{"title":"Sustainable fashion: to define, or not to define, that is not the question","authors":"Celinda Palm","doi":"10.1080/15487733.2023.2261342","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Fashion’s unsustainability needs transformative action, as policymakers, business, and wider society all agree. The lack of a clear definition of sustainable fashion is often given as a major reason behind fashion’s increasing unsustainability. Taking a social-ecological system perspective, augmented by a feminist critical realist understanding of being (ontology) and knowledge of being (epistemology), I examine the past two decades of academic literature mentioning the concept “sustainable fashion.” I find a definition is indeed lacking in various academic discourses and approaches related to sustainable fashion. This lack is problematic because it means the fashion industry can talk preposterously without making useful progress on decreasing its negative impacts on people and the living planet. However, the ever-changing patterns and contexts of fashion would soon outdate a single fixed definition. What is presented as a two-sided problem – whether or not to define sustainable fashion – is instead a problématique. Sustainable fashion is better understood as an unsolvable predicament in a complex dynamic intertwined social-ecological system. While no solution exists, there are appropriate reflexive responses. These start by using a critical systems approach that includes fashion’s social (non-material) and ecological (material) aspects. A social-ecological system approach prevents businesses from exploiting the slipperiness of inconsistent definitions, aids policymaking by providing context and structure for the many contributory concepts (e.g., slow, green, or circular fashion), and fosters vital transdisciplinary research on sustainable fashion.","PeriodicalId":35192,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2023.2261342","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Fashion’s unsustainability needs transformative action, as policymakers, business, and wider society all agree. The lack of a clear definition of sustainable fashion is often given as a major reason behind fashion’s increasing unsustainability. Taking a social-ecological system perspective, augmented by a feminist critical realist understanding of being (ontology) and knowledge of being (epistemology), I examine the past two decades of academic literature mentioning the concept “sustainable fashion.” I find a definition is indeed lacking in various academic discourses and approaches related to sustainable fashion. This lack is problematic because it means the fashion industry can talk preposterously without making useful progress on decreasing its negative impacts on people and the living planet. However, the ever-changing patterns and contexts of fashion would soon outdate a single fixed definition. What is presented as a two-sided problem – whether or not to define sustainable fashion – is instead a problématique. Sustainable fashion is better understood as an unsolvable predicament in a complex dynamic intertwined social-ecological system. While no solution exists, there are appropriate reflexive responses. These start by using a critical systems approach that includes fashion’s social (non-material) and ecological (material) aspects. A social-ecological system approach prevents businesses from exploiting the slipperiness of inconsistent definitions, aids policymaking by providing context and structure for the many contributory concepts (e.g., slow, green, or circular fashion), and fosters vital transdisciplinary research on sustainable fashion.
期刊介绍:
Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy is a refereed, open-access journal which recognizes that climate change and other socio-environmental challenges require significant transformation of existing systems of consumption and production. Complex and diverse arrays of societal factors and institutions will in coming decades need to reconfigure agro-food systems, implement renewable energy sources, and reinvent housing, modes of mobility, and lifestyles for the current century and beyond. These innovations will need to be formulated in ways that enhance global equity, reduce unequal access to resources, and enable all people on the planet to lead flourishing lives within biophysical constraints. The journal seeks to advance scientific and political perspectives and to cultivate transdisciplinary discussions involving researchers, policy makers, civic entrepreneurs, and others. The ultimate objective is to encourage the design and deployment of both local experiments and system innovations that contribute to a more sustainable future by empowering individuals and organizations and facilitating processes of social learning.