Biodiversity and fashion.
Biodiversity is another of those terms bandied about a bit, but does the everyday person really know what it means? We can surmise it’s about ecology and about variety, though what does this look like in practice, especially for one of the most devastating industries — fashion.
This is the fifth in a series exploring fashion and its connection to agriculture, using the discussions from Groundswell as starting points for some thoughts.
This one considers biodiversity.
Groundswell is an annual regenerative agriculture festival in Hertfordshire that provides a forum for farmers, growers, or anyone interested in food production and the environment to learn about the theory and practical applications of regenerative farming systems.
What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity is essentially all life on Earth and how it all interacts throughout ecosystems. You’ll have heard of ‘biodiversity loss’; this is the disappearance of variety within each group i.e. mammals, invertebrates, plants, fungi, bacteria etc and if one living being in an ecosystem is no longer there, then there’s a ripple of impacts in that ecosystem and outwards to others.
What does fashion have to do with biodiversity?
Anything that is produced extracts resources and rarely returns them, if at all, but definitely not in the condition they were first taken. Fashion is intensive, and fast, and unforgiving. The textiles and apparel industries affect biodiversity — that is, life — in every step of its chain, just as the production of food or electricity or clean water does.
There has been a focus on reducing carbon emissions from all industries, in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Biodiversity loss has become more apparent as a leading contributor to the climate crisis, as if it wasn’t glaringly obvious before that stripping land of trees would have an impact not just on carbon, but on issues for instance concerning wildlife (look back at the plight of orangutans and palm oil) or flood management.
In 2020, McKinsey analysed ‘quantitative impact indicators’ to understand how each part of the apparel value chain affects biodiversity. They found that most of the negative impact to biodiversity comes from three stages in the value chain: raw-material production, material preparation and processing, and end of life. They identified and presented the apparel sector’s five largest contributors to biodiversity loss:
Cotton agriculture
Wood-based natural fibers/man-made cellulose fibers (MMCFs)
Textile dyeing and treatment
Microplastics
Waste
Read the article and insights ‘Biodiversity: The next frontier in sustainable fashion’ — McKinsey. *Note, this report only looks at apparel, and not the wider effects of textiles.
How can fashion measure biodiversity loss?
Biodiversity is fast becoming a focus area for fashion and textile companies. 51% recognize biodiversity risk as a priority and 59% have made public commitments to address it. And while biodiversity has only recently entered the sustainability conversation for fashion and textile companies, 8% already have an explicit biodiversity strategy in place. — Textile Exchange Biodiversity Insights Report, 2021.
Environmental profit and loss methodology.
Though studies show the impact fashion production is having, brands and retailers aren’t rapidly jumping on including the metric in their sustainability policies. The group Kering was propped up as a hero for instigating the conversation, because they included biodiversity in their ‘Environmental Profit and Loss’ methodology, which is used to measure and quantify environmental impact of their activities, and wrote a dedicated biodiversity strategy.
Science Based Targets Network.
The Fashion Pact, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge and Conservation International collaboratively developed a report — Raising the ambition for nature: A fashion, apparel, and textile sector primer on the first Science-Based Targets for Nature. It acknowledges that the textile, footwear and apparel industries are reliant on nature, and offers science-based targets using methods set by the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) that will allow businesses to recognise how to take action. Frankly, unless you have a dedicated team in your fashion business, this is too much. The SBTN defines five distinct steps in the process of setting science-based targets for nature: Assess; Interpret & Prioritise; Measure, Set & Disclose; Act (to avoid, reduce, regenerate, restore and transform); and Track.
Biodiversity Strategy Tool Navigator.
However, The Fashion Pact have an independent website for their ‘Biodiversity Strategy Tool Navigator’ that aids fashion companies through the stages of developing a biodiversity strategy aligned with the SBTN. It’s set out a bit more like a course, so you can go through each section and methodically identify where knowledge or capacity is lacking. Their ‘Biodiversity Blueprint’ was established in 2019 to help inform fashion signatories of biodiversity approaches.
