WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?

At its simplest, sustainability is an accountability beyond the individual relation towards a wider responsibility to and within the environment in the broadest sense. A fuller understanding of sustainability arguably benefits from an ecosystem approach, a term that has become endemic in discussions of a range of industries, including fashion, both within and without the context of sustainability. I will return to the discussion of the ecosystem concept in a moment, but when the term was first introduced in 1935 by Arthur Tansley,²¹ it introduced the relevance of ‘the habitat factors in the widest sense’.²² Tansley explains that while ‘organisms may claim our primary interest, when we are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate them from their special environment, with which they form one physical system’.²³ But to understand sustainability in the policy context, the general approach is not through sustainability, as such, but through the concept of sustainable development.

The common meaning of sustainable development is largely the one provided in the 1987 Report of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), which defined sustainable development as development which ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, and as such ‘[t]he concept of sustainable development does imply limits … [b]ut technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth’.²⁴ The definition is thus both intergenerational as well as focused upon use, management, and maintenance of resources, requiring ‘systematic attention to the renewal of natural resources’ and ‘a holistic approach focused on ecosystems at national, regional, and global levels’.²⁵ Sustainable development is understood to have three pillars – economic, social, and environmental – and this can be recognized throughout various policy instruments.²⁶

In relation to the concept of sustainability itself, the implication is that sustainability is a goal or endpoint with national boundaries, and that it is sustainable development that is the overarching global concern. The Report states: ‘No single blueprint of sustainability will be found, as economic and social systems of ecological conditions differ widely among countries … Yet irrespective of these differences, sustainable development should be seen as a global objective’.²⁷ In the context of discussions concerning energy, the Report identifies the following as key elements of sustainability, all of which are concerned with energy flow and use: growth of energy supplies sufficient to meet development needs and growth; energy efficiency and conservation together with minimization of waste; public health and safety in relation to energy sources; and the protection of the biosphere and prevention of pollution.²⁸ And, although the Report does not provide a definition of sustainability as such, instead providing examples of what sustainability is not, nevertheless there is a key emphasis on resisting a purely economic calculation and quantification of sustainable development. The Report declares that sustainability must take into account variables beyond the purely economic: ‘Sustainability requires views of human needs and well-being that incorporate such non-economic variables as education and health enjoyed for their own sake, clean air and water, and the protection of natural beauty’.²⁹ Importantly, what this shows is that appropriate action for sustainability means a more critical understanding of the wider consequences and impact of policymaking in view of the intersecting interests and commonalities, all of which may demand legislative reform³⁰ as well as ‘major changes in international economic relations’.³¹

DECOLONIZING SUSTAINABILITY

While the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have become globalized, as it were, in the environmental context,³² continued questions as to whether sustainability is ‘only’ about the environment betray the very problem that is at its core; namely, the persistent misapprehension that some sort of separation of environmental, cultural, and economic spheres is possible, rather than an appreciation of the commonalities and necessary flows of accountability and connectedness that underpin both the climate crisis and effective strategies for restoration. Sustainability in its fullest sense is a relational concept, but it has been translated in the global north into commercial and economic frameworks in which it appears to be assimilated in the form of measurable products and objective goals,³³ as distinct from being directed towards genuine paradigmatic shifts and behavioural change. The damaging assumption is that behaviour does not need to change if technological and other measures can provide for a recalculation of the balance.

But while the origin of the term ‘sustainable development’ is frequently attributed to the Brundtland Commission,³⁴ the understanding and implementation of sustainable development policymaking was in evidence at least two decades earlier in the global south. Sustainable development and conservation of resources formed the basis of the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (the Algiers Convention) in 1968,³⁵ which includes accountability to what are clearly the three pillars of sustainability: ‘In the formulation of all development plans, full consideration shall be given to ecological, as well as to economic and social factors’.³⁶ Further, the Convention demonstrates throughout an appreciation of and accountability to the interconnected (as distinct from territorial) nature of sustainable development.³⁷ Subsequently, in 2002, the African Union was created, and in the codification of the framework in the Constitutive Act of the African Union, the promotion of ‘sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies’, was declared as a specific objective.³⁸ Thus, it was not the developed north, but the global south that was the first to address sustainable development through environment and conservation in a multilateral policy context, and to provide a working understanding of sustainable development in all but name. While this approach to sustainable development would nevertheless go on to be adopted and denominated in the Brundtland Report and more widely, a drift from the primary emphasis on the environment and management of natural resources is recognized in its translation into a western, globalized context.³⁹ There are of course pre-industrial practices in the west that have continued to be resilient in the face of industrialization, most notably the example of German forestry, which is often credited as one of the more systematic progenitors of modern sustainability practices.⁴⁰ However, in the context of intergovernmental and official policymaking, the Algiers Convention is a critical moment that receives less emphasis in the history of the concept of sustainable development than might be expected.

