t mean to

like make the sound really uh

grim that is the reality the statistics

are so bad that in the uk alone about

235 million items were clothing

were discarded in one year

and 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions

were released now carbon emissions are

an

important sort of uh term to know right

now because we’re talking about global

warming climate change

and i’ll come to that

so the reason why we should care at all

about any of this why i’m even here

standing having this conversation with

you uh

is because we’ve reached a point where

we’ve used up our resources to its

maximum capacity like

if we have to survive if earth has to

survive we cannot use any more than we

are using right now

because the global temperatures are

rising and we are not seeing

we’re not feeling the direct impact or

maybe we are but we are not aware of it

um if you’ve been noticing

the monsoons in bombay lasted until

november the ice the

glaciers are melting their flooding is

happening all across the world

and it’s not just i’m not saying it’s

only because of

the fashion industry it’s because of a

lot of other uh

industries that have a role to play but

yes the fashion industry is the second

largest polluter in the world um

we had a polluter of water be it air

pollution be it

um uh some of these two for now

and the emissions being released

are are at unprecedented levels

and people feeling the impact of those

emissions are the ones who have no role

to play in this

like they are the most vulnerable they

have

we don’t see them but they’re feeling

the direct impact

of climate change

as i was saying that all most of your

fast fashion clothes are made in

developing countries because that’s

where the labor cost is cheap

people um are willing to work

more for less because they don’t have a

choice

and the textile industry pollutes

like everything like all the dyes that

are used in your clothes go into the

rivers

um the cotton that is produced cotton

takes up a lot of water so like your one

t-shirt takes around 2 000 plus liters

of water just one cotton t-shirt

and that is because we’re using all the

available

water resources there’s not enough

drinking water being left

for people who need it the most

so 1.5 trillion liters of water is used

by the fashion industry every single

year uh

23 kgs of greenhouse gases are generated

for one kilo

of fabric produced now this is like all

statistics the statistics keep changing

but

what you need to understand is

emissions are okay let me just give you

a little science behind what

like very quickly what emissions are is

just it’s basically everything around

you including yourself we’re all made up

of carbon uh

and when and we’re all releasing carbon

uh

carbon dioxide mainly and then there are

and so in the in the ancient times when

we were taking anything from earth

because we do need earth for making

stuff right like

for food or for making fabrics or for

anything we

depend on earth for it so but whatever

we were taking

we were making stuff out of it wearing

it throwing it back into the earth

and then whatever emissions were being

released would be absorbed by

the available trees and and um the

surrounding ecosystem so everything was

in balance whatever was coming was going

back into earth again

we were living in harmony now what’s

happened is because of us

like not only fast fashion but because

of over consumerism over consumption

people want things instantly we want

more

uh more of everything uh what’s happened

is it’s created an imbalance so we are

throwing out much more

than earth can take so all these extra

carbon emissions that are being released

are being absorbed um

so like carbon dioxide absorbs heat

and that’s that creates a greenhouse

effect and that greenhouse effect is

what keeps earth warm and which is why

we can survive

but the over uh the excess of carbon

dioxide and greenhouse gases

is sucking more heat and it’s trapping

more heat

and that’s creating global warming

so small like you can connect the dots

later it’s fashion industry more wastage

more

stuff coming out into the atmosphere we

are cutting down trees also to make way

for

infrastructure to build roads to build

metros or whatever

and that’s not leaving enough room for

the planet to survive

in the way it was meant to survive

so what’s the solution uh we cannot stop

buying

that’s a fact we will not stop uh

you know wearing clothes or buying

things and

so there is no one solution to it

sustainability can mean different things

to different people

uh for me right now it’s more about

buying say clothes that are made more

mindfully where people are well paid

that are made out of natural materials

for some it could be

carrying your own bags or carrying your

own bottle not using plastic

and there’s a new term i’d like to

familiarize you guys with

