Previous research has proven that if companies have a more diverse leadership, they also have better environmental compliance reports, as well as higher financial returns. When ethnic minorities have senior roles in companies, especially a board role, they tend to be more competitive and better governed. When looking at the fashion industry, research has found sustainability focused businesses are mostly white.

According to researcher Christy Glass “A lack of racial diversity and gender diversity is actually hurting organisations in specific and measurable ways. There are incredibly broad and deep benefits to having people of colour on the board and across leadership,” even thinking about including better innovation and environmental reports, could lead to companies making bigger impacts.

Racism is an extensive systematic problem, along with climate change and pollution. Now brands need to start thinking about how they are going to right their wrongs and start to fix these three major issues. Fashion consultant Dominique Drakeford works alongside sustainable fashion brands and advises that “you can only be inauthentic for so long. So, my advice, since most well-known brands have a racial deficit: take accountability and do the hard work.” Every area of fashion needs to step back and think about their actions, brands might be trying to be more conscientious, but trying to ignore the systematic racism that oppresses black, brown and other ethnic minority communities needs to stop and be acknowledged. If we stop acting like the problem isn’t there, we can try to fix it.

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DON'T PUT THAT WATER BOTTLE IN THE BIN!

Eco-Fi might sound like a new fabric to some of us, however this was previously known as EcoSpun. EcoSpun is a polyester fibre that is made out of the recycled plastic bottles that would have ended up in a landfill otherwise.

Eco-Fi can be used to make all sorts of fabrics, they are often warm, durable, weather resistant, lightweight and are comfortable that feel soft to touch. These are already incredible factors to have, but when it is mixed with another fabric, maybe wool, cotton or Tencel, it enhances these qualities. Usually, you would find Eco-Fi in jackets, trousers, outdoor vests, blankets, the typical things you would take outside. It has also been used for items you would find in your home like fibrefill, carpets even little home comforts.

By using a product made out of eco-fi, you are then contributing to a process which prevents an estimated three billion plastic bottles from ending up in landfills around the world. In the long run this saves over half a million barrels of oil, that prevents 400,000 tonnes of harmful emissions going into the atmosphere, this prevents acid rain, global warming and smog, just to name a few effects that could happen if plastic bottles weren’t recycled. Doing this saves huge amounts of petroleum instead of using untouched natural materials, that could supply power to a city the same size of Atlanta for at least a year. 

The process begins at your local recycling depot, and then bottles are categorised based on colour before being sterilised and crushed down and chopped into flakes. The flakes are then melted, producing a thick liquid that creates fibrous, polyester strands. These strands are stretched to make them thinner but just as strong, strands are crimped, cut into smaller pieces and shipped over to clothing manufacturers, who know how turn these threads into fabrics that can be turned into clothes. Fleeces are one of the many garments that can be made out of the fabric, a fleece made from Eco-Fi is almost identical to a fleece that isn’t made out of recycled materials; the biggest difference is that the soft and luxurious product did not use up the planets natural resources, but did not need to use any herbicides, or pesticides and doesn’t waste as much energy. 

Eco-fi was developed in the US by Wellman Inc, ever since Wellman developed this new fibre, they have won numerous environmental awards for the development of EcoSpun. Wellman had sold the manufacturing rights for EcoSpun to Foss Manufacturing in New Hampshire. However, it was Foss who changed the name from EcoSpun to Eco-fi. 

The fashion industry was never sustainable enough in the past, and recent years there have been significant progressions in more sustainable methods of sourcing materials for clothes. If we can encourage more people to recycle water bottles, then Eco-Fi could potentially be available to even more people. As technology develops itself  and becomes more advanced, we will see more ingenious methods of recycling or sourcing less harmful materials.