How Retailers Can Spur Consumers To Ditch Fast Fashion

Following recent worldwide climate strikes, more and more consumers are paying greater attention to their own carbon footprints, which has spurred many environmentally conscious shoppers to rethink their affinity for fast fashion. With Forever 21's bankruptcy, talk of darker days for fast fashion has only grown louder.

But the fast fashion industry benefits from one strong selling point: price competitiveness. Shopping more sustainably is typically more expensive.

Without creative solutions that harmonize consumers' eco-consciousness and their budget-consciousness, it will be hard for many shoppers to pass up the low prices fast fashion offers. To keep shoppers from feeling torn between their wallets and the planet, retailers should take steps like supporting clothing donations, offering green shipping incentives and making greater use of recycled material, as well as financing and payment options that lower customers' upfront cost burden.

For years, consumers have flocked to fast fashion outlets to get the latest runway styles at relatively low prices, but those low prices have come at a high cost. Fossil fuel-derived synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon and acrylic now account for 60% of the fabrics in our clothes. The World Resources Institute notes that manufacturing a single T-shirt requires 2,700 liters of water, while making one pair of jeans results in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to driving a car 80 miles.

Cheaply produced and designed with the latest trends in mind, fast fashion items aren't built to last, which helps explain why consumers keep clothes for only about half as long as they did at the turn of the century, and why the average consumer purchased 60% more garments in 2014 than in 2000. Keeping up with consumer demand has meant more production and more adverse environmental consequences, with 2014 marking the first year that more than 100 billion garments were manufactured worldwide.

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