Should I rent instead of buying clothes? Let's examine the new fashion hype

In the last twenty years the volume of clothes produced globally has sharply increased. In 2015, the amount of clothing and footwear waste generated in the USA was 10,2 million tons, an 811 per cent increase against the amount disposed of in 1960 (EPA, 2015). In the UK consumers buy five times more clothes than they used to do in the 80s’ and consumption of new clothing is estimated to be higher than in other European countries at 26.7 kg/capita. Although recent data seem to indicate an improvement in the average time clothes are kept before being discarded or passed on (on average  3.3 years), clothing consumption is still very much on the rise (WRAP, 2017). Within this context, new business models have emerged. Two are the ones that have caught my attention as I saw them as promising ways to achieve my objective of being a sustainable fashion shopper: “clothes as a service” and “second-hand clothes”. In this post we reflect on the first of these two and the opportunity and risks associated with it.

Clothes as a service, is a business model that sees renting clothes as an alternative to purchasing them. The business model has exploded in the USA with Rent the Runway being the frontrunner and biggest company in this area. With a $125 million investment round, Rent the Runway is now valued at over $1 billion, showing that investors see ‘product as a service’ as a key business opportunity.

But is it also a sustainability opportunity?

It is not possible to give a straightforward answer as an in-depth life cycle analysis (LCA) of this business model has not been carried out so far.  If we look at the journey of a garment that is rented, we immediately see that there are a number of stages that have a significant environmental impact (excluding the environmental impact already embedded in the garment from sourcing of raw materials to manufacturing and delivery). Every item borrowed must be returned and cleaned before being sent to a new customer, which means the shipping and cleaning impact of leasing your wardrobe can be significant. Let’s examine what this means:

-       TRASPORT. Josué Velázquez-Martínez, executive director of MIT’s Supply Chain Management master’s program and Sustainable Logistics Initiative estimated that an item ordered online and then returned can emit 20 kilograms of carbon each way, and spirals up to 50 kilograms for rush shipping (MIT, 2019). By comparison, according to a study commissioned by Levi’s the carbon emissions associated to the entire life cycle of a pair of jeans is 33.4  kilograms (Levi Strauss & Co, 2015). Transportation is now the top source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, and online shopping is partly to blame.  More research is needed – especially as the initial assumptions of an LCA are key and they can lead to very different results, but initial assessments indicate that shipping has a significant environmental impact.

-       PACKAGING. The goods are shipped wrapped in plastic and in cardboard boxes that may or may not be recycled and even if recycled are single-use items. Returns are done using a plastic bag, which has a carbon footprint too. Rent the Runway is actually shipping in reusable garment bags and hangers, but each single item inside is still wrapped in a plastic dry-cleaning bag (!).

-       CLEANING. If our weekly laundry is responsible for much of the water footprint of the clothes we own and can have a significant carbon footprint if laundry is done at high temperatures and using the tumble drier (Helbig, 2018), rented clothes also undergo dry-cleaning that has other environmental pitfalls. First, it uses more energy, second it uses perchloroethylene, a solvent that is carcinogenic and classified as a toxic air pollutant by the EPA or – as rent companies claim to use - hydrocarbon alternatives (“petroleum-based” solvents) that are still hazardous chemicals. Wet cleaning is an environmental friendly alternative but it is rarer to find with only Le Tote claiming to use this method.

The above picture does show that as much as Clothes as a Service is sold as a ‘green’ way to consume fashion, there is a significant environmental impact that is associated with this business model. The next fundamental question is: Is it more sustainable than purchasing clothes? If yes, how much?

A conclusive answer cannot be given as it depends on the scenarios that are compared. If we assume that a consumer is a fast fashion compulsive shopper that buys very frequently and dispose of her/his clothes rapidly (and presumably has a large part of her wardrobe that it is not used), then the answer it that renting is very likely to be a more sustainable solution (the majority of clothes carbon footprint is embedded in the clothes themselves). But if the consumer is a fashion consumer of high-quality items that washes only when clothes really need a wash, at low temperature and without tumble drier, and keeps them for years, then I would say that renting is not more sustainable. In between we have all sort of possible options, making it very difficult to determine what behaviour is best for the planet.

 The advice that we give therefore is to approach this new way of consuming fashion with care, being aware that it is not more sustainable per se if we add it to an already fast fashion compulsive behaviour! If we want to live more sustainably we need to use what we already have in our wardrobe, shop high-quality clothes that are going to be worn for years and rent sporadically when we fancy or need something that we know we will not wear daily.

 

Heike Schnell