Color it Green: Influence of Marketing Strategies on the Sustainable Fashion Industry

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by Rebecca Dalise18 views·Updated Jun 2, 2021
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  1. Hey Guys, I'm Erin 1st.
  2. I have a question for you all.
  3. Whenever you go to your favorite clothing store and pick
  4. up a cute shirt or jacket, just like this plain
  5. white one I'm wearing here.
  6. Do you ever wonder where this shirt came from, Where
  7. it will go next?
  8. And what is the environmental impact of the simple white
  9. T shirt?
  10. I'm going to start off with telling you guys a
  11. little story about our friend teddy.
  12. As you can see on the screen, teddy did not
  13. start off looking like a T shirt.
  14. Instead, Teddy was a little cotton seed planted on a
  15. farm in china in order for teddy to grow up
  16. healthy and strong, it requires lots of water and pesticides,
  17. but these pesticides can harm the environment around the area
  18. as well as living creatures such as fishes and birds.
  19. Yeah, after today is harvested, they turned him into yard
  20. through four different processes.
  21. Then a mill 10 will become a grayish piece of
  22. fabric, but teddy doesn't like how he looks.
  23. So he decides to go to a personal spot after
  24. being treated with heat and chemicals.
  25. Teddy became pure white and soft.
  26. Now it comes to the last few steps of coloring
  27. teddy and to petty became a piece of T shirt
  28. that was handmade by workers in Asia.
  29. Now, teddy will go on a long 13 hour flight
  30. all the way from China to the us waiting to
  31. be loved by his new owner.
  32. Teddy's best part of his life is when his owner
  33. looks in the mirror and smiles, how do you feel
  34. like the happiest and the most special T shirt in
  35. the world?
  36. No. Long after though, Teddy found himself dirty and sad
  37. in the landfill.
  38. Um Poor teddy.
  39. No, this is the end of teddy's life story.
  40. After listening to this story, does teddy remind you of
  41. a piece of clothing that you used to own.
  42. Where's your teddy Right now?
  43. As our life pace started getting faster and faster, we're
  44. so used to buying bags of new clothes to follow
  45. the latest trend.
  46. But how many times did we wear them before they
  47. are out of date.
  48. Fashion seems so contradicting with sustainability, but I want to
  49. find the balance in between.
  50. During my year long research, I found that there is
  51. a broad definition of what sustainable fashion really is.
  52. This is also the cause of a lot of problems
  53. in the industry.
  54. Right now, sustainable fashion is also called slow fashion.
  55. It can be slowing down the pace of manufacturing, avoiding
  56. mass production of clothes.
  57. Or it can be using sustainable materials that is either
  58. from organic cotton or recycled fabric.
  59. It can also be the fair wages and good working
  60. conditions for the workers.
  61. The fashion industry has become the second most polluting industry
  62. in the world.
  63. Every year 1,200,000 microfibers will be dumped in the ocean
  64. And 93 billion cubic meters of water will be used.
  65. Some of the biggest environmental impact of the current fashion
  66. industry include the depletion of non renewable sources, a mission
  67. of greenhouse gases and the use of massive amount of
  68. water and energy.
  69. We often think of this topic environmentally, but it is
  70. more than that.
  71. It's not always about the production and the environmental impact.
  72. So I'm here to talk about sustainable fashion from a
  73. business perspective, this also leads to my main research question
  74. how is the use of marketing strategies altering customers shopping
  75. patterns and influencing their awareness of the current sustainable fashion
  76. industry. During my research, I found out that there are
  77. huge arguments over ethics in the fashion industry, as consumers
  78. are more aware of sustainable fashion companies are also taking
  79. actions to fit the consumers wants and needs.
  80. one of the positive merchant strategies can be transparency.
  81. It was found that when a brand shows a strong
  82. commitment and transparency to his eco friendly production, the consumers
  83. are more attracted as as much as social media for
  84. most. The idea of you can't wear the same outfit
  85. in two different posts.
  86. It has also become a great way to promote, assemble
  87. fashion and increased consumers awareness of this topic.
  88. More celebrities and brands are showing their commitment and educating
  89. their audience about the idea of sustainable fashion.
  90. Besides the positive marketing strategies, there are also marketing strategies
  91. that bring a negative impact to the industry, such as
  92. greenwashing. Yeah, if you're not familiar with the term greenwashing
  93. is a marketing strategy being used by companies to put
  94. on a green sustainable tag on their product to persuade
  95. and tracked the consumers, would there not eco friendly at
  96. all to further research and prove my secondary findings.
  97. I had interviews with the designer who is currently working
  98. the sustainable fashion field and an expert in environmental science.
  99. I also conducted a case study to compare and analyze
  100. the differences and similarities between the business models of Zara
  101. and pentagon you, which is which is an example of
  102. a fast fashion brand and an example of a sustainable
  103. fashion brand.
  104. The fashion industry is often a triangle with sustainability price
  105. and time on each angle.
  106. It is hard to balance out this triangle and each
  107. company needs to decide which angle they value the most.
  108. For example, when it comes to a fast fashion brand
  109. in order to bring the newest and trendiest garments to
  110. their customers, they value low price and low time the
  111. most. But that means the sustainability of their product will
  112. be low too.
  113. But for sustainable fashion brands, when they put sustainability as
  114. their priority, the price and time would increase since they
  115. need to pay a higher price for the materials.
  116. And workers throughout my research, I realized that understanding what
  117. sustainable fashion is and acting on it are two separate
  118. things Now, as you know more about sustainable fashion, what
  119. can we do as a consumer to practice it?
  120. The most effective way is reconsidering if it's something we
  121. want or need before we purchase instead of shopping of
  122. fast fashion brands.
  123. There are also a lot of sustainable fashion brands that
  124. are focusing on producing eco friendly pieces.
  125. It is a it is also a good idea to
  126. buy timeless cut clothes that you can wear for years.
  127. Shopping. Sustainable isn't always expensive.
  128. You can also go to thrift stores to find a
  129. unique pieces.
  130. If there's already a piece of clothing that you own
  131. before just throwing it away, we can give it a
  132. second home by donating it or sending it to the
  133. thrift store.
  134. Now, going back to teddy story.
  135. If you can rewrite the end of teddy's life story,
  136. what would you change the set of just throwing away
  137. teddy? Would you keep teddy for longer or sending teddy
  138. to a thrift store to continue its life?
  139. I'll save that question for you to think about after
  140. this presentation.
  141. Thank you.