SUSTAINABILITY AS USE

But if, ‘[t]here is nothing, it seems, that cannot be described as “sustainable”: apparently everything can be either hyphenated or paired with it’,⁴¹ then the same can be said of the concept of ecosystem. But in a way this ‘buzzword’⁴² character not only makes absolute sense but also is a genuine application, if managed carefully. Sustainability is, to paraphrase the African Convention, a fundamental principle that must govern all use of resources,⁴³ encompassing the environment and all its inhabitants, including people, as distinct from the abridged meaning of sustainable if understood only in its life as an adjective or a product character. And ecosystem is a concept entirely appropriate to the relational, operational, and consequential properties of sustainable processes and multispecies societies and economies. The adjectival use of sustainable in relation to products or industries or other ‘entities’ or ‘units’ is perhaps misleading or even damaging. There is no such thing as a sustainable product. Why do I say this?

Because sustainable does not and cannot describe a product, as such. Sustainable describes the processes and behaviours involved in producing that product. Thus, sustainable development should describe a transformation of processes and procedures towards not only producing but also using, reusing, and disposing of products. To describe a product as sustainable in any one moment makes a nonsense of the term. A product in and of itself does not remain sustainable from moment to moment. It is a commitment that lasts its lifetime. What matters is different processes of sustainability throughout the product’s life and throughout its circulation within the product ecosystem. A product may be sustainably produced, but that does not make it a sustainable product. That makes it a sustainably produced product. In the rest of its life it encounters other processes, relationships, and interactions for which sustainable processes and behaviours may apply. What about its care? What about its trade? What about its disposal? And most importantly, what about its use?

As use, sustainability is thus about relations; that is, it describes contact. However, sustainable use of resources is not a merely dyadic relation between the user and product; rather, it must account for the interference of relations of use throughout that product’s ecosystem, and throughout the community of not only users but also non-users as well. Building upon the commonalities and relational qualities of Tansley’s concept of ecosystem, while we may have a particular interest in the fashion product, ‘when we are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate them from their special environment, with which they form one physical system’.⁴⁴ Sustainability thus shows the way in which non-use is still a relation to resources, to products, and to other users, as well as the way in which use of one resource may interfere with the use of another. This interconnectedness forces a rethink of the ways in which knowledge and resources are commodified, quantified, and unified in the language of western property and of intellectual property; proprietary qualifications that are wholly inconsistent with the realities of overlapping properties, mobile territories, and ethological renderings of space. The use of land is connected to the sustainability of language,⁴⁵ local materials may be vital to the sustainability of music,⁴⁶ or unsustainable use of plant species may be a loss to dance.⁴⁷

Sustainability is a concept that invokes the commonalities of human beings in their interactions with the environment, and with other inhabitants of that environment. Sustainability is not merely in the management of ecosystems; rather, the meaning of sustainability is inextricably bound up in the expressive force of an ecosystematic approach to use. As an enduring relation, rather than a warranted product, sustainability appears to present particular challenges to the fashion system and indeed to the logic of intellectual property. If there is no such thing as a sustainable product, what is fashion selling? And if there is no possibility or relevance of an artefactual approach to value, what is intellectual property commodifying? The answer is the most important thing of all in any ecosystem – standards.

COMMUNICATIONS AND STANDARDS

Trade marks and certification marks have already been deployed in creating a sustainable fashion industry. Marks are not only vital for implementing, promoting, and disseminating standards, but also instrumental in the desirability of standards through the very aesthetic and cultural value of the mark itself. Indeed, the communication of sustainable production through labelling, including trade marks and certification marks, has been shown to promote sustainable consumption practices among consumers as well in what is known as the nudge or nudging.⁴⁸ Where information on the sustainable choice is provided in verbal form, ‘consumers are more likely to choose this piece of clothing compared to the non-sustainable version of the clothing piece’.⁴⁹ It would seem to follow that in the accumulation of communicative value in a trade mark, and perhaps even more effectively in a certification mark where processes may be more stringently endorsed, the mark as sign can convey efficiently and quickly the sustainable choice with accuracy and impact.

There are indeed individual brand initiatives that appear to be pursuing this logic. Stella McCartney has several registrations for the mark, Fur Free Fur, which is applied to faux fur apparel and accessories.⁵⁰ As well as communicating a particular ethical objective and the use of the mark as an activist sign, the mark communicates desirability, exclusivity, and luxury attached to a textile that might previously have been considered less prestigious. The mark thus performs the essential function of a trade mark, while at the same time persuading the consumer towards a cruelty-free aesthetic as not merely an option, but the desirable option. Thus, in its use in the course of trade, the trade mark influences textile standards through the ordinary processes of advertising and competition.

