Can fashion clean up its woeful environmental record? The industry is trying

The growing demands for change have generated ingenious responses for fashion to become sustainable. Photo: AFP

From making algae-sequin dresses, dyeing clothes with bacteria to planting trackable pigments in cotton, an emerging tide of technological innovations offers the fashion industry a chance to clean up its woeful environmental record.

Change is urgently needed, since the industry consumes 93 billion cubic metres of water per year, dumps 500,000 tonnes of plastic microfibres into the ocean, and accounts for 10 percent of global carbon emissions, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.