Biodiversity: “The variability among living organisms from all sources, including inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.” — Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) Glossary of Terms.
Nature’s Contributions to People, or NCPs (also known as Ecosystem Services): “All the beneficial and detrimental contributions that humans obtain from and with nature.” — Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) Glossary of Terms.
Nature positive: “A high level goal and concept describing a future state of nature (e.g., biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people) which is greater than the current state.” — Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) Glossary of Terms.
Fashion Nature Risk Lens.
There is also the ‘Fashion Nature Risk Lens’ portal from The Fashion Pact that focusses on raw materials (cashmere, cotton, cattle Leather, goat leather, sheep leather, man-made cellulosic fibres (MMCFs), silk, synthetics and wool). It is intended to help you recognise risk in order that you as a fashion company can better prioritise. One key feature of this is the visualisation of land use by material. For example, below in the images of the global maps you can see cashmere production areas around the world (left) and cotton production areas around the world (right) with green colouring demarcating where there are known deforestation zones. First up these maps help you visualise where fibres originate, but then also show you where there could be crossover issues.
Biodiversity Benchmark.
In 2021, Textile Exchange published the Biodiversity Insights report that compiled data using the Biodiversity Benchmark from 157 fashion and textile companies including Hermès, H&M, Kering, Norrøna and Ralph Lauren. The aim of the benchmark was to provide a framework for companies to plan and measure their actions to becoming nature positive by 2030, and then within the context of COP26, the Insights report would complement it in establishing where companies could strategise.
The Biodiversity Landscape Analysis.
Published in September 2023, The Biodiversity Landscape Analysis for the Fashion, Apparel, Textile, and Footwear Industry was created by Textile Exchange and the Fashion Pact, in partnership with Conservation International and supported by Biodiversify, aiming to align companies on their journeys toward protecting and restoring nature. As Textile Exchange is materials-focussed, so too is the report. It’s helpful to read to understand the textile industry’s impacts on biodiversity through such practices as extensive grazing, crop production and forest management. Within this it also considers planetary boundaries and circular production systems.
A representative depiction of a generic textile’s circular life cycle. [Credit: Textile Exchange (2023) ‘Biodiversity Landscape Analysis’.
But what does biodiversity look like?
Ok, I’m getting into the bits from Groundswell now.
It’s all well and good having these benchmarks and frameworks and methodologies, but if you’re sat in an office or design studio rather than present around raw material production from farm to fibre, then how can you realistically and tangibly picture what biodiversity looks like to recognise when it’s not there? This is where visits to farms can establish awareness for those working downstream in the textile and fashion chains. Organisations like South East England Fibreshed are doing this successfully, but designers are also taking it upon themselves to ask questions.
Read about fashion brand Mother of Pearl’s journey in my review of the Fashion Reimagined film.
Read of studio Phoebe English’s collection compiling less extractive techniques in my thoughts on the HERE: An Alternative Route exhibition.
Read about my own visit to an organic farm with South East England Fibreshed.
Trials and demonstrations.
Where you can otherwise learn about biodiversity in action — and how it compares to industrial farming — is by visiting trial plots. Cherry Farm, which hosts Groundswell, is essentially one big trial, showing a variety of methods alongside one another and during the festival demonstrated to or discussed with visitors such biodiversity-increasing practices as feeding your soils biologically, managing veteran trees, agroforestry alley cropping, managing hedgerows, managing pests and diseases naturally, and restoring ponds.
There were specific sessions that took you on bat safaris, moth safaris, hedgerow safaris, insect bimbles and beetle identification tours. Plus exhibitors were on hand to entice you to purchase their tool or product or service. I attended the tours, though recently lost all my photos so can’t show you. Which is a shame when I’m talking about how to tell what biodiversity looks like.
I guess one way to identify if biodiversity is missing, is to listen and observe. If you see a monoculture in front of you; if there are no sounds or sights of insects/birds/amphibians/mammals that would normally be present in the landscape'; if the ground is dry or cracked or too sticky; if there are no veteran/dead/mixture of trees; if water sources are contaminated (or not present at all).