The ultra-fast fashion label, SHEIN, is even more explicit in deploying trade marks in the service of developing standards. On 28 April 2022, SHEIN announced the launch of evoluSHEIN⁵¹ as ‘an affordable option for customers seeking to make a positive impact with their product choices’,⁵² which is accompanied by the evoluSHEIN by Design Standard, which includes a requirement for more than 30 per cent preferred materials (‘recycled polyester, forest-safe viscose, rescued deadstock’) and production with suppliers achieving ‘high social and environmental compliance verification through third-party audits’.⁵³ The standard extends to production facilities, shipping, and packaging using ‘more’ sustainable content, although the exact targets are not immediately clear.⁵⁴ It remains to be seen, but at least on the face of it, the evoluSHEIN example is a strategic move in the use of trade marks to move sustainability away from the domain of luxury and into fast fashion, while quietly introducing standards in this particular sector of the market which may ultimately become obligatory through the need to compete.

And while there already exists the EU Ecolabel, which is a European Union certification mark for ecodesign products, including fashion, the Slow Fashion Declaration calls for the adoption of ‘a European Slow Fashion Label, which informs consumers about the origin and the environmental impact of the clothes they buy’.

In all of these initiatives and many more, the value is in the making.

TRUST THE PROCESS

In the application of terms such as ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ in fashion there is a trust issue with brands. In many respects, future adoption of any of the proposals for mandatory labelling may improve consumer experiences and confidence in sustainable choices. But in the use of trade marks and certification marks, a steady creep of standards (although acceleration of the process is needed) is possible. Rather than using the market to race to the bottom, implementing standards within the context of branding facilitates competition through the aesthetics of sustainability. The value of a well-managed certification mark is not only to the participants in the mark, but also to the consumer, who otherwise carries the burden of determining for themselves whether choices are sustainable. Imposing such labour on the consumer in the shopping enterprise means that sustainability will either go unnoticed or unsearched. To recall the importance of the nudge, the information needs to be there at the point of purchase, without interrupting the process, and that is where the importance of the information assembled through the function of the mark is of crucial value socially and commercially.

The relevant property, or value, therefore is that of the process rather than the product. Throughout fashion an emphasis on story is being presented as key to revolutionizing the fashion business model and reconciling growth with a reduction in volume. That story becomes familiar through its repetition in the marks themselves, which develop a summative and compelling, living account of the brand’s story. But in linking story and process, a conventional perspective on the fashion product or property must be transformed by an understanding of fashion not as property but as regulatory, so to speak, in relation to process and story. Indeed, this is the very nature of the ‘property’ underpinning geographical indications. Neither the trade mark in relation to the story, nor the geographical indication in relation to a product, is acting like property in relation to a product. Rather, in both instances, intellectual property is offering a kind of regulatory approach to the process and conditions of production – potential tools in not only the safeguarding but also ultimately the mainstreaming of sustainable production in fashion. Current developments in geographical indications for non-agricultural products are of great interest here.

THE PLACE OF SUSTAINABILITY

Back in 2015, speaking at a conference, I discussed the interaction between sustainability, luxury, and geographical indications,⁵⁵ all in the context of the discussions underway in the European Commission at the time around the potential application of geographical indications to non-agricultural products.⁵⁶ In the presentation I suggested that achieving steps towards sustainability may also differentiate luxury on a scale quite apart from price, quality, and exclusivity. If sustainability were to become aspirational not only socially but also, in a sense, aesthetically, then the industry may be in a position to facilitate social impact while fulfilling commercial objectives.

At the same time, and in the same presentation, I noted the interaction between sustainability and tradition. In particular, the place of traditional knowledge in textile production, such as Harris Tweed, emphasizes sustainability as both a cultural tool and an integral character of traditional forms of cultural transmission.⁵⁷ As in the earlier discussion of trade marks and certification marks, geographical indications also present the potential for creating and embedding standards in processes of production, Harris Tweed being a significant example of this. And in its incorporation into many fashion products and many varied brands, it introduces a particular standard in sustainable textiles that has the potential to mobilize sustainability in other contexts and across different markets.

The discussion of sustainability in the context of traditional knowledge is not revolutionary; and the potential advantages of luxury in promoting a sustainable approach are similarly known. But to consider traditional forms of cultural transmission in the context of contemporary fashion is somewhat less emphasized, particularly when it comes to reinforcing luxury in the particularity and social impact of place, rather than the exclusivity of product.⁵⁸ Combining sustainability and tradition with contemporary fashion and its commercialization is perhaps less readily considered. Indeed, notwithstanding gestures to legacy and history in the context of brand authenticity, the fashion system is otherwise averse to (and indeed intellectual property law is logically opposed to) a perceived ossification through tradition in deference to an agreed desirability in innovation at pace.⁵⁹ But in fact, there is nothing about tradition that resists innovation; rather, tradition is about transmission.⁶⁰ And in this respect, traditional knowledge has much to offer the question of sustainability in fashion, not just in terms of product, but in terms of process. Indeed, in this link between sustainability, tradition, and place there is the potential for decolonizing not only sustainability policies but also the fashion system itself.⁶¹

