Blue Cast: Robert Antoshak on Fashion’s Sustainability Misinformation
With the rise of the sustainability conversation in the apparel industry has come the fairly universal desire to own the narrative around environmental impact. But fiber, textile and apparel consultant Robert Antoshak notes that the level of understanding about the production of fibers and agriculture—topics that are integral to sustainability—varies greatly throughout the supply chain.
According to Bob, most apparel sourcing and brand-side executives have not personally visited a cotton field or a fiber production facility. And this lack of firsthand experience leads to some knowledge gaps. For instance, polyester has skirted some scrutiny in recent years by promoting the idea of recycling.
“The sourcing company and the supply chain really didn’t understand or don’t typically understand what it really takes to grow a fiber like cotton, as opposed to making a fiber in a test tube and what the differences really are, and their knowledge is superficial,” Bob told Lenzing’s Michael Kininmonth during the most recent episode of our Blue Cast podcast. “So it makes it relatively easy for synthetic fiber producers to simply come up with a story and then in turn, it puts more pressure on other fiber suppliers—particularly cellulosic fiber producers like [TENCEL™] or the cotton farmers—to respond to that. And in my opinion, this makes for a very complicated kind of noisy conversation where there’s a lot of a lot of mudslinging, a lot of disinformation going around.”
Bob noted that one example of the disconnect between farmers and fashion executives is the buzz surrounding regenerative agriculture. While brands are now discovering and promoting this concept as a “new” solution for the environmental impacts of the apparel industry, farmers have been leveraging these practices for a long time to support soil health. Growers have a stake in the game, since their livelihood depends on the environment. Bob has seen them investing in technology to further reduce the impact of farming on the planet.
Amid the finger pointing over sustainability, Bob says the real issues are overproduction and long supply chains. As side effects of the excess capacity created, those in the industry struggle with profitability and wages shrink for labor in developing nations.
Over the last four decades, supply chains have become global networks as production moved away from consumption hubs. This is changing, and sourcing destinations such as Mexico and South America are picking up, including for denim. Bob is a founding member and the senior advisor for Vidalia Mills, the latest textile mill to open in the United States.
Nearshoring is a growing trend, however bringing production back to the western hemisphere isn’t as simple as “flipping a switch.”
“Forty years ago, a lot of the infrastructure just started to erode and dissipated and it just takes time to bring it back,” said Bob. “And we can’t just open a textile mill tomorrow, and there it is a week later. It takes time, it takes years to build. The expertise has moved on, and people have to get totally retrained.”
Listen to the episode here.