What Is the Impact of the Fashion Industry on Biodiversity?

For fashion, nature has forever been a constant source of inspiration. However, the love is not reciprocated. The impact of garment production affects the imbalance of ecosystems. The problem, which is at the center of current affairs because of its link to the emergence of new diseases such as covid-19, is of increasing concern to the industry. By now we are all too aware of the environmental crisis we face. But we also face a biodiversity crisis, in which the variety of species living on our planet is under threat. According to the 2019 UN report, there are currently one million species at risk of extinction, while the loss of biodiversity we are experiencing is estimated to be 1,000 times the natural rate: a disturbing trend that we urgently need to halt. It's not just about the animals we love to see and hear; we need nature to thrive. Biodiversity and functional ecosystems give us the water we need, they give us the food we eat. We need those ecosystems to be healthy.' In a climate emergency, it is no longer just a question of reducing the footprint of economic activity, but of understanding which resources should not be wasted. "One of the most important challenges right now is biodiversity," says Marie-Claire Daveu, sustainability director of the Kering Group. "In fact, scientific studies show that viruses have a lot to do with the lack of healthy ecosystems. Nature works like a chain, and if one resource is missing, all the others fail in some way". This is also pointed out by the non-governmental organization WWF, which explains how well-preserved habitats are self-regulating: "Viruses are distributed among different species, but they also have a good chance of ending up in a species that blocks their dispersal. In addition, there are predators that eliminate the weakest and sickest specimens. All this helps to keep the effects of potential diseases in the population under control and to reduce the risk of transmission to other species. These links are now more threatened than ever. According to the UN Biodiversity Platform, one million species are at risk of extinction (12-20% of all marine and terrestrial wildlife). The consequences of their disappearance would be catastrophic for everyone: "We depend on biodiversity for food, energy, air quality, fresh water supply, and climate regulation. Yet it is declining at a faster rate than ever before in history," says McKinsey's July report, Biodiversity: the next frontier for sustainable fashion. The negative impact of the textile and footwear industry, it notes, is condensed into three stages: the production of raw materials, the preparation and processing of materials, and the end-of-life of garments. According to a McKinsey survey, two-thirds of fashion buyers say they have changed their mindset in the wake of the pandemic: they are now more concerned about their impact on climate change than before. What impact does fashion have on biodiversity? Fortunately, the fashion industry is slowly but surely opening its eyes to its impact on biodiversity. Most of our raw materials come directly from farms, from agriculture, from landscapes, and from forests.
Take planting cotton for instance - which makes up a third of our clothing fibers - can lead to soil degradation and habitat loss, as well as harming certain species through the use of pesticides. Fur is a product of livestock farming, the industry responsible for 70% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Viscose also contributes significantly to deforestation, as an exorbitant 150 million trees need to be cut down annually to produce the fiber. According to the Executive Director and Founder of the non-profit organization Canopy, Nicole Rycroft, the last thing we should be doing is cutting down 800-year-old trees to make t-shirts. Forest ecosystems are home to 80% of the terrestrial species we share the planet with, and habitat loss is a major component of the biodiversity decline we are seeing. Therefore, fashion has a substantial ecological footprint.