Fashion production is responsible for 8-10% of all carbon emissions

https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2023/strengthening-s...

throw3e98 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And in pre-industrial societies, peasants (almost entirely women, ranging from children to the elderly) commonly spent around 100 hours of labor to produce a single square yard of fabric to clothe their families (fabric was too expensive for peasants to buy, so most spun it at home).

So yeah, considering how necessary fabric is to human life, that isn't a terribly surprising figure.

Citation for the 100-ish hours: https://acoup.blog/2025/09/26/collections-life-work-death-an...

	▲	ericmcer 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There has to be a sweet spot between someone hand spinning wool for 100s of hours and an automated factory spitting 80% polymer based clothing directly into a trash can.
	▲	gabrieledarrigo 41 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Man, I really can't see your point. And so...?

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Sol- 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cheap clothing is a civilizational achievement and good for human welfare.

So carbon emissions are bad, but then we should price carbon and not micromanage clothing inventory.

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nicbou 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Clothing everyone is an achievement, but fast fashion is overshooting that target.

A bit like feeding everyone vs. having an obesity crisis.

	▲	Gigachad 32 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Polyester has been a disaster for clothing. I'd love to see countries come up with a plan to cut down on the amounts of plastic crap being pumped out.
	▲	yrcyrc 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Perfectly summed up

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1718627440 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Getting common goods less expensive is good, making them too cheap is not. Imagine you are optimizing a math model, but nothing actually has prices. You just get a garbage point as optimum. You need to have scarcity, so that a system that optimizes the allocation of scarce goods actually works.

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peterfirefly 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fashion? No, absolutely not. Textiles in general? Maybe, but almost certainly not.

This is the actual quote on the page you cite:

"Today, the combined textile and apparel sectors contribute as much as 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions."

Notice the unusual way they spell "fashion"...

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throw3e98 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, textiles are much bigger than fashion - bedding, furniture upholstery, curtains, some types of shelter, practical items like footwear, protective equipment, medical equipment and dressings, vehicle interiors... pretty much all aspects of human life depend on textiles. It ain't just cheap t shirts and dresses.

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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dataflow 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For comparison, crypto and datacenters constituted 2% in 2022 (probably 3%+ now): https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2024/08/15/carbon-emis...