In drawing together sustainability, tradition, and the fashion industry, there is the potential for traditional craft to be valued not as a mere commodity or resource to be mined and expropriated but as a quality and process to revere, a precious cultural and community resource to be recognized.⁶² This is especially relevant when considering the life of the product, and traditional skills in mending and repair, as well as in the wider debates around insourcing and outsourcing manufacturing. Indeed, now, some years later, geographical indications for non-agricultural products are back, with a focus on sustainability and tradition. A proposal for a regulation on geographical indication protection for craft and industrial products was published on 13 April 2022,⁶³ explicitly acknowledging, among other things, the link between geographical indications, traditional craft, and objectives on sustainable textiles. The Explanatory Memorandum, in providing context to the proposal, notes that ‘[t]he proposal also shares specific objectives with the Commission’s forthcoming EU strategy on sustainable textiles, which aims to create a better business and regulatory environment for sustainable and circular textiles within the Union’, and, in particular, strengthens the investment and commercial environment for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) operating in the ‘textiles ecosystem’ that would otherwise ‘find it hard to develop intellectual property strategies to protect their research & development investments and raise growth capital. The establishment of [a Union-wide] GI protection for CI products should therefore help MSMEs in this context’.⁶⁴ And on 2 May 2023, following trilogue discussions, agreement was reached by Council and Parliament and will now proceed to the final vote and formal adoption. It is expected to come into force in early 2024, thus extending geographical indications to craft and industrial products for the first time in Europe and providing further intellectual property tools in the potential standardization of sustainable practices.

But can standards also introduce desire? And can fashion grow through the desire for process, rather than the production of product?

DESIRING SUSTAINABILITY? THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

The e-commerce site, eBay, became the first pre-loved fashion partner⁶⁵ of ITV’s Love Island⁶⁶ in 2022, replacing fashion etailer, I Saw It First.⁶⁷ In its first year, the partnership resulted in a reported 24 per cent increase in new businesses joining the online marketplace, an astonishing 1600 per cent increase in searches for ‘pre-loved’,⁶⁸ and ultimately the renewal of the fashion sponsorship.⁶⁹ Then in May 2023, eBay became headline sponsor of the programme,⁷⁰ which includes branding the channel idents,⁷¹ or short breaks, throughout the main programme and its related Unseen Bits and Aftersun. Putting circular fashion into the entertainment context appears to be achieving the impossible, gaining traction with a viewership traditionally aligned with fast fashion.⁷² It does this by acknowledging the circulation of fashion and entertainment within the one ecosystem which fashion consumers, and traditionally fast fashion consumers, are using and through which they are engaging. When it comes to resale, the consumer has already invested and the product continues to circulate, reforming the fashion consumer as both entertainer and entertained. What is intriguing about the Love Island and eBay partnership is that this presentation of fashion through entertainment also assists in engaging consumers in sustainability and circular fashion as a fun or even entertaining process. It is an example of a brand co-branding with a television programme, but in fact co-branding with fan communities which are already motivated towards collective action. To present sustainability as entertainment in this way facilitates the sort of cooperative response that is essential.

In this resale ecosystem, consumers are developing a desire not for a particular brand identity, as the product brands are many and varied, but rather, a sustainable aesthetic sense, a sustainable taste that is motivated by focusing not on the individual or on the product, but on the ecosystem. In this context, eBay is operating in ways similar to a certification mark, endorsing a particular process behind the collection of products (resale) rather than a brand identity through the products themselves. The principles are the same – the mark emerges as a kind of regulatory principle as distinct from conventions of products and merchandising. In all these examples, the marks are creating a desire and aesthetic for sustainability. In this context, marks are becoming more important largely through their capacity for communication with other marks, such as recycling partners and other examples of co-branding through processes and sustainable practices.

The approach to sustainability in fashion through an appreciation of the ecosystem is a kind of systemic accountability that is ordinarily associated with restoration ecology whereby nature is always already in an inextricable relationship with humans, who are always already responsible and culpable as they move through those spaces. Thus, an ecosystem is never just about the ‘natural’, and indeed to maintain that view is itself anthropocentric. It also adheres to a troubling separation of nature and culture that erects a persistent obstacle to achieving comprehensive approaches to sustainability. We can see in the fashion system itself the flow of energy from plants to textiles to consumers and then some. In managing these relations, made sensible through standards, manifest through systems of objects, intellectual property has a crucial role to play.

As Vivienne Westwood famously once said, ‘I’m the proof. You can’t throw away tradition’.

June 2023