Images: 1-2. The Biodiversity Bimble with ADAS and Farm Wildlife / Nimbly catching insects in the net and bottling them so we could look; 3. The Moth Safari with overnight moth trap set up to monitor what moths were benefitting from Cherry Farm’s regen practices; 4. The Bat Safari where we used bat detectors and observed bats eating on the wing.
Groundswell discussion 1 — Opportunities for regenerative agriculture in field-scale vegetable production.
Ben Taylor-Davies (moderator), Calixta Killander (Flourish Produce), Harry Winslet (Cambs Farms Growers), Piotr Nowak and Greg Colebrook (Greens Of Soham).
Now this seems like it has nothing to do with fashion, and that’s sort of correct based on that these farms grow mainly vegetables (no fibres), but I’m highlighting it here because each panellist spoke on biodiversity. On top of that, conversations in the regenerative fashion sphere consider small-scale production, intercropping and product diversification as key to encourage more farms into a less industrial and less extractive practice. Vegetable growing can then serve as an example of how we might be able to increase not only the onshoring of fibre production (though not processing), but the increase in biodiversity and resilience because of the growing of a wider variety of crops.
Calixta — Flourish Produce.
Flourish Produce is across 56 acres with 750 crop varieties ranging from vegetables to herbs to cut flowers and heritage grains.
They’re 100% direct to consumer; the crop diversity leads to a sales diversity too, which includes ability to charge a higher price point than if the produce was sold wholesale.
With such a vast array of crops, there can be challenges with managing this in terms of weather and labour; each crop has different growing needs, and there are high logistic costs (growing/maintenance/harvesting labour and the skills involved for each specific crop, plus client management and produce distribution).
Harry — Cambs Farms Growers.
Cambs Farms Growers is across 4000 acres growing primarily salads with 1000 acres of that for cereals and some root veg.
They supply directly to supermarkets, which means they have to harvest all through the summer e.g. planting seeds for and harvesting 750,000 heads of salad a day. This is intensive on machinery use that then compacts the soil, already usually dry in summer.
The farm have a range of soil types including sandy and peaty, leading to a large weed burden from the percentage of organic matter, and a need to work the land differently in each field.
They are trialling a method of subsoiling rather than ploughing to minimise soil disturbance, and also plant cover crops that will keep fields covered to minimise weeds/soil run off/living roots. They’ve gone from 140 days of bare soil to 50 days in any year.
Harry speaks of ensuring soil biodiversity for the uptake of nutrition into the veg.
Greg — Greens of Soham.
Greens of Soham is across East Anglia and Scottish Borders growing 1400ha of potatoes and 700ha of beetroot. These roots typically require a lot of soil movement. The difficulty is that margins are tight, packers want a perfect product, and they’re charged to move soils less.
They’ve moved to a targeted approach where they see all crop varieties and each bit of land as separate (rather applying the same machinery and inputs to all), however, because they have 70 landlords across their sites, they experience challenges in the in-between processes. For instance, how to get involved with cover cropping decisions when they rent land, or that landowners don’t want you farming outside of licensing windows (because this affects subsidies).
Piotr — rented land in West Sussex.
Piotr’s rented land is across 800ha growing salad (full head and baby leaf). Baby leaf crops are quick growing, so cultivation can be between 20 to 60 days typically, and that means the land is turned over an average of 3 times a year.
They changed practices when they could no longer get hold of chemicals. As the land is rented, they couldn’t invest too much because it was at their own cost e.g. cover cropping, wild margins, but tightening the co-operation with the landlord sprung them forward. There’s now a co-operative type model where all landlords locally invest a little for the benefit of all.
Challenges came with ploughing, which they can’t halt completely. Total harvesting of a baby leaf field means that contaminants are present (unlike hand harvesting where you could sort) and they had whole yields rejected because of a small contaminant that the customer won’t accept.
