A new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has explored the role of the fashion industry in driving environmental change, particularly in relation to land.

The aim of the UNCCD report is to encourage the industry to consider how its fibre choices are impacting the industry’s land footprint and to promote more sustainable production and consumption patterns.

“By focusing on fashion’s impact on land, we can promote more sustainable practices that protect the environment, conserve biodiversity, generate sustainable livelihoods, and ensure that land remains productive for generations to come,” explains Xenya Scanlon, UNCCD chief of communications, external relations and partnerships.

UNCCD executive secretary Ibrahim Thiaw adds: “By 2030, the fashion industry is expected to use 35% more land – much of it to grow materials for cheap and throwaway fashion. But we can choose that shirt or those jeans more carefully. Those choices do not diminish our quality of life. On the contrary, they improve it.”

In the last two decades global fibre production has more than doubled from 58m tons in 2000 to a new record of 124m tons in 2023. If business continues as usual, the fibre market is expected to continue growing rapidly, reaching 160m tons by 2030.

Around 60% of all the textiles produced are used in clothing. Less than 1% of all material used to produce them is recycled into new clothing. While most of the fibre produced is of synthetic origin, a 2017 study estimated that, by 2030, the fashion industry will use 35% more land for cotton, forest for cellulosic fibres, and grassland for livestock, or a total of 115m hectares, an area almost the size of South Africa.

The production of raw materials for textiles carries the risk of significant negative impacts on land, such as degradation, soil erosion, overgrazing, desertification, deforestation, freshwater depletion, pollution, waste, biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and climate change. According to the UNCCD, up to 40% of the world’s land is degraded, and degradation is continuing at an alarming rate.

Cotton

Cotton is the most used natural fibre in the world and the second most produced fibre in the textile industry. The fabric is comfortable, breathable and hard-wearing. Yet its cultivation comes at a cost to the land: large-scale cotton cultivation depletes the water resources of drier regions, and the industry depends heavily on chemical fertilisers, herbicides and insecticides. One fifth (20%) of global fibre production is cotton while 2.5% of arable land worldwide is used for cotton cultivation. 4.7% of pesticides and 10% of insecticides sold worldwide go into cotton farming. 1,931 litres of irrigation water and 6,003 litres of rainwater is needed on average to produce 1kg of lint, or raw cotton fibre, roughly equivalent to one tshirt and one pair of jeans.

The reports says there are four main alternatives to conventional cotton:

1. Organic cotton. This avoids harmful pesticides and synthetic fertilisers, is often grown on rain-fed farms, but usually needs more land than conventional cotton due to lower yields

2. Cotton licensed or certified under Voluntary Standard Systems. An example for this is Better Cotton, which targets improvements across a range of issues associated with cotton farming

3. Recycled cotton. Recycled cotton covers only about 1% of demand, however, this sector is expected to grow quickly in the coming years

4. Other fibres. Alternative natural fibres such as hemp or flax have lower environmental impacts but their own sets of challenges, while synthetic fibres are non-biodegradable, and man-made cellulosic fibres are still an emerging industry.

Wool

Wool is a warm, breathable and highly durable material, which are big benefits when being worn. It is also biodegradable and easily recyclable due to its relatively long fibre. Negative land impacts of large-scale, unsustainable wool production can include: overgrazing, leading to land degradation; deforestation and habitat loss to create more pasture for grazing animals; water and soil pollution from pesticides to keep livestock parasite-free and chemicals used to wash wool; loss of biodiversity and exclusion of wild grazing species that compete with livestock for forage and space; high emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from ruminants such as sheep and goats.

The report indicates alternatives to wool are often synthetics, such as polyester, acrylic, and nylon which have their own environmental and land impact. Wool blended with synthetic fibres makes it harder to recycle and are more likely to end up as landfill.

