Institute of Water member Neil Kitching and author of Carbon Choices, reflects on water and climate change, through the prism of the hidden world of water footprints - how our obsession with fast fashion impacts on the global water cycle.

Neil Kitching: Water is the primary medium through which we will feel the effects of climate change. Weather patterns will shift causing droughts in areas that previously rarely experienced them, and more intense droughts in already dry areas. Warmer temperatures increase evaporation from the soil, worsening the impact of drought, whilst over oceans it evaporates more water into the atmosphere leading to torrential rainfall and floods.

Water is required for life. There is a lot of fresh water on our planet, but it is not always in the right place, of the right quality, at the right time. Human activity already affects the water balance.

Glacial retreat in the Himalayas risks future summer drought in the populous regions downstream. Diverting rivers to irrigate cotton fields has destroyed the Aral Sea in Central Asia. In parts of India groundwater is falling due to over exploitation from pumps and boreholes for agriculture.

Industry and many manufacturing processes also use a growing quantity of water. Levi Strauss calculated that each pair of jeans requires over 2,500 litres of water over its lifetime to grow cotton, manufacture and wash at home. They have introduced several water saving techniques to process cotton fibres, manufacture and dye jeans. Waterless ozone technology has replaced the optional and water intensive process of stonewashing that makes jeans look worn before sale.

Reducing water use and recycling water within manufacturing plants also reduces the chemicals used to treat water, energy to pump it to the plant, energy to heat water within the plant and the volume of wastewater to be treated.

Largest potential water reduction technique in jeans production is recycled cotton use

Despite these dramatic improvements in water productivity in the manufacturing process, the largest potential water reduction technique in the lifecycle of jeans is to use recycled cotton rather than virgin cotton grown on irrigated land.

If you want to reduce your consumption you need to understand the hidden world of product lifecycle footprints and how and where manufacturers source their raw materials and make products.

To cut your use of water, many of us would consider buying water efficient appliances such as a new dishwasher and washing machine or avoid running the tap as we clean our teeth. But we could make a far bigger impact by changing our consumer shopping habits.

It can take 17,000 litres of water to make one kilogram of chocolate, 15,000 for one kilogram of beef, 2,700 to make one cotton t-shirt and 1,000 for one litre of milk. By comparison, soya milk only needs 300 litres.

But not all water use is equally harmful. Rain-fed crops cause less harmful impact than those that rely on irrigation in semi-arid regions.

“Fashion industry has access to international supply chains and has successfully exploited this to source cheap raw materials and garments”

The fashion industry has access to international supply chains and has successfully, some might say ruthlessly, exploited this to source cheap raw materials and garments, often made in factories with poor employment rights and low environmental standards.

The result is that consumers have access to extremely cheap clothing. The problem is not clothing, it is fast fashion. Much of what we buy is cheap, creates pollution, is made from poor quality materials and workmanship and does not last long.

The carbon emissions to manufacture and dispose of all these clothes are more than that from international flights and shipping combined. In fact, textiles and clothing are the fourth highest carbon emitting category of consumption in the EU after housing, transport and food. 97% of clothes are made from virgin fibres – mainly synthetic (plastic) fibre or cotton.

All clothing - natural or synthetic materials - has additional and complex environmental impacts

From a carbon perspective, clothes made from synthetic fibres are likely to have a lower footprint than from cotton or wool. However, all clothing has additional and complex environmental impacts whether made from natural materials such as wool, cotton and leather or synthetic materials such as polyester and nylon.

These include fertiliser and water to grow cotton, oil for synthetic clothes, chemicals to process fibres, water pollution from dyes, and pollution from transport and shipping. New materials like Tencel, made from wood pulp may be a more sustainable choice.

After the consumer has bought clothes, there is the recently highlighted issue of the release of plastic microfibres when washing clothes. Then 70% of clothes are discarded to landfill, and many that are recycled are only made into lower value products such as cloths – it is difficult to recycle clothes that often contain mixed materials.

For example, spandex, sold as Lycra, is a synthetic material with elastic properties that can be blended into other fabrics. Existing technology cannot separate it for reuse or recycling.

Carbon impact of clothes is more than just from manufacturing and retail

The carbon impact of clothes is more than just from manufacturing and retail. Consumers use even more energy at home to wash and dry their clothes. Proctor and Gamble calculated that 90% of the lifecycle carbon footprint of their washing powder arises when their customers wash clothes at home. This spurred them to develop a new powder that works equally well at lower water temperatures – you can now wash clothes at 30 0 C, saving energy at home.

Of course, wearing clothes for longer before washing them will save even more. Mondays used to be washing day; now some families have their washing machine on every day, with every wash using water, energy and releasing thousands of plastic microfibres into our rivers.

“Best solution is for consumers to be willing to pay more for higher quality and durable clothes”

The best solution is for consumers to be willing to pay more for higher quality and durable clothes, and then to keep and wear clothes for longer. The retailer can supplement this by offering long guarantees, backed up with repair and refurbishment services.

GRN Sportswear sells quality, sustainable sportswear for teams. Most of their raw materials are synthetic, from recycled sources or off-cuts. They avoid using mixed fibres, design their products to be durable and are exploring the potential to chemically recycle used clothes to become the raw material for new garments.

Another option for the fashion conscious - those who feel the need to wear different clothes when they go out to events - is to rent outfits from companies like H & M Group which you return to be cleaned and re-used.

As a final thought on clothing; it should be socially unacceptable for people, newspapers and social media to criticise anyone, friends or celebrities, for wearing the same clothes twice in public. Only in this way will we begin to reduce the impact of fast fashion on the environment.

Neil Kitchen’s book, Carbon Choices, is available as a paperback on Amazon and e-book on Kindle. One third of all profits will be donated to rewilding projects. For further information visit www.carbonchoices.uk