## Introduction
Sustainable fashion is the latest buzzword circulating around the industry, but is it simply another marketing term or is there something more substantial behind it?
## What Exactly Is Sustainable Fashion?
To sum it up, the sustainable fashion movement aims to create clothing that is ethically made and environmentally friendly.
Sounds simple, right?
The problem is, being “ethical” tends to go hand-in-hand with profit loss, so brands and companies are reluctant to do it. The only way they will make the switch is if consumers start only buying ethically, forcing them to change their practices or lose business.
## Why Sustainable Fashion Is So Important
It may surprise you to learn that the fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters. In fact, the industry is second only to oil when it comes to pollution, responsible for 20% of global industrial water pollution.
On top of that, textile mills use 20,000 chemicals, many of them carcinogenic, to make clothes. Most of those clothes are made from plastic, which is creating a catastrophe in the making with microfibres in our oceans.
For the people who make these garments, sustainable fashion also means better working conditions, fairer pay, and less illegal sweatshops. The only way to break this cycle of death, destruction, and pollution is to aim for sustainability.
## What Makes Clothes Sustainable?
Companies can’t just say their packaging is made from recyclable materials, so therefore they are a sustainable brand, it doesn’t work like that.
Sustainable fashion permeates every aspect of the industry. From the farms where the cotton is grown which is eventually weaved into fabric, to the treatment of animals which are sheared for their wool, sustainable fashion is only sustainable if every part of the process is accountable.
