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Chen, X., Memon, H. A., Wang, Y., Marriam, I., & Tebyetekerwa, M. (2021). Circular economy and sustainability of the clothing and textile industry. Materials Circular Economy, 3(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42824-021-00026-2

fashionrevolution. (2025). What fuels fashion? 2025: Fashion revolution. https://www.fashionrevolution.org/transparency/

Fraser, E., & van der Ven, H. (2022). Increasing transparency in global supply chains: The case of the fast fashion industry. Sustainability, 14(18), 11520. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811520

Garcia-Torres, S., Rey-Garcia, M., & Albareda-Vivo, L. (2017). Effective disclosure in the fast-fashion industry: From sustainability reporting to action. Sustainability, 9(12), 2256. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122256

Jestratijevic, I., Uanhoro, J. O., & Creighton, R. (2021). To disclose or not to disclose? Fashion brands’ strategies for transparency in sustainability reporting. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 26(1), 36–50. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-09-2020-0182

Shaw, W., Barry, V., & Muntean, D. (2020). Moral issues in business. Cengage. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/detail.action?docID=6511766

UN SDG. (2015). Goal 12 | department of economic and social affairs. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12#targets_and_indicators

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Ethics shapes business legitimacy and long-term viability. This padlet reveals how fast fashion's 30% overproduction and selective transparency violate multiple ethical frameworks. Utilitarian analysis shows the industry concentrates benefits among shareholders while imposing environmental costs on society. Kantian ethics exposes how information concealment treats consumers as means rather than autonomous agents. These violations directly obstruct SDG 12's targets.

This issue impacts multiple scales. Locally, textile waste creates health crises in communities like Chile's Atacama Desert. Nationally, countries like Australia face pressure to internalize costs through taxation. Globally, the model perpetuates inequality where developed nations' consumption drives Global South environmental degradation. Fraser and van der Ven's (2022) findings confirm voluntary measures are insufficient—transformation requires mandatory transparency, true-cost pricing, and regulatory reform across jurisdictions.

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The Fast Fashion Graveyard in Chile's Atacama Desert - BBC News

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The Fast Fashion Graveyard in Chile's Atacama Desert - BBC News

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This BBC investigation visualizes Chile's desert transformed into a textile graveyard, with 30,000+ tones’ of annual waste. The footage empirically validates the utilitarian analysis in this paper—while fast fashion companies maximize profits through 30% overproduction, the environmental and social costs are externalized to vulnerable communities thousands of miles away. This geographic displacement of harm exemplifies how the current business model fails utilitarianism's core principle: instead of achieving "the greatest good for the greatest number," it concentrates benefits among shareholders while distributing environmental devastation across the Global South, creating a negative-sum outcome for society.

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The fast fashion graveyard in Chile's Atacama Desert - BBC News

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UN SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

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UN SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

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SDG 12 aims to "ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns" through 11 specific targets. Fast fashion's overproduction and transparency deficit directly undermine two critical targets, creating systemic barriers to achieving the 2030 agenda.

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Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production - The Global Goals

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Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

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Utilitarian theory demands maximizing aggregate welfare—"the greatest good for the greatest number" (Shaw et al., 2020, p.62). Fast fashion's information opacity fails utilitarian scrutiny when total social costs vastly exceed corporate benefits. The utilitarian calculus reveals asymmetric harm distribution: while concealing 30% surplus production generates concentrated profits for few companies, it imposes diffuse but massive costs across society. Firstly, information monopoly distorts market efficiency, consumers denied waste data cannot reward sustainable brands, causing resource misallocation. Additionally, when companies dedicate only 1% of content to waste disclosure (Garcia-Torres et al., 2017), they externalize the burden of 92 million tons of annual textile waste onto communities and ecosystems. Finally, opacity paralyzes regulatory intervention, trapping markets in a "bad money drives out good" equilibrium where responsible producers cannot compete.

From a utilitarian perspective, SDG 12 targets represent quantifiable welfare benchmarks. Target 12.6's transparency requirements are not mere procedural rules, they are mechanisms to reduce information asymmetry costs (enabling Target 12.8's informed consumption). Target 12.5's waste reduction depends on data disclosure for effective policy design. Utilitarian cost-benefit analysis concludes: short-term corporate gains from opacity are categorically outweighed by cumulative societal losses—environmental degradation, market failure, and obstructed SDG progress—thus violating the fundamental principle of aggregate welfare maximization.

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Title: Enhancing Global Supply Chain Transparency: The Case of the Fast Fashion Industry

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Title: Enhancing Global Supply Chain Transparency: The Case of the Fast Fashion Industry

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Fraser and van der Ven's (2022) article "Enhancing Global Supply Chain Transparency: The Case of the Fast Fashion Industry" investigates whether major fashion brands fulfill their ethical obligations regarding sustainable production and SDG 12 alignment. The researchers employed content analysis methodology to examine sustainability reporting practices across four industry leaders: H&M, Inditex, Gap, and Fast Retailing Group. Their analysis spans multiple reporting cycles, evaluating the comprehensiveness and materiality of environmental disclosures.

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The study reveals two interconnected systemic failures. Firstly, deliberate overproduction: brands intentionally manufacture approximately 30% more inventory than market demand, treating this surplus as a calculated business expense rather than preventable waste. Secondly, selective transparency: while companies produce extensive sustainability reports documenting upstream labor practices, they systematically omit or minimize downstream waste data. Garcia-Torres et al. (2017) corroborate this pattern, finding that only 1% of report content addresses product disposal despite this stage generating the most severe environmental impacts. This strategic disclosure gap perpetuates a business model responsible for 92 million tons of annual textile waste (Chen et al., 2021), with post-consumer recycling rates below 10%.

