Natural Resource Strain

Fresh drinkable water is incredibly scarce, and often hard to find. Only 2.5% of the Earth’s water is freshwater and only 0.3% is accessible to humans. Further, Boston Consulting Group estimated that the amount of water consumed by the fashion industry every year is enough to fill 32 million olympic-size swimming pools.

The inherently repellant relationship between cotton and dye—both negatively charged—creates the need for large quantities of water and energy to get the dye molecules to penetrate the cotton.