A Sustainable Closet presents
The Overshoot Day
Photos by: Elisa Sanvito
Production: A Sustainable Closet
Stylist: Isabelle Lind
Models: Jaya Jankert, Sophie Gripenberg and Patrick Saxe
Clothes: Second hand from Stadsmissionen or private
Humanity is using natural resources 1.8 times faster than the planet’s biocapacity can regenerate. We have exceeded the biological capacity of the planet to regenerate natural resources and absorb waste material. That’s equivalent to using the resources of 1.8 Earths. This means that in 2022 the global resources of the year have finished on the 28 of July (The Footprint Network).
We are now living on credit to Mother Nature.
The resources used are also highly unfairly taken. Some countries are taking more than others. If everyone lived like a Swede we would need about 4 Earths. If everyone lived like people in Finland we would need 4.1 Earths, as Norwegians 3.6 and Danish people 4.2 Earths. Clearly, the Scandinavian footprint is far beyond earth-living systems to sustain humanity in a long-term and sustainable way. Despite being well-known for being sustainability champions, the Scandinavian lifestyle, including its consumption patterns, is stealing resources from the poor and future generations.
Overshoot Day SS22 is A Sustainable Closet’s own editorial to show how high production and consumption of new clothes are contributing to Overshoot Day. We highly need to reduce the number of new clothes we produce and consume. Our way to look at fashion has to be more circular and take less natural resources.
Overshoot Day is here to tell us that being fashionable can danger our very fundamental requirements of existence. Less is more has never been more suitable.
What are the rich countries’ carbon and material footprints of clothes?
The fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of the global emissions and is considered to be one of the most resource-intensive and polluting industries (World Bank).
EU consumers discard about 11 kg of textiles (clothes and home textiles) per person per year but consume 26 kg per person and year.
The production and handling of clothing, footwear and household textiles consumed in the EU-28 generated emissions of 654 kg CO2 equivalent per person in 2017. Only 25 % of this took place inside the EU. The production and handling also resulted in 1.3 tonnes of primary raw materials and 104 m3 of water per person 1.3 tonnes of primary raw materials and 104 m3 of water per person being used (EUA).
How much of all the clothes we buy comes from second-hand?
In Sweden, consumers buy almost 14 kg of textiles per year, only 0.8 of those textiles are second-hand. If we use a T-shirt 60 times instead of the average time of 30 times, we could half the carbon footprint (The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency).
How many clothes do we actually need to look fashionable?
Is it fashionable to overuse natural resources?
How would it look like if we truly worn all the clothes and items we had in our closets?
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