For many years now, earth friendly scientists and environmentalists have been lobbying for environment sustainability in order to fuel a better future. Sustainability relates to producing healthy products that both make great profits and maintain the local environment in the process. The products thus produced are free from harmful chemicals and other genetically modified organisms. The basic principle behind sustainability is to live in perfect harmony with the environment, allowing everyone including plants, animals and humans to coexist peacefully and thrive together.
However, a majority of multinational companies and business conglomerates out there tend to ignore the need for sustainability and simply focus on making products that do return their profits to shareholders, but don’t do anything good for the global environment in the process. Worse yet, most of these businesses tend to harm the environment in so many ways before reaping their profits.
A sustainable enterprise is primarily driven by economic sustainability. Economic sustainability focuses on the overall quality of life for the community, environment and the people than on economic gains. This is achieved via sustainable farming practices, which offer the necessary monetary gains while not harming the environment in any way. The sustainable farming practices that fuel economic sustainability in turn depend on micro and macro level biodiversity. For instance, on the micro level, insects, worms and bacteria help populate the compost needed to enrich tomatoes and zucchini cultivated in vegetable gardens. On the macro level, organic textiles and other specialty products are sold on global marketplaces n order to bring back economic gain to the local community.
Social sustainability stems from giving back to the local community and helping products as well as profits circulate locally to a great extent. Take the classic example of the local farmer’s market. An organic farmer would visit the market to sell his organic vegetables and fruits. While doing so, he/she would turn around and buy bread and eggs from the neighbor. This measure would ensure that both organic products and the profits for the same go into helping the local community thrive, thereby contributing to social sustainability on a large scale.
Finally, we come to environmental sustainability, which would include organic farming methods. For instance, the USDA or other third party agency usually certifies organic clothes. Wearing clothes made of hemp fabric or cotton that has been certified to be organic by these organizations would assure you as well as other consumers that the clothing meets the necessary standards. These agencies ensure that only pure, organic materials are given the tag ‘100% organic’. This means the clothing as well as the materials in it is organic all the way from the farm to the factory. A clothing that has even the smallest portion of non-organic materials (from farm to factory) is usually labeled like ‘Made with Organic Ingredients’ (in cases where the product is 70% organic) or ‘Organic (95%-99%).
Environmental Sustainability also requires organic producers and growers to undergo inspections and certifications annually in order to ensure that their methods are safe, healthy and environmental friendly. These inspections and certifications would test everything from seeds, fertilizers and pest control to packaging in order to make sure that all these areas comply with the rigorous standards set by the industry. To the eco-friendly fashion consumer, this would mean that the organic label he/she purchased gives the assurance of being accurate and produced with up to date technology as well as scientific findings. This in turn reiterates the fact the organic clothing bought by the consumer is 100% environmental friendly, and has been produced keeping without causing much harm to any living being, be it plant, animal or human being.
Summary
Many consumers are opting for green fashion these days. Sustainable practices pave the way for green fashion, a fact that sadly is misunderstood by many businesses intent on making money alone. These facts would shed some light on the right practices one would need to adopt in order to achieve sustainability that would in turn fuel his/her green fashion ideas.