Big Bad Brand #3

Britain’s Cheap Clothes Obsession

See something you like? Add it to your cart. Missing the free shipping by a dollar? That’s ok, you can just purchase that $5 top to make it up – either way, it is totally worth the price isn’t it? This is the very mentality that drives UK’s obsession for Shein. In conjunction with the festive season, many are excited to reward themselves via cheap and trendy clothing and seek to relish in the mindless browsing of Shein.

By simply browsing through Shein’s catalog on the app or via websites, it releases 2.88g of carbon per website visit (Venn, 2021). Considering the amount consumers in the UK, the carbon emissions would also be equally as high.

4 million orders

Last Christmas, Shein was expecting to take over 4million orders from the UK. Most of the items ordered would then take a 5,000-mile flight from China to London, emitting and releasing high amounts of toxic carbon footprint to the environment. Each flight carries 38 tonnes of clothes and pumps out 175 tonnes of carbon emissions which is the same as driving a car for more than 560,000 miles (Atkinson, 2021).

Never-ending Conveyor Belt

The production process of Shein is different from conventional fast-fashion brands; their rivals usually place orders months in advance and use cargo shipping to transport goods to warehouses before they are sold and sent to customers. Shein, however, relies on a ‘never-ending conveyor belt’ of cargo jets that transports clothes whenever they come in. The CEO of the company has also revealed that up to a thousand designs are uploaded online every day, indicating a significantly high turnover rate of Shein.

Pollution – it is beyond production

Adopting the DPSIR framework, we can see the drivers of UK consumers’ needs for cheap and fashionable pieces. This puts pressure on fashion retailers, such as Shein to churn out orders and react to the demand accordingly. This leads to the production of synthetic fibers which pollutes the environment (as established in the previous blog post) and impacts marine life when the synthetic fibers break down into microplastic and enter the food chain. There is also a secondary impact beyond production, one that is often an externalized cost via shipment of items where high carbon emissions are released into the atmosphere, a transboundary resource not owned by a specific body. However, it is crucial that these components are taken into consideration by Shein and also the UK consumers.

Buying from Shein comes at a cost. For every nice fit and a #sheinhaul posted, the environment suffers. So, before all of us decide to once again indulge ourselves in cheap clothing, let’s take a step back and look at the entirety of the cost!

 

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