Climate 100 List: Livia Firth’s long fight against fast fashion. ‘Once you see that, you can never turn away’
The sustainability expert and founder of the Green Carpet Challenge tells The Independent about the moment which ‘changed everything’
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There are many strings to the proverbial bow of Livia Giuggioli Firth’s environmental work.
She started the Green Carpet Challenge, which champions wearing sustainable, ethical pieces on the red carpet, and has made documentaries about the secretive underbelly of the fashion’s industry’s sweatshops.
She also co-founded Eco-Age, a company which helped businesses adopt regenerative models and avoid greenwashing. Sadly, Eco-Age was forced to close earlier this year, as Giuggioli Firth explained in an emotional Instagram post, when it was unable to financially recover after being targeted by criminals.
She is also a member of the UN Women’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Civil Society Advisory Group. But despite this long list of achievements, “I always consider myself an activist,” she told The Independent.
The businesswoman has worked in sustainability for decades but the moment that “changed everything” was in 2008 when she travelled to Bangladesh for the first time with journalist and environmentalist, Lucy Siegel, and The Circle, a charity that she co-founded with singer and activist Annie Lennox and other women.
“We got smuggled into a factory that was producing garments for a French supermarket brand, and what I saw completely shocked me. It was rooms packed with women who were afraid, they were sewing 100 items per hour and earning nothing. The windows had bars like a prison and the entrance had a guard with a gun…. I saw the women that we exploit to make clothes for us,” she said.
“And from that moment, once you see that, you can never turn away.”
This experience has driven her work in highlighting the social impact of fast fashion, alongside the environmental consequences which she believes are much more present in people’s minds. At the heart of the issue is how fast fashion has exploded at a global scale.
“We used to have only fashion, then we had fast fashion, and now we have ultra fast fashion,” which she describes as “totally out of control”.
This model has told us it’s our “democratic right to buy so cheaply”, Giuggioli Firth says, while the rights of the worker are not considered, and rarely mentioned. We’re constantly told we need more new things to look good and feel happy. “And unfortunately, social media is a huge part of this problem,” she adds.
Fast fashion relies on two key elements, says Giuggioli Firth - fossil fuels and slave labour. The issues were at the heart of her 2015 documentary, True Cost, which looked at the hidden toll behind these mountains of cheap clothes.
The film was made following the disastrous Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, that killed 1,138 people. But a decade on, there has been little improvement in the industry, says Giuggioli Firth.
“The first issue that we should solve is paying a wage to all the garment workers,” she says. “[But if] we put in place legislation to do that, then the fast fashion industry will be in trouble.”
The fashion industry is also responsible for a huge chunk of the global carbon footprint, creating 10 percent of carbon emissions - more than all international flights and shipping combined, according to the World Bank.
And this polluting juggernaut is only growing - a recent report by not-for-profit Fashion Revolution predicts that 73 percent of fashion will be produced using fossil fuels by the end of the decade.
At the moment, an estimated 69 percent of all clothing is made from synthetic fibres which cannot be recycled, and instead are breaking down in our environment, seeping microplastics into the land, rivers and oceans.
“We have been told that it’s going to be fine because the circular economy will save us, and we can recycle our way out of this mess,” Giuggioli Firth says.
“It’s not true because when you think about the fact that the majority of clothes today are produced using synthetic fibres, which are fossil fuel fibres, recycling is basically impossible.”
What really happens to all this fast fashion is that it is “donated”, rather dumped, onto African countries. In Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana, “something like 2.3 million items of clothing a week end up there,” Giuggioli Firth explains. And much of it ends up being burned.
“The circular economy is a myth unless we invest in fibres that are not fossil fuel reliant and can be truly recycled,” she added.
Despite the bleak picture, Giuggioli Firth remains hopeful. Some European countries are considering regulations on fast fashion and putting taxes on production volumes and waste. Then there’s what the individual can do.
“I’m a huge believer in citizen activism and in taking our own responsibility. We can say ‘we don’t want to consume like that anymore’. We have enough clothes to feed two planets like we don’t need this anymore, and we can start that change. And that makes me very positive in spite of this dire situation,” she said.
The Independent will be revealing its Climate100 List next week and hosting an event in New York, which can be attended online. To reserve your place click here
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