For some time now the fashion industry has been shifting towards sustainable practices. These recent changes in the fashion industry are a result of people’s changing attitudes and lifestyles. Consumers want to buy greener fashion and are looking to fashion creators and retailers to fill that need. There are a lot of different issues to consider when making more environmentally friendly clothing. There are also fair-trade and ethical issues to consider as environmentally friendly consumers are usually interested in these principles too. Every aspect has to be considered from the production of the fabric to the dyeing of the cloth, from the staff working on the garments, the haberdashery used to create them and transportation of the goods to market. And don’t forget about the retailing and the packaging.
Many consumers may not have considered the amount of oil hiding in their wardrobes though.
Discover how much oil is in your wardrobe with interactive Fashion Oil Calculator
- 3 billion barrels of oil are used annually making clothes
- The average person in the UKs clothing was made using 379 litres of oil
- 62% of clothes are made from synthetic materials
- 80 billion new items of clothing are made each year
- 30% of new clothing made is never sold
The average person’s current wardrobe was created using 379 litres of oil according to an environmental awareness campaign launched today by Unfolded. The sustainable fashion platform aims to raise awareness of just how much oil is lurking in our wardrobes with 1.3 billion barrels used annually to make new clothing… And they’re making it personal, thanks to the introduction of an interactive Fashion Oil Calculator enabling everyone to discover just how much oil their own wardrobe contains.
Each year 1.3 billion barrels of oil are used to manufacture new clothes – more than the annual oil consumption of Spain – enough to fill 81,250 Olympic swimming pools every year …or one every 25 minutes.
Of the 80 billion new items of clothing being made each year an estimated 30% of these are never sold, making the fashion industry one of the most environmentally damaging industries. This is Unfolded is on a mission to change this, helping people dress more sustainably with its affordable sustainable clothing collections which are made without any waste, minimising the use of natural resources in their manufacture.
The oil wasted while manufacturing synthetic clothing that is never even sold equals 240 million barrels each year!
Users can discover how much oil has been used in their own wardrobes by visiting https://thisisunfolded.com/pages/fashion-oil-calculator and trying the Fashion Oil Calculator for themselves
Hilde Frydnes, CCO and Co-Founder at This is Unfolded, explained; “At a time when everyone is striving to reduce energy usage, for our planet and due to the war in Ukraine we thought it was time to highlight one of the more hidden users – the fashion industry. By highlighting the huge amount of oil that is used making synthetic clothing every year including items that are made and head straight to landfill we hope to help people make more sustainable fashion choices, whether that be buying sustainably or repairing and recycling existing items.”
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