Is India’s Chance to Bring Sustainable Fashion to the G20 a Lost Opportunity?
By Ananya Mukherjee
India assumed the presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20), the premier multinational coalition on preserving and promoting the natural environment, on December 1, 2022. India’s G20 agenda focuses on sustainable lifestyles, climate change, and supply chain issues. The fashion industry represents an undeniable intertwining of these central themes, and with its command of the G20 stage and dominance of the worldwide apparel industry, India is perfectly poised to advocate for sustainable fashion.
The Potential for a Greener Fashion Industry
Consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s findings present a surprising picture: in 2018, the fashion industry emitted 2.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases, making it as pollutive as the combined economies of France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Worldwide, the fashion industry alone produces nearly 10 percent of all of mankind’s carbon emissions, and according to data from the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, the fashion industry’s contribution to carbon emissions globally is set to cross 60 percent by 2030. Moreover, 20 percent of worldwide industrial water pollution can be traced back to the fashion industry; data from the World Resources Institute reveals that it takes 2,700 liters of water to produce a single cotton t-shirt,equivalent to the average person’s water consumption over two-and-a-half years. A major contributor to the fashion industry’s pollution is “fast fashion,” which gets its moniker from the use of cheap, low-quality, and non-durable materials. From their manufacturing and sourcing cycles to their consumption, fast fashion products are not designed to be eco-friendly.
Sustainable fashion, on the other hand, aligns with growing climate consciousness in both global and domestic policy-making contexts. As such, a focus on sustainable fashion would catalyze India's domestic efforts on sustainability, economic empowerment, and resource efficiency. Relatedly, the COVID-19 pandemic boosted consumer consciousness as consumers moved“beyond the label” to make more informed decisions about the impacts of their purchases on society, the economy, and the environment. Consumer consciousness is spurring demand for sustainable and ethical fashion as buyers eschew cheap and easily-accessible clothing in favor of responsibly sourced and manufactured textile goods. Despite these trends, Indian and international fashion houses alike continue to build redundancies into their products, with the use of cheap and low quality fabrics - at times not meant to last for more than 14 wears, designs which are increasingly dependent on quick changing ‘trends’, and often lack stress-testing due to fast production cycles; thereby reinforcing buyers’ behavioral trends toward excessive consumerism and fast fashion.
India’s Fashion Industry Today
The Indian economy holds immense potential for sustainable fashion. The World Economic Forum expects India to record a 6 percent GDP growth rate for the fiscal year ending March 2024, marking India as one of the fastest-growing major economies, outpacing other emerging economic powerhouses such as the People’s Republic of China and Brazil. Adding to its rapid economic growth, India is poised to emerge as a global sourcing hub and textile market. India controls 4 percent of the global textiles and apparel trade and is the second-largest producer of textiles and garments. The country also produces several types of organic materials and environmentally-friendly cloth-making processes are prevalent. And with a population of 1.4 billion people, India has the potential to offer an extremely lucrative consumer market for international goods. With such advantages, India has a unique opportunity to carve out a niche for itself in the sustainable fashion market as both a manufacturer and consumer.
Yet Indian national policy documents make few references to sustainable fashion. For instance, Invest India, the Indian government's National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency, recently noted that “sustainable textiles” present future economic opportunities with “high margins” and recognized the importance of “circular designs, use of blended fibres” and “reduced energy use” in textile processes. In 2019, the Textile Ministry launched Project Sustainable Resolution (SURE), which aimed to create a sustainable pathway for the Indian fashion industry. However, efforts to push the sustainable fashion mandate domestically have been lackadaisical. With little information available on Project SURE’s progress, it is hard to gauge progress thus far. For example, the Indian public has yet to see a national sustainable sourcing policy, which was one of the primary objectives of this initiative.
Addressing the fashion industry’s disastrous environmental impacts requires policymakers to answer certain hard questions: why should fashion be environmentally friendly? What is sustainable fashion? Why should it be favoured over fast fashion? How can governments, designers, manufacturers, and civil society quantify fashion’s negative environmental impacts?
Rather than engaging with these questions, India’s foreign policies and laws demonstrate indifference to the concepts of sustainable and ethical fashion. For example, India presently permits 100 percent foreign direct investment (FDI), allowing international fashion houses to enter the Indian market with relative ease and minimal government oversight. When governmental regulation is possible, Indian FDI manufacturing laws prescribe certain local sourcing requirements (for example, 30 percent of the value of raw materials in textiles needs to be sourced from India). However, these laws do not regulate the kind of materials used, the sustainability of manufacturing processes, or the environmental impacts of production.
Recommendations for Indian Leadership in Sustainable Fashion
Sustainable fashion concerns should be mainstreamed in all textile and garment industry considerations. To that end, mainstreaming sustainable fashion in textile industry discussions would provide the space for pluralistic assessments of the implications of different policies within the larger textile industry, thereby underpinning a sustainable fashion pathway. Integrating sustainable fashion into the design and implementation of programs in the Indian textile space would ensure that policies work cohesively and toward a shared goal. Textile policy mainstreaming starts with the thorough implementation of existing policy initiatives, including meeting Project SURE’s objectives. Pushing domestic production houses to develop a comprehensive understanding of the environmental impacts of garment production is only the first step toward a greener fashion industry. Introducing sourcing criteria laws for manufacturing units and fashion houses at each stage of the production cycle, in line with Project SURE, would move the needle of sustainability from a purely voluntary action to a legal obligation.
On a global level, India should leverage its presidency of the G20 summit to prompt member countries to advocate for and move toward sustainable fashion in their domestic and international endeavors. At the outset, India should call for increased transparency and communication from the G20 countries on their sustainability efforts in the fashion and clothing industry. While a one-size-fits-all approach may be incongruent when dealing with countries’ domestic fashion industries, providing a credible platform for international dialogue would enable countries to learn from their mistakes and successes and create much-needed public momentum around this issue.
Is India missing out on a crucial opportunity for global leadership in sustainability? The current fashion market, if left unchecked, will eradicate the possibility of a sustainable future. As one of the largest consumer markets, one of the largest producers and exporters of textile, and the president of the G20, India has the resources, consumer base, and political leverage at its disposal to champion a green transformation of the global fashion industry. What will it take for Indian leaders to recognize this untapped potential and put sustainable fashion at the forefront of the G20 discussions?
Ananya is a second year master’s candidate at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. She is an India-qualified lawyer and is actively interested in fields of environmental policy, business and human rights, and responsible supply chains. Outside of the work space, she is passionate about gender justice, enjoys painting, is a trained scuba diver, and mentors young lawyers in India in navigating the domestic and international legal and policy space.
“Textiles for sale” is by Francisco Anzola and is licensed under CC BY 2.0 DEED.
