It seems that each and every day there is more alarming news about the state of Planet Earth. July, August and September were Earth’s hottest three months on record. In fact, while excessive heat in July and August might not be startling, the excessive heat in September was, at 0.89 degrees Celsius above average. The journal Science Advances reported that Earth is “outside the safe operating space.” And if you still plan to be around some 250 million years hence, the supercontinent Pangea Ultima is expected to reappear and make the planet uninhabitable for humans and other mammals. Surely ants and cockroaches will survive.

As we have noted many times in this space, the textile and apparel industry isn’t helping to change this, at least not quickly enough. As we have also said in this space, the younger consumer generations are getting more vocal—with their voices and their pocketbooks—about wanting more sustainable fashion. In the end, this is what will drive the brands and retailers to find ways to be more sustainable in a meaningful way.

One trend that is gaining momentum is what the Bank of America Institute is calling Secondhand Chic. According to a recently published analysis, “The fashion industry contributes 10% of global emissions and a fifth of plastic waste. Increasingly, consumers are looking for ways to make sustainable choices to lessen the environmental impact of their buying decisions…a significant reduction in the environmental footprint of clothing can be made by extending its lifespan. And the secondhand market for fashion in the U.S. is growing rapidly, increasing by 24% year-over-year (YoY) in 2022.”