Despite making up just 3.8 per cent of materials used in the fashion industry, 75 per cent of fashion’s annual methane footprint is tied to the production and use of animal-derived leather, wool and cashmere, pointing to the urgent need for a just transition to more responsible animal-free and fossil fuel-free materials. Slashing methane emissions is the fastest way fashion brands can help to reduce global temperatures, CFJsaid in a press release.
The global fashion industry emits 8.3 million tonnes of methane annually—nearly four times France’s total.
Despite comprising just 3.8 per cent of materials, animal-derived products like leather and wool account for 75 per cent of these emissions.
Collective Fashion Justice urges a shift to animal-free, fossil-free materials and renewable energy.
CFJ’s white paper, produced in collaboration with researchers from New York and Cornell Universities, has presented the first-ever calculation of the global fashion industry’s methane emissions, it said.
There is global agreement that tackling methane emissions is both important and urgent, with the United Nations, peak bodies and 150 countries endorsing a Global Methane Pledge committed to 30 per cent methane mitigation by 2030, from a 2020 baseline. Methane is responsible for supercharging the climate crisis as, in the short term; it is 86 times more potent than carbon. Methane lasts far fewer years in the atmosphere than carbon, meaning reducing methane now will reduce global temperatures far sooner.
Ed Miliband MP, secretary of state for Energy Security and Net Zero in England, underscored the urgency of methane action, stating that ‘if CO2 cuts are the marathon, methane is the sprint’, when recently launching the UK’s Methane Action Plan.
Prioritising methane mitigation is essential to quickly reduce global temperatures. Yet prior to this report there has been no publicly available, credible estimate of fashion’s methane footprint.
“The fashion industry is on a fast track to failing the 1.5°C climate target of the Paris Agreement. There is no time to tinker around the edges of this existential crisis. A focus on major methane reduction is essential to reducing global temperatures quickly, but fashion cannot fix what it does not understand. That’s why our methane footprint for the industry is a watershed moment. With this data now available the fashion industry can better understand its impact on our climate and must use this to take targeted and science-based action to reduce methane: the data shows that it must include divestment from virgin animal-derived materials like leather and wool,” Emma Hakansson, founding director of CFJ, said.
“After the sourcing of ruminant animal-derived materials, the second largest source of methane emissions in the fashion industry is associated with the use of non-renewable energy, particularly gas and coal, which continues to power material processing and fabrication facilities. A transition to renewable energy across the fashion supply chain is also essential. There is no doubt that if the fashion industry is to have a future, it must cut methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, from a 2020 baseline. This is an opportunity for our industry. Our findings prove it is entirely possible to meaningfully reduce global temperatures quickly, by focusing on just transitions from conventional, animal-derived materials to innovative, animal-free and fossil fuel-free next-gen and recycled materials. Our planet and shared future relies on brands investing in and creatively using better, lower-emissions materials that shift us beyond the most methane-intensive materials, like those sourced from the bodies of ruminant animals,” Emma continues.
“Without urgent methane mitigation we cannot solve the climate crisis. Collective Fashion Justice’s new research shows the fashion industry must curb methane emissions and that to do so, the industry’s role in methane-intensive animal agriculture through leather and wool use can no longer be ignored. We must reduce our reliance on these animal-based systems and shift to plant production not just in food but in fashion,” George Monbiot, journalist, environmentalist, and political activist, said.
This report is an important opportunity for the fashion industry to better understand the imperative to act on methane mitigation, which can act as an emergency brake against climate crisis because it is so much more potent yet shorter lived than carbon.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)
