Rental Fashion In Review: 2020’s success story or climate change contributor?

By Meg Pirie – Stylist and Slow-fashion Activist

Last year, Fashion Roundtable reported on how fashion rental companies were the pandemic’s success story— where other industries failed, fashion rental companies remained on track to reach a predicted $2.08 billion by 2025.  Renting fashion is widely seen as a positive move by sustainable advocates in the industry as we make a collective effort to move away from the traditional and wasteful linear model towards alternative systems, like that of the sharing economy. In many ways, renting captures an item’s true value, as consumers are encouraged to share luxury items without contributing to the some £140 million worth of clothing that is disposed of each year. An encouraging report by the Ellen McCarthur Foundation found that if we just doubled the number of times a garment is worn, then on average green-house gas emissions would be around 44% lower, providing more impetus for the rental fashion market.

However, a new study by Environmental Research Letters, a Finnish Scientific Journal, has been causing quite a stir in the industry after The Guardian reported on hidden environmental costs within the sharing model, suggesting in its headline that even landfill may be greener. The study assessed 5 different ownership and end-of-life scenarios for a pair of jeans and found the sharing model’s need for delivery, packaging, transportation and dry cleaning to be particularly detrimental to climate change. It is important to note that the report only focused on theoretical scenarios, and although the sharing model was shown to have far higher or varying impacts on Global Warming (GWP) the data would have varied greatly if they had also taken into account the impacts on water, land and human communities.

The study received backlash from renters and industry insiders, arguing that as a system, this model is far greener than those purchasing fast-fashion for example. “There are always two sides to every argument, but in this instance, the interpretation of this study is astonishing. And somewhat depressing given the climate crisis that we are facing” said Sacha Newall, founder of rental site MyWardrobeHQ. “I could tell you about the chemical free Ozone cleaning that we use in rental, or that we use wet washing not dry cleaning, that we only use Carbon neutral and green couriers, that all of our packaging is not just recycled, but reused...”  Instead the team hired an independent group of scientists at Compare Ethics to look at the data in more detail. They found the methodology in the study to account for the original production of raw materials but not actually the savings made when the jeans weren’t reproduced. Using the same figures in the study, they conceptualised the data, and estimated that needing 1 pair of jeans to service 20 people would come out to around ~41 kgCO2eq. Whereas, 20 pairs of jeans to service 20 people would equate to around 690 kgCO2eq.

Professor Kate Fletcher, one of the most cited scholars in the field of fashion and sustainability, offers her perspective, “The logic of renting is based on efficiency — it being a more efficient use of resources to devise a system where one garment can meet many people’s needs — like a suit hired by multiple men for different weddings, rather than multiple suits being cut, sewn and sold… But the resource efficiency logic falls down when the logistics of getting the piece to the wearer is factored in and especially if these logistics are resource-intensive… like when a piece is packaged and couriered at high climate change impact, like in the Finnish study. But at a local level, like a high street, where a suit hire shop operates, different logistics and different costs are at play. What is clear is that rental models are not implicitly low impact. What is also clear is that we need workable local models of fashion provision and expression and these are where the future of fashion lies.”

In a new report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has urged that the fashion industry’s efforts to date are not critical enough. There is clear evidence in the industry of greenwashing that extends far beyond switching to sustainable fabrics and the way they market collections. Brands need to look to end-of-life solutions which move away from landfill. Anthropogenic changes to the planet are both evident and highly unsettling and the vision should now be firmly set on long-term solutions to keep well within the 1.5°C threshold urged by scientists. 

The Finnish study caused so much tension within the industry, not because of its findings but because of how it was reported — throwing clothes to landfill should never be encouraged. Re-framed, studies like this exist to provide the entire industry with a focus on what areas could be improved to make business models even greener, although many rental companies are already working towards this. With this in mind, the science behind our climate emergency can not be negotiated. Now is the time to act and the systemic change we need requires collaboration. And while it is important to call-out environmental impacts, solutions are required that move us well away from the status quo. The linear model is focused solely on economic growth, not sustaining our planet. There is an immediate need for businesses to act, not in the eight years we have left to implement change, but now.