With Black Friday around the corner, the global Speak Volumes campaign is asking consumers to count their clothes before buying more, and for brands to review their production numbers before they produce more.

Billions of items of clothing and textiles are produced – and wasted – annually but no one knows exactly how many. The Or Foundation says estimates are not good enough. Founded in 2011 and with a base in Ghana, its founder, American designer Liz Ricketts, is pushing for more transparency and accountability. Liz set up the organisation to campaign for regenerative alternatives to the overproduction and overconsumption in the fashion industry. A key aim of the organisation is to build awareness and advocate for a justice-led circular economy.

Ahead of Black Friday—the post-US Thanksgiving shopping frenzy on 29 November—The Or Foundation is ramping up the 2024 iteration of its Speaks Volumes campaign. The campaign is about people knowing what they own and consume, what brands produce, and where their garments end up.

This year the campaign was launched at the height of New York Fashion Week in early September with a key slogan of “Too much clothing. Not enough fashion”.

Speak Volumes’ fast fashion ‘zombie’ on London’s Oxford Street. Photo by Adam Wiseman for The Or Foundation

Speaks Volumes’ invites the industry to disclose numbers with the aim to get accurate data to close the guesstimate gap of between 80 billion to 150 billion tonnes of new garments each year. Better data means better planning and therefore the potential to redesign the industry from a linear model to one that embraces a circular economy, the foundation argues. It also gives the industry reference points as it reduces its waste and takes greater responsibility for volume impact along the value chain, including impact on garment workers, second-hand retailers and waste pickers.

Understanding global value chains means understanding that the fashion industry may be globally connected but impacts individual countries and communities differently.

Andre Page, project manager at the National Cleaner Production Centre, says South Africa’s clothing and textile industry is in a rebuilding phase, which makes disclosure of production numbers and volumes less of an issue right now in a local context.

He says: “Over the last decade, we’ve seen companies opening up more about what they do and how they are doing things. But as we look to localisation and trying to revive jobs, we aren’t at a point where we are looking at a reduction in production because we still have to get to a point where we have people in place to do production in the first place.”

Andre says the focus in South Africa right now lies in efforts to ensure that illegally imported garments arriving on South African shores can be effectively intercepted and seized by South African Revenue Services. These confiscated products also have to be diverted from landfills and incineration.

Last year, Andre was involved with a project with illegally imported garments, which were sorted and diverted for upcycling and recycling. The seized garments were turned into roof insulation or pet blankets.

Another important intervention, Andrew says, has been to focus on promoting ethical practices along the textile and apparel value chain. For this, he agrees accurate data and information are glaringly absent.

“It boils down to educating our designers, retailers and manufacturers. Education means they should understand the need to focus on ethical sourcing, looking at chemicals and dyes used, minimising waste at each point, and considering the amount of water and energy that goes into making the garment.

“We need to think about standardising within business so that we can lay a foundation for the industry,” he says.

Elize Hattingh is a senior researcher and economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) who conducted a decarbonisation strategy for textiles, footwear and leather for the Department of Trade Industry and Competition.

She says that beyond getting brands to disclose production volumes and numbers, the economic models themselves must change. This, she says, must be driven by policy and legislation, changing consumer behaviour and consumption and ultimately making explicit the science that signals a clear warning and recommended caps for temperature rise. The target, she says, must be to get to net zero emissions by 2050.

We must be looking more broadly—not talking just about the impact of fast fashion or consumerism, but building really good policies that shift the sector to comply

“We must be looking more broadly—not talking just about the impact of fast fashion or consumerism, but building really good policies that shift the sector to comply. Until now, extended producer responsibility (EPR) has varied from one country to the next and hasn’t been much of a handbrake. A bale of clothing leaving the EU and arriving on African shores, is no longer the Europeans’ responsibility, for instance.

“One of the big breakthroughs coming in the next three years though will be tougher EPR legislation that will mean companies will have to comply and fall in line; it will not be voluntary,” she says.

There must also be a stronger push to decouple resources from consumption

Elize says there must also be a stronger push to decouple resources from consumption. It means pursuing economic growth without depleting finite or scarce resources or relying on those that add to the carbon emissions pressure on the planet. She gives the example of using pineapple leaf fibre—that can’t be consumed—to produce 100% biodegradable nappies.

“Consumers need to also become more conscious consumers. We can stop buying and rather look to models like leasing clothing,” she says. “And we need to address for ourselves the question of exactly how much more we need to buy.”

It’s the same consumer power that the Speak Volumes campaign is leveraging as a force for action. Besides asking brands to go public with production volumes, consumers can sign a petition and take part in an exercise to count the number of garments they own. It’s to know definitively what’s in their wardrobes and ask that their favourite brands do the same: count their production volumes and make the information known.

 

• Sign up, get involved and find out more about the Speak Volumes campaign here
• Feature image is performance artist Jeremy Hutchison in Times Square, New York, dressed as an eight-foot-tall clothing ‘zombie’ made of discarded clothes. provided by The Or Foundation