The Nature of Fashion Moving towards a regenerative system Contents 4 Foreword SECTION 1 5 Catch and Release The Existing Fashion Cycle The Problem with Plastics Designing for Nature’s Dynamic Equilibrium SECTION 2 12 Moving to a Regenerative System Why Act Regionally: The Biology The Transition to 100% Biodegradable Fibers: Primary Production SECTION 3 20 Recommendations Next Steps Levers for Change 24 Appendices 28 Acknowledgments 29 Endnotes THE NATURE OF FASHION 2 This report was conceived in a different world. It was a world where consumption was continuing faster than ever before, driven by the availability of cheap petroleum. It was a world of fast fashion, where the price of apparel had ignored inflation and remained unchanged for 30 years,1 and where fashion waste was dumped by the truckload every second.2 It was a world that most of us knew must cease, yet almost all of us continued to participate in. Due to COVID-19, with its social and economic fallout, a different reality has emerged. All the old rules have been put on hold, making now the perfect time to write the new ones. Foreword We live in a biosphere, a physical network of living As we spoke with industry experts and reviewed beings that spans the entire globe.3 Within this the mass of recent research and conclusions web, materials are constantly being dispersed. articulating how to make fashion responsible, Some organisms use energy from the sun to sustainable, regenerative, and circular (Appendix concentrate life’s building blocks, only for them A), we realized that many of the suggested circular eventually to become dispersed once again.4 economy solutions do not align, and cannot align, The process is driven by the fundamental laws with biological principles and the laws of physics. of physics. In fact, without this cadence, there Those insights informed this report. It deals only would be no life.5,6,7 The circular economy seeks to with system boundaries and explains how energy replicate nature’s cycling, and one of its premises and materials cycle at the highest level—the is that infinitely reusing our industrial materials biosphere—and how fashion might embrace can make commerce compatible with nature.8 But its existing reliance on natural ecosystems to everything we do, all of our industry and economic more deeply emulate those cycles. With that activity, still exists within the natural system. The understanding, we hope to continue this research same laws of physics that drive natural material in the future and expand on how biomimicry at the cycles make it impossible to isolate the technical systems level can further inform the evolution of a ones.9,10,11 Our man-made material loops always, circular fashion economy. inevitably, leak. By realigning ourselves with what occurs in nature, It’s safe to say that no one ever looked at a barrel we can design a next-generation textile production of oil and thought, “That would make a nice- model that recognizes its connections to the looking dress.” And yet, for nearly 80 years, we biosphere. In section one of this report, we explore have collectively looked past the ill-effects of the material flows that underpin natural systems petroleum and focused solely on the versatile, low and show that the first thing we must learn from price-point clothing that polyester makes possible. nature is how to design for decomposition and Recent years have seen growing interest from dispersal. We identify some important elements the fashion industry to move towards a circular of ecosystem functioning, compare them to the economy, an economy that is regenerative by flawed industrial system we have today, and design. Biomimicry, the practice of emulating explain why we should think of fashion systems nature’s strategies and processes in human as inside natural ones (rather than as having design, is one of the schools of thought that separate biological and technical loops). In section originally inspired the development of the concept two, we show how the fashion industry, relying on of a circular economy, an economy that ideally advances in regenerative agriculture, cellulosic would function as a natural system. What a circular fibers, fermentation, and gasification can work with economy looks like and the ideas on how to get existing technology and nature to jump-start the there are continually evolving, informed by experts transition right now. In section three, we propose a all over the world. As the Biomimicry Institute, set of specific recommendations designed to give we hope to add to the evolution by answering philanthropists and investors guidance on the next the question: What would the fashion industry steps to take. look like if it acted like a natural ecosystem? This report shows what we learned and makes We believe an industry based on these some observations that should inform the guidelines can enhance ecosystems to boost development of new business models—and the biodiversity, build soil, support