In July Burberry came under fire (literally) for burning $37.8 million worth of unsold inventory. This information, which was released in their annual report, said the brand “destroyed $13.76 million in beauty products and $24 million in ready-to-wear products and accessories”. According to The Times, “this was three times more than [the amount they destroyed] in 2014. More than $116 million worth of Burberry products have been destroyed over the past five years”. In defense of their actions, Burberry said they burned these products to prevent Burberry’s intellectual property from getting into the wrong hands, and ultimately maintain brand value. After the initial backlash from consumers and industry insiders alike, “Burberry said that the destruction was an industry-wide practice and that it used incinerators that harness energy“. Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and even H&M have been known to burn unwanted stock as well. H&M used a similar excuse to Burberry, stating that their incineration powered the Swedish city of Vaster. This sparked a conversation within the fashion industry as well as other industries about the ethics of dealing with excess inventory. ThredUp, a brand I have talked about many times on this blog, wrote an open letter to Burberry in response:

ThredUp’s open letter struck a nerve with many conscious consumers, myself included.

Last week the Burberry name re-circulated in the news as it announced in a press release that it will no longer burn its unsold inventory. Marco Gobbetti, Burberry CEO, went even further by promising to stop selling products with real animal fur, stating “modern luxury means being socially and environmentally responsible”.

In an interview with BBC, environmental campaigning group Greenpeace said “Burberry’s decision to stop incinerating its overstock is a much-needed sign of a change of mind in the fashion industry. Because fashion is a high-volume business with more than 100 billion garments produced each year, consumers’ closets are already overflowing with unworn clothes – creating an overstock problem for many companies. It’s high time for the whole fashion industry to start dealing with overstock at its source: by slowing down production and re-thinking the way it does business.” Greenpeace could not have said it any better — this is not just a Burberry problem, or even a luxury goods problem, this is an industry-wide problem.

In a report published in 2015, The Ellen Macarthur Foundation said “that nearly three quarters (73%) of the 53 million tonnes of textiles and fibres produced globally every year end up either in landfill or incinerated.” The EPA estimates 16 million tons of textile waste was generated in 2015. With the sheer amount of clothing and accessories created each year and made available for consumers, and with the growing demand for clothing thanks to the proliferation of the fast fashion industry, it is no surprise that brands are needing to find things to do with excess inventory. And there is a trickle-down effect as well. When uneducated consumers hear that brands are burning their excess inventory, or destroying it in any manner, it sets a standard: it becomes acceptable for consumers to do the same with their clothing. As someone who believes that companies should be examples for consumers, especially when companies themselves should be the most aware of their impact, I was incredibly disappointed when I first heard about the way Burberry dealt with their excess inventory. But at the same time, I cannot say I was surprised.

One thing I learned from working in the supply chain department of a fashion brand this summer was that brands do pay attention to supply and demand. No company ever wants to have excess inventory. If anything, drop-based brands (like Supreme) that are all about small batches of inventory are taking off in the industry. While it would not make sense for the entire fashion industry to shift toward a drop-based inventory model, it does show that brands are increasingly becoming conscious of their inventory. I am sure that Burberry will think twice about their forecasting and purchase decisions in the future, especially considering all of the news they’ve received this summer.

In addition to brands becoming more conscious of their supply and demand, this Burberry case also serves as evidence that companies are in fact listening to consumers. Burberry has publicly announced that they will change the manner in which they deal with excess inventory, have stopped using animal furs, and has partnered with a number of environmental organizations. Sure, not every major fashion brand will have a Burberry moment of sorts, but it was clear that the public’s reaction to Burberry’s annual report had a large impact on Burberry’s decision to make these changes.

So now that you’ve made it to the end of this blog post you may be thinking “what actually is this month’s sustainable lifestyle challenge?” After struggling to decide upon a topic aside from easy environmental lifestyle switches that already saturate that corner of the internet (like switching to reusable straws or washing your clothes in cold water or even the importance of shopping organic), I could not get the whole Burberry case out of my head. So this month I am pledging to be more vocal about the problems I see in the fashion industry. I will email brands directly. I will talk publicly about practices I take issue with on this blog, IRL with my friends or in classes or with colleagues, and I will definitely share on social media. I will spend my consumer dollars in a way that only supports brands whose ethos I fully support. Choosing to spend your consumer dollars deliberately is also using your voice. With midterm elections ramping up, now is a better time than ever to practice asking hard questions, searching for information, and thinking about the kind of world you want to live in. So take the rest of this month to practice being vocal.