and you should look into this later it’s

a way it’s something that’s been

uh gaining momentum in the in the last

few years

it’s called a circular economy so up

until now we’ve been living in a linear

economy which is

you take something you make something

out of it and you throw it

and that system is not really working

imagine the amount of products each and

every single one of us buys

from your cosmetics like one person has

an average of like 15 cosmetic products

from your healthcare from your clothing

shoes home appliances laundry

everything and there are seven billion

people on this earth so every single

person is buying that many products

throwing it it’s just sitting there in

the landfills not being re

like some of it gets recycled when most

of it can get recycled because there’s

no sort of way to do it um

and it’s just like it’s not a very

viable sustainable option in fact the

economy is losing billions of dollars

every year by wasting so much

whereas the circular economy what it

proposes is

you take something from nature you make

something out of it

you use it till the end of its life

cycle till you can’t use it anymore

you throw it and then you use it again

for example if you buy say you buy a

l’oreal product and you buy like

two three shampoos conditioners

deep conditioner serums whatever and you

take everything from them

and you give it back to l’oreal and

l’oreal

breaks down all the plastic the bottles

that

every single customer is sending their

way

and they make another packaging out of

it

and then you use it they sell it back to

the customer and you keep using that

instead of making new bottles every

single time

so that’s a way like that’s a you save

time you save money you save

the planet you save a lot of things it’s

a win-win

wow sorry

okay so a lot of big companies are

already moving towards this

uh there’s nike the h m is also having

uh

the hosting circular innovation

challenge where they’re inviting people

to come up with solutions to

in this case like break down their shoes

and make a new shoe out of it

there is um a company called aggro

agroloop biofiber that is using

that is making fiber out of wasted crops

so beard banana peels uh beard

hemp seed oil the leftover fiber that’s

uh

left in the hemp fields there’s sugar

cane

and and now since we’re in we’re in a

digital we live in a digital economy

we’re moving towards

uh a lot of brands innovating with ai

based platforms to find clothes that

really fit

a person so there’s little room left for

any kind of wastage when it comes to

um you know making a pattern or

uh you have to understand that when you

make a pair of clothing there’s a lot of

lot of wastage that goes into sim into

making the fabric into making the

garment

because there’s trials and errors in the

pattern you don’t like something you

throw it you cut it out you

there’s wastage of paper there’s wastage

of materials

um and this like platforms like this

where

you just like 3d scanner body and you

make a garment exactly to the to the

right fit of

that very consumer uh it leaves little

room for any of those things so it’s a

long

it’s still in a trial stage but

how part it’ll go and how much it can

scale is yet to be seen

okay so how do we become sustainable

in this day and age it’s a

it’s a challenge but it’s not something

that’s impossible

uh we

every single thing you do in your daily

life be it

how much you like but if you take a

rickshaw

to you know to a place that’s like a

kilometer away instead of that if you

just walk

you’ll burn more calories you’ll you’ll

burn less carbon emissions

then um carrying your own bag simply

carrying your own bag and doing away

with plastic all together is a great way

to contribute

uh buying less of anything

like do you really need like three

shades of lipstick

or like 10 shades of nail paint

just being mindful about how things work

and how much you’re putting out there

and also educating yourself every single

day about what

sustainability is is what’s going to

empower you like my standing here and

telling you any of this

may or may not have an impact uh but

you willingly educating yourself and

understanding the reality and accepting

that this is

we are all part of the same ecosystem we

all live on the same planet

there is no other planet to go to and we

all have to survive here

so should we we should we do it

together or should we like not care at

all like that’s that’s for you to decide

and every little action of yours has a

consequence

um i already explained that with the

with the images of

the polar bear and the kid and we i can

show you a lot more but

every little action of yours even today

this very instance when you’re sitting

here you’re thinking

or like tomorrow if you go by you walk

into a store and you make a purchase

that’s going to have a consequence so

make sure it’s a good one

thank you