The textile and fashion industry is creating a menace in terms of generation of voluminous amount of solid waste, water pollution, and emission of greenhouse gases. In addition, the workers are at times exposed to hazardous materials, paid unfair wages, and have long working hours.

However, in recent years, sustainability has become the talk of the town. At present many fashion brands are taking initiatives to promote their products as sustainable fashion while some others are ignoring the crucial role of imbibing sustainability into their business model. These brands largely focus on producing collections to meet the changing trends and use non-sustainable materials and processes, but they do launch one or two collections that are promoted as conscious or green collections. Some people consider this as greenwashing, a term which refers to false, vague, and misleading claims made by a company regarding eco-friendliness of its products. Some brands just use minor percentage of organic cotton or recycled polyester in the fabric composition and quote their product as 100 per cent sustainable. So, there is a huge disparity in sustainable fashion category, which needs to be addressed by the industry by assessing fashion collections under various aspects of sustainability.

At the same time, there are many brands that are taking initiatives to address the serious underlying issue of unsustainability in their business model in various ways. By understanding the implication of business model on overall outcome, brands can eliminate a lot of processes and procedures which end up leading to increased carbon footprint.

Fortunately, some designers are taking the initiative and setting examples for the upcoming designers by embedding sustainability into their business model.

Sustainability can be incorporated at various levels of fashion system in terms of:

•   use of materials

•   use of workforce

•   use of technology and processes

•   packaging and promotion of product range

•   distribution of products

•   after use of products etc.

Conscious brands can ensure sustainability by:

•   using lesser virgin material in production process

•   not using pesticides, harmful chemicals in production of fibres

•   not using any hazardous materials, process or technology

•   not wasting any materials in all the stages of production

•   not using any plastic in packaging

•   taking care and paying fair wages to the workforce

•   not producing trendy clothes and size specific garments

•   reusing wastewater and disposed materials

•   using locally available skills and materials

•   using recycled materials like recycled cotton, recycled polyester etc.

Awareness level and sensitivity of consumers play a very crucial role in ensuring that brands follow sustainability so that fashion products can become part of circular fashion system. This consciousness is equally required on behalf on consumers.

Steps to follow for consumers:

•   Buy less

•   Buy second hand

•   Take clothing on rent

•   Wear custom made garments

•   Choose durable, long lasting, classic fashion products

•   Donate old clothing

•   Swap your clothing

•   Sell pre-owned clothes

•   Repair, reuse, and upcycle products.

It can be concluded that taking smaller, simpler initiatives by both consumers and brands could go a long way in safeguarding the planet.