Abstract
Efforts to decrease the environmental impact of today’s clothing industry across the entire process of production, purchase, maintenance, and disposal can be driven by either suppliers or consumers. Changing the behavior of the latter, however, requires an understanding of current clothing consumption patterns—a currently under-researched area. We therefore shed more light on these patterns in the purchase, use and maintenance, and discard phases by analyzing unique data on 4617 adult consumers (aged 18–65) from Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the U.S., who we divide into five segments based on clothing consumption behavior. At the low end of the spectrum is a consumer segment that earns the least, consumes mostly budget brand clothing, and is the least open to alternative more environmentally friendly business models such as fashion leasing or clothing libraries. At the other extreme lies a small segment that earns the most, engages in high consumption of medium or premium brand clothing, and is most open to alternative business models. Lying between these two is a primarily female segment that purchases an above average amount of clothing from budget brands. In addition to the segments’ different reported purchase behavior and a varying openness to alternative business models, we identify differences in willingness to pay for clothing made of material that is more environmentally friendly than conventional fabrics. These observations suggest several promising directions for environmental interventions tailored toward specific consumer segments.
Highlights
In addition to meeting the basic human need for protection against weather variations, clothing functions as a means of personal communication by which individuals express themselves through their clothing choices
Even though much environmental degradation can be attributed to the clothing industry, an equal part of the responsibility is borne by consumers, who, rather than being mindless market actors with no control over clothing’s environmental impact, are instrumental in determining the number, frequency, and type of clothing items purchased, how these items are used and maintained, and the means of disposal once items are worn out or no longer wanted
Because the evolution of fast fashion and the subsequent globalized mass consumption of clothing have greatly influenced the state of the environment, we begin our discussion with an explanation of how production and purchase, use and maintenance, and the eventual disposal of clothing each creates different environmental concerns
Summary
In addition to meeting the basic human need for protection against weather variations, clothing functions as a means of personal communication by which individuals express themselves through their clothing choices. Even though much environmental degradation can be attributed to the clothing industry, an equal part of the responsibility is borne by consumers, who, rather than being mindless market actors with no control over clothing’s environmental impact, are instrumental in determining the number, frequency, and type of clothing items purchased, how these items are used and maintained, and the means of disposal once items are worn out or no longer wanted. All these consumer-related aspects have implications for clothing’s final impact on the environment (see, e.g., [1]). We present an overview of the primary environmental concerns related to the clothing life cycle and describe our sample and methodology
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