Plant-based fibres

Plant-based fibres including bast fibres such as jute, flax, hemp and others, have a global market share of about 5% excluding cotton and wood-based fibres. If farmed carefully, plant-based fibres can be more environmentally sustainable than cotton, wool or synthetic. Fashion items made with these fibres are quick to dry, durable and biodegradable. They might, however, also be a bit coarse or prone to wrinkling. They are also generally more expensive to produce and more energy-intensive in the spinning process.

Wood-based fibres

Over the past decade, man-made cellulosic fibres (MMCFs) have received increasing attention as being a more environmentally-friendly alternative to other fibres, such as cotton or synthetics. At 7.9m tons in 2023, accounting for about 6% of the global fibre market, production has more than doubled since 1990 and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. Because they are wood-based and renewable, MMCFs can have less of a negative environmental impact when compared to any other fibres.

But if fibres come from forest sources that are not managed sustainably, where for example illegal logging is taking place, there is a risk of forest degradation and deforestation, reads the report.

“Deforestation damages ecosystems and heightens the risk of soil erosion, loss of fertility and increased flooding due to the removal of trees that anchor the soil. It also results in biodiversity loss, as forest species lose their habitat, and contributes to climate change through the release of carbon stored in trees and forest soils. However, if managed sustainably, the forests can maintain or even enhance their biodiversity, make the forest ecosystems resilient and preserve soil and water quality. It takes less land, and generally no irrigation or fertiliser, to produce a ton of wood-based fibre which are key advantages over, for example, cotton.”

Agricultural waste fibres

Byproducts of the global agri-food sector such as fruit peel, seed oil, plant leaves and biogas can be used to make MMCFs from material that would otherwise have been burned or gone to waste. The green credentials of agricultural waste fibres depend on several factors. As byproducts, the production of these materials does not add to the pressure on land and other resources. Some newcomers to the fashion world include oranges; orange fibre extracts cellulose from the peel of oranges grown for their juice, which produces 700,000 tons of orange waste a year in Italy. The company, which began as a university project, transforms the peel into a silk-like fabric. The citrus cellulose has also already been incorporated into a lyocell fabric.

The report says material science company Circular Systems has been producing fibres from hemp seed and flaxseed oil, pineapple leaves, banana trees, rice straw and sugarcane bark since 2019. The company claims waste from these six crops could yield more than 250m tons of fibre each year, which is more than current global fibre demand.

Synthetics

Today, more than two thirds of all fashion produced are made from synthetic fibres, such as polyester or polyamide (nylon), which are plastics derived from oil and gas. 87% of the fibre used for clothing is landfilled or incinerated. EU consumers discard about 5.8m tons of textiles annually, which is around 11kg per person – of which about two thirds consist of synthetic fibres. And 9% of the annual microplastic losses to oceans is due to the textile sector (synthetic fibres) The land footprint of synthetics in the fibre production stage is indirect and small, related to oil extraction, land degradation from drilling and refinery infrastructure.

Synthetic fibres instead leave a much bigger imprint at the end of their life. Effectively non-biodegradable, huge quantities of synthetic fibres end up in landfills. They also often contain chemicals, which help the longevity of the clothes but after being discarded leach into soil and groundwater if improperly disposed of. In addition, synthetics have an immense energy and carbon footprint incurred during both production (being made from crude oil) and disposal, while microplastics seep into the ocean and soil. All of these issues have long-term and largely unknown consequences on people and biodiversity.

In order to solve the issue of pollution through synthetics and plastic in general, two main challenges need to be overcome. Firstly, the current system needs to be changed away from cheap, quickly disposable clothing items, overproduction and consumption. Secondly, the caused pollution needs to be tackled.

The report points out the circular economy is often presented as a solution for both challenges. New business models and product designs that lengthen the lifespan of clothing, recycle, reuse or recover them need to be established and scaled up. Further, change requires new policies, and the industry to play an important part in reducing the land impact of clothes. Alternative fibres and material innovation need to be incentivised and recycling technologies advanced.

In November the European Commission proposed a delay to the implementation of its deforestation regulation giving fashion companies longer to comply with rules that aim to ensure all products sold in the EU are not linked to deforestation. 

 By Just Style