Piotr spoke of the incongruity of needing to increase biodiversity while not having any contaminants (which includes insects). He also mentioned that certain weeds are an allergen so they absollutely need to catch them in processing, but there are certain edible weeds that would write off a yield.
Managing expectations is also required, because it takes patience to see physical change.
Images: 1-2. Cambs Farms Growers also have an educational field receiving visits from schools, universities, agricultural and conservation groups; 3-4. Flourish Produce have a mixed farm of heritage grains, cut flowers and vegetables, and host tours/educational visits.
Other Groundswell discussions to watch:
Integrated pest and disease management.
Intercropping practical lessons.
Takeaways.
Outcomes need to be measured somehow.
Whether your metric is for biodiversity in existence, or biodiversity loss, you need to be considering it from many different standpoints. Fashion companies reported in the Biodiversity Benchmark survey that:
they were investing in biodiversity initiatives to improve outcomes (38%), focussing on projects in their own supply chain.
they were implementing restorative/regenerative practices that would support biodiversity remediation (38%).
they are increasing their use of certified materials to manage their impact on biodiversity (80%).
But tracking the outcomes is still difficult. Most tools require a land user to record the number of species or plants or habitats within a defined area, though there also needs to be data captured around points such as water quality, air pollution, threat of invasive species and greenhouse gas removal by forests — all of which require a bit more effort and collaboration. So while fashion companies may be investing or choosing materials that mitigate some issues (as far as I’m aware, GOTS was never specifically inclusive of biodiversity measures), what’s the extended outcome? You still might do one good deed for biodiversity in this place, and neglect another.
Fortunately, support from specific biodiversity reports aimed at fashion businesses help to segment the ways in which you can strategise on mitigating biodiversity loss and improving biodiversity in an area. For instance, you may want to focus on direct species measurement, or on ecosystem/land-based, and is that site-specific, regional or even global.
Strategies aren’t binding.
Creating a strategy and announcing it publicly doesn’t ensure fashion brands are acting on these words. By committing to follow frameworks like the science-based targets set by the SBTN, brands show ambition and resolve. Textile Exchange’s Members who are being supported in their biodiversity strategies are urged to take a “no regrets” approach while waiting for nature-specific targets to be agreed, meaning that they stipulate certain targets like no deforestation that are somewhat measurable for the time being.
However, it’s all a starting point. By working on their targets they are already better able to recognise holes in awareness over their supply chain, or knowledge gaps on their material source. As long as they are following some sort of evidential framework then they’ll also be learning more deeply about the agricultural systems that their products come from.
Lack of transparency of the supply chain.
According to the Biodiversity Insights report, “34% of participants have high transparency of production countries, and 45% have very little. Few companies could report actual production locations or farms”. Without understanding of the landscapes, economies and cultures of where their products come from, how are brands able to strategise and implement actions? Production context is key to improving practices, because biodiversity value varies from region to region, for instance migratory corridors or habitats for endangered species. Recognition of the material source and production facilities is required for any strategy — and action — to be meaningful.
Material choices.
Knowledge gaps in the resources required to produce fibres, then fabrics, then fashion items can lead to disassociation with the full impact of a product. Though some companies are using Life Cycle Assessments as a framework for understanding, these don’t specify biodiversity indicators. Brands really do just need to do the reading, visit material libraries, recognise the systems the materials they’re sourcing come from — and not keep it in a silo in one department, for the folk doing the biodiversity strategy aren’t the designers or buyers.
Not operating in a fashion silo.
Looking to other systems for tangible visualisations of both biodiversity restoration and of biodiversity loss. For instance, with field-scale vegetable production you can relatively quickly see what the challenges are in implementing certain strategies to improve biodiversity. However, if you’re investing in habitat restoration on a global scale, you’ll need more patience. Perhaps how a fashion brand could take impactful action against the biodiversity crisis (other than stopping producing…) is to cross-pollinate with other industries, and essentially save time or put all eggs in one basket. This is perhaps how the brands can meet targets simply by investing, so this needs to be collaboration on a personal level.