By: Sarah Zitin

Eco-friendly fashion is fashion that considers the environment and living things from inception to your stores. According to fashion experts on the subject:

“Sustainable fashion is an all-inclusive term describing products, processes, activities, and actors (policymakers, brands, consumers) aiming to achieve a carbon-neutral fashion industry, built on equality, social justice, animal welfare, and ecological integrity.” 

Within this framework, all fashion requires these criteria in order to qualify as eco-friendly. 

• Clothes made using raw materials such as cotton grown without the use of pesticides, or silk made from worms raised on organic vegetation. 
• Garments and clothing made from recycled textiles, including the use of materials such as recycled plastic or pineapple leather.
• Clothes made without the use of harmful chemicals, dyes or bleaches. 
• Fair Trade: Accessories and clothing made under conditions where workers are treated fairly and paid a fair wage for their efforts and are inclusive.
• Articles designed to be more durable so they last longer.
• Fabrics made from organic fibers are grown without toxic pesticides.

“Organic agriculture is a holistic production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity.” Organic farming yields such benefits as preservation of the soil’s organic composition. Organic farmers utilize practices that maintain and improve soil fertility, soil structure and biodiversity, and reduce erosion. 

Here are some examples of what constitutes organic farming:

• Using crop rotation, 
• Biological control, and similar sustainable methods in order to tackle insects, diseases, and weeds. 
• Growing cover crops ( a plant that is used primarily to slow erosion, improve soil health, enhance water availability, smother weeds, help control pests and diseases), using animal and green manures.
• Crop rotation in order to fertilize the soil. This helps improve the long-term health of the soil and improves the biological activity of the soil as well.
• Emphasis on improving the biodiversity of the overall agricultural system and in the surrounding ecosystem.
• Reducing off-farm and external inputs and completely eliminating the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. This includes the use of similar materials such as antibiotics and hormones to enhance the plants.
• Practicing mixed forage pastures and rotational grazing in livestock farms and offering additional and alternative health care to improve the wellbeing of animals.
• Using renewable resources, enabling water and soil conservation, and taking on management practices that help restore and improve the ecological balance in any region.

• The market for organic products is growing.
• Prices for organic products are generally higher than those derived from conventional farming, especially in European markets. Also competition is somehow reduced compared to conventional products in both domestic and external markets.
• Exposure to and intake of agrochemicals are drastically minimized.
• Health of farms are improved as organic agriculture focuses on nutrient cycles, soil health and a balanced diverse ecosystem.

1. Increase in food availability

In developing countries, researched evidence finds that agricultural yields in organic systems do not fall, and at least remain stable when converting from systems that use relatively low amounts of synthetic inputs. Over time, yields increase as capital assets in systems improve, thus outperforming those in traditional systems and matching those in more conventional, input-intensive systems. Food availability increased in all cases centered on food production where data were reported examined in this study. 

Organic Farming Increases Access to Food on Several Levels. 

• First, an increased quantity of food produced per farm leads to household food security.
• Second, the production and selling of food surpluses at local markets means that farmers benefit from higher incomes, which increases their purchasing power. 
• Third, fresh organic produce becomes available to more people in the wider community. 
• Finally, organic farming enables diverse groups in a community to get involved in agricultural production and trade where previously they were excluded for financial or cultural reasons.

2. Benefits to the Natural Environment 

The vast majority of the case studies in this research showed improvements to the natural capital base – their local natural environment – with 93 per cent of the case studies reporting benefits to soil fertility, water supply, flood control and biodiversity. Organic farming leads to many improvements to the natural environment, including increased water retention in soils, improvements in the water table (with more drinking water in the dry season), reduced soil erosion combined with improved organic matter in soils, leading to better carbon sequestration, and increased agro-biodiversity. As a result soils are healthier, are better able to hold water and are more stable, can sustain plant growth better and have a higher nutrient content. All this enables farmers to grow crops for longer periods, with higher yields and in marginal conditions. This of course can make a major impact on reducing the food insecurity of a region.

3. Benefits to Animal Welfare and Health

Animals are an important component of an organic farm. They form part of an ecosystem in which all parts interact to their mutual benefit. Animals are also living creatures, sentient beings with feelings who deserve special considerations which makes their management fundamentally different from that of crops: “When a farmer is learning to manage a farm with no chemical inputs, sometimes a field may become overgrown with weeds, for example. The farmer might not be able to do much about it, and may simply accept the loss as an inevitable part of learning how to farm organically. However, it is not acceptable to let animals suffer or die.” 

Eco-friendly fashion makes a difference due to the care with which organic farmers and other eco-friendly stewards tend to their crops, from which eco-friendly fashion derives. Since climate change is here to stay, the best service we can give is to secure our agricultural processes from inception to your stores and support eco-friendly fashion whenever we have the opportunity.