Innovation and a Just Transition
Shiringa: Fashion Regenerating Amazonia. Image: Collective Fashion Justice.
In 2023, activist Emma Hakansson and founder of Collective Fashion Justice (CFJ) published a small but important book. In Total Ethics Fashion, named as one of the best four fashion books of 2023 by the Financial Times, Hakansson challenges the boundaries of ‘sustainability’ by arguing that, in view of multiple societal, environmental and justice crises, no truly ethical fashion system can sideline animals.
As Hakansson writes, “Humans make up just 2.5 percent of all animal biomass, which is made up of trillions of lives. To talk about protecting nature or the environment in a way that acknowledges sentient life while only acknowledging 2.5 percent of that life is absurd.” (P12)
She continues: “Cows, sheep, goats, ducks, crocodiles, raccoon dogs and other species entrapped, exploited and slaughtered in fashion supply chains, are, undoubtedly a part of nature too. While our current systems separates them from nature, denies them their nature, even punishes their nature, they remain a part of nature.”
Her offer is this: “a total ethics fashion system, one which priorities the life and wellbeing of our total environment, we people, our fellow animals and the planet we share and live as part of” (P15) and via industry engagement, university education, podcasts and film and cutting edge reports, that is exactly what CFJ has been working towards.
This is a big ask, given current practices: the billion and more cows killed badly for leather, the almost complete absence of animal consideration in material standards, celebrities still thinking that fur is ‘cool’. The following article is an extract of the book, Chapter 10: Innovation and a Just Transition. I could have picked any chapter (Hakansson expertly unpicks the definition of sustainability, supply chains, ‘humans as animals’, ‘animals as nature’) but this one proposes the future-focused work that so much activism needs right now.
“A conceptual total ethics fashion system is inevitably complicated by the nitty gritty details of a transition towards a real system. This kind of transition is complex, geopolitical, often expensive and hard. There’s no questioning that. But we’ve changed for the better before: any forms of child labour have now been outlawed, making it far less common (though still a persistent problem in some fashion supply chains); human innovation will soon see the total repair of the ozone hole, I could go on - and we will again.
And too, on talks of costs, the climate crisis, global pandemics, species extinction and exploitation are also costs. Steep ones. As noted by Waorani woman and leader Nemonte Nenquimo, these are driven by ‘widespread spiritual poverty’, a lack of connection where we think money spent on a just transition to a system which doesn’t destroy is the loss, not the continued destruction itself. Solely pursuing one means a poverty of nature and of creativity but it doesn’t need to be this way.
Supporting rather than stripping back nature
If we look beyond that kind of thinking, it’s exciting to play with what’s possible. What if, instead of an Amazon biome desecrated by cattle ranching partly funded by the leather industry, the fashion industry could help support the rainforest, the indigenous peoples and fellow animals who live there? Peruvian start-up Amazkin, created by Jorge Cajacuri and Anna Tafur, share a conservation agreement with seven Indigenous Awajun communities who protect nearly 3,000 hectares of the Amazonian rainforest. Together, this alliance uses Indigenous wisdom and artisanal practices to create a completely animal-free and petrochemical-free leather alternative, derived from the milky latex liquid which seeps out of Shiringa trees. Carved rings are formed around its trunk, allowing the latex to flow into a collection container without any harm to the tree and its growth. The collaboration exists to ‘empower the consumer to see the Amazon through the lens of activism and conservation’, the material is an ‘educational tool for intentional consumerism’ that builds rather than breaks down.
Earlier this year, CFJ produced Shiringa, the first in the Total Ethics Fashion Future series. Watch it on Waterbear here. https://www.waterbear.com/watch/shiringa
There are many more examples of what we could do differently. What if all of our agricultural fruit waste really could be transformed into leather alternatives, providing additional income streams to farmers?
What if Indonesian old-growth forests are not cut down for viscose production quite tight, because waste from the country’s existing coconut industry was the feedstock for these materials instead?
What if the existing efforts to improve leather tanneries, creating processes free from harmful substances, pollution and health hazards, were used to make mycelium leather as sustainable as it possibly could be? What if this meant keeping the tanning industry and its people alive and well, all the while preserving natural lands and cutting methane emissions tied to animal skin leather production? What if farmlands full of sheep kept for wool growing were phased out through agricultural transitions and rewilding, used for carbon farming and ecotourism which better supported the wider community of people, as well as native animals and the land they all stood on?
What if those working in mines fuelling fast fashion’s synthetic addition instead worked in this kind of regeneration of land, life and community? All of this innovation is happening now, albeit often at a small, community-level scale, waiting eagerly for further support.
A just transition is also not only about evolving materiality but circularity. Imagine if we took less and made more with the many materials we already have - designing garments that can be disassembled and remade, making clothes from old clothes, whether in our homes or in the factories of larger brands. What if we transitioned our thinking of ‘repair’ as daggy and cheap, to customised, elevated and desirable?
What if old clothes were symbols of pride, adored more with each wear rather than tainted with boredom in a newness obsessed culture? What if we connected again with quality’s raft, and how exceptionally brilliant the work of people who make clothes really is?
Perhaps the most exciting part of a recognition that we can justly transition away from harm is that we don’t need to wait. We don’t need to wait until we can produce as many responsible materials as we do for fossil fuel, animal-derived or other harmful materials today, because the scale of fashion production and purchasing is too large, no matter what we’re making. We can scale back, begin now, and make with the kind of care that garners citizen support which would keep businesses afloat.
We don’t need to wait for other brands to get on board, for other people to dress the same way, because good fashion has never been about following trends: it’s about creating, transforming, celebrating. We can make our own clothes, mend our clothes, reinvent our clothes, buy far fewer clothes which would allow us to afford clothes that did far less damage.
We all, whether participating in fashion through wearing, purchasing, making, designing, selling or promoting can help to change fashion. We can shift the industry away from constant fiscal growth towards creative growth that remains profitable, while supporting environmental richness. And we can build systems and laws that demand this kind of change, so we aren’t waiting for everyone with product power to realise the value of total ethics - because by then it will be too late. For those who think it’s all a little far fetched, who think ‘sweatshops provide employment’ and that degrowth is poverty, perhaps we need to consider lives with a little more actual life and a little less work. Where our systems produces less stuff for us, yet we have more time for ourselves, for ingenuity and creativity, for collaboration and for nature.
A just transition towards total ethics may seem distant, even naive or out of reach. But if we don’t stretch ourselves towards a goal of total ethics, of autonomy over donation, regeneration over destruction, nature over greed and creativity over exploitation, what are we doing? The work towards the ‘impossible’ that Dame Vivienne Westwood told us to demand in order to be reasonable is a place where we can find excitement, inspiration, passion and purpose. Total ethics fashion or bust.”
