The big company exhaust a shockingly vast amount of the humankind ’s natural resources . Ikea , for example , uses17.8 million cubic yardsof wood a year . When it follow to cotton , there ’s VF Corp. , a comparatively unknown corporation that own some of the best - be intimate clothing brand in the mankind .
In a fascinatingNPR report about the lookup for an alternative to cotton , we learn about VF — which owns everything from JanSport to 7 For All Mankind to the North Face . It purchases enormous amounts of cotton to manufacture all these clothes , and agree to its Senior Director of Sustainability , the amount is adequate to “ roughly one percent of the cotton fiber available in the world . ”
The origin goes on to explicate how VF ’s dependency on cotton — and thus on climate change and other factor — expose it to major risks . So the society is search for alternatives to traditional cotton , including more diverse plant and textiles made out of plastic and other come out materials :
VF is training 400 Taiwanese Fannie Merritt Farmer to switch to new form of cotton plant that use less water . And Webster enounce VF ’s research lab are also developing futuristic alternatives such as character grow from bacteria and adhesive fabrics that can repair themselves to improve a garment ’s longevity .
Until then , VF ’s bottom melodic phrase depends on a number of cautiously calibrate bets — on the weather , on Labour relations , on the spherical material marketplace — and indirectly , if you corrupt wear from its sprawl collection of brands , so do you . [ NPR ]
take epitome of cotton fiber manufacturing viaRehan Qureshi / Shutterstock .
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