Is the Contemporary UK Fashion Industry Sustainable? The sustainability of the fashion industry is one of the major concerns facing many stakeholders in the sector. The UK fashion industry is increasingly facing a wide range of sustainability issues ranging from wastes generation due to increased production of fashion products to the use of toxic materials in the production of fashion items. In addition, the industry has also been faced with the problem of the growing problem of widespread use of unsustainable materials such as non-biodegradable materials that are not usually easy to recycle as well as the current energy consumption to the release of millions of tons of greenhouse gasses released during the manufacture of fashion and textile products. It is widely believed that many of these sustainability challenges and issues are largely attributed to the recent increased flow of a diverse range of fashion products particularly clothing and textiles in the UK market. For example, recent statistics indicate that that up to 3.2 million tonnes of fashion related products like clothing and textiles currently flow through the country each year . Generally, the environmental impacts of the fashion sector mainly include its high contribution to the climate change in the form of the increasing requirement of fossil fuels required in the generation of energy used in the industry such as in the production and manufacture sectors. For example, the intense production of fashion items to meet the growing demands has often resulted in increased consumption of energy. Although the fashion industry has been in the forefront of the move towards the adoption of ethical fashion and changes in the way we treat our environment, many of these changes have not been realized.
In addition, large amounts of carbon are burnt each day as the fashion materials and products are transported