communities, sunsetting of others—for a circular fashion industry. and clean up existing pollution. THE NATURE OF FASHION 4 “We have not been successful at recycling. After 40 years of trying, we have not been able to make it work.”12 Dame Ellen MacArthur, Founder and Chair of Trustees, SECTION 1 Ellen MacArthur Foundation Catch and Release Sometimes it helps to take a broad view to fungal mycelium networks in the soil collect address a narrow problem, like what we humans discarded carbon and nutrients and cycle them should wear. back to a “user” who finds them valuable in sustaining life.17,18 In addition to this global Natural materials cycle endlessly. This constant net, natural cycles rely on three main types of flow of materials underpins all life on Earth. organisms—primary producers, consumers, and But cycles in nature are vast and open, and decomposers—to function in a dynamic state of compounds like DDT (banned 20 years ago) finding balance, or equilibrium. These three types and the toxic PFASs used to make our clothing of organisms reflect how carbon moves from stain-repellent continue to find their way into one species to another, and between organisms the tissues of polar bears thousands of miles and the environment. “Photosynthetic organisms from their point of manufacture.13,14,15 Nature convert the energy of the sun to chemical energy cannot distinguish between good molecules and in carbon molecules, and consumers gain energy bad, nor can their movement be stopped. The by eating those molecules. Thus, the carbon essence of the second law of thermodynamics cycle also traces the transfer of energy through is that disorder increases over time. This means ecosystems.”19 nature disperses.16 * Dispersal is embraced in nature by utilizing universal building blocks, These are the elements of the natural cycle and, particularly carbon. Trees and berry bushes, the by extension, all natural ecosystems. It is a “catch herbivores that consume them, and decomposers and release” system powered by the sun that has like bacteria and fungi all run on the same basic worked for billions of years. There is no human framework of fats, sugars, starches, and proteins. approximation of this effort that comes close to When a bird eats a berry and poops, or dies, working as well. those remains decompose and return to the soil as nutrition for the next tree, which combines The goal of this section is to more deeply these nutrients with energy from the sun and understand how matter and energy are carbon dioxide from the air to start the cycle inextricably linked and highlight the valuable again. We have all observed this, but its elegance roles of the three stars of our biological show— is difficult to emulate. producers, consumers, and decomposers. In doing so, we build upon the work of Cradle Aiding this process, nature works with a global to Cradle, the Circular Economy, Doughnut net to catch such valuable building blocks and Economics, and the many luminaries who apply prevent them from being lost, or aggregating nature’s laws as the guard rails of human industry. in the wrong place. Ocean currents and * We recognize there is disagreement around the applicability of the second law of thermodynamics to macroscale materials. We have written this report from the perspective that thermodynamic and informational entropy are two aspects of the same underlying physical law and that all increases in disorder are explicable using some combination of the two. THE NATURE OF FASHION 5 SECTION 1: NATURE’S DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM Figure 1. Represented as a diagram, flows of energy and matter in nature look more like a whirlpool than a simple loop. Nature’s Dynamic Equilibrium Nature achieves dynamic equilibrium through an open, dissipative system. Equilibrium is maintained because the materials in the system are benign and cycle continuously, and because the whole is powered by constant in-flows of free energy from the sun. Natural cycles have three main parts: Primary Producers Photosynthetic plants and algae combine free solar energy with disordered material building blocks from soil, air and water to create highly ordered, energy-dense structures. Consumers Includes all herbivores and carnivores, which break down energy-dense structures and use the stored energy and materials to construct their own tissues, creating physical waste and dissipating energy. Decomposers Bacteria and fungi break down material to basic building blocks, using up remaining energy and making the TH E physical building blocks available for use E BIOSPHER by primary producers. THE EXISTING FASHION CYCLE recycled waste imports from G7 countries by 50%.22 The ban also applied to textile waste.23 Humans are mimics. It’s part of our success, and “Now all this trash is building up in Japan [and we have designed industrial systems that attempt elsewhere] and there’s nothing to do with it; the to imitate the way that nature cycles materials.