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How fast fashion waste is choking Ghana’s beaches #fastfashion #fashion #clothing

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Ethical decision-making shapes corporate reputation and consumer trust, determining long-term business viability. In the fast fashion industry, ethical failures have become systemic, 30% of produced clothing never reaches consumers(fashionrevolution, 2025), while companies deliberately conceal this waste through opacity. This Padlet examines how overproduction and transparency deficits in fast fashion create fundamental ethical violations, drawing on Fraser and van der Ven's (2022) analysis of supply chain practices. The discussion connects these business practices to UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and applies two ethical frameworks, namely utilitarianism and Kantian deontology, to reveal how profit maximization systematically undermines both moral principles and sustainable development targets.

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Fraser and van der Ven conclude that these practices create fundamental barriers to SDG 12 implementation. These violations aren't isolated failures but interconnected system breakdowns. Overproduction (violating 12.5) directly undermines consumer awareness (violating 12.8) through deliberate information concealment. This creates a reinforcing cycle: uninformed consumers continue purchasing, validating overproduction models, justifying continued concealment. Without transparency about waste and production volumes, consumers cannot make the sustainable choices that Target 12.8 envisions, while their uninformed purchases perpetuate the overproduction that Target 12.5 seeks to eliminate. Breaking this cycle requires simultaneous intervention across both targets—mandatory transparency, production limits, and consumer education—transforming SDG 12 from aspirational goals to enforceable standards.

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Kant's categorical imperative requires that behavioral principles be universalizable and respect human autonomy (Shaw et al., 2020, p.71). Fast fashion's transparency deficit violates both conditions. If "concealing operational harm for profit" became universal law, trust would collapse and economic exchange would become impossible, failing the universalizability test. Moreover, systematic information concealment treats consumers as manipulable means rather than autonomous agents. When companies deliberately hide overproduction data, they deprive consumers of rational choice, violating human dignity that Kantian ethics absolutely prohibits.

From a Kantian perspective, SDG Target 12.8's call for consumer information access represents a deontological duty, not merely a utilitarian goal. Corporations have an absolute moral obligation to disclose waste data regardless of profit consequences, as concealment violates the categorical imperative's requirement that persons be treated as ends in themselves, not mere means to corporate profit maximization.

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Target 12.5: Substantially reduce waste generation

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Target 12.5: Substantially reduce waste generation

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Goal: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

Fraser and van der Ven's (2022) finding of deliberate 30% overproduction directly sabotages this target. The industry generates 92 million tons of textile waste annually, yet post-consumer textile recycling rates often remain below 10%. This isn't accidental waste—it's calculated inefficiency. When brands treat excess inventory as a "business cost" rather than preventable waste, they institutionalize the very practices Target 12.5 seeks to eliminate. The mathematical impossibility is stark: achieving "substantial reduction" while maintaining a business model predicated on 30% surplus production.

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Globally, sustainability efforts are advancing, with an increasing number of policies supporting sustainable consumption and production. Environmental agreement compliance remains strong. However, challenges persist, including low sustainable e-waste management and high fossil fuel subsidies. Corporate sustainability reporting has expanded dramatically, with most large companies now disclosing environmental performance through standardized mechanisms. These trends highlight progress while underscoring the need for continued focus on waste management, energy conservation and emissions reduction. The United Nations is advancing Goal 12 through such initiatives as the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, which helps countries to implement sustainable consumption policies and improve waste management.

Target 12.1 - As at 2025, 530 policy instruments related to sustainable consumption and production have been recorded, with 71 countries participating, a 6 per cent increase from the previous reporting cycle.

Targets 8.4 and 12.2 - From 2015 to 2022, global domestic material consumption grew by 23.3 per cent, with per capita domestic material consumption rising to 14.2 tons. Non-metallic minerals led the increase, up 39 per cent, while biomass, metal ores and fossil fuels grew by 11.8 per cent, 7.4 per cent and 6.2 per cent, respectively. Latin America and the Caribbean saw the highest rise, at 132 per cent. Material footprint grew by 21.3 per cent, with persistent regional inequalities.

Target 12.3 - There were 1.05 billion tons of food wasted in 2022, with 60 per cent of waste from households, equating to more than 1 billion meals discarded daily. There are growing global efforts to reduce food waste, with countries such as Japan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland cutting waste by 31 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, showing that large-scale action is possible.

Target 12.5 - In 2022, global e-waste reached a record 7.8 kg per capita, with only 22.3 per cent properly managed, a figure declining since 2010. Significant uncontrolled transboundary movement continues.

Target 12.6 - Sustainability reporting has become standard for large companies, with 96 per cent of the world's 250 largest companies by revenue and 79 per cent of the top 100 companies in each country surveyed now reporting on sustainability, up from 64 per cent in 2015. Driven by mandatory reporting and international standards, the number of sustainability reports grew fourfold from 2016 to 2023, led by companies in Asia, Europe and North America.

Target 12.c - In 2023, fossil fuel subsidies fell by 34.47 per cent to $1.10 trillion, down from a record $1.68 trillion in 2022, owing mainly to lower energy prices and the end of COVID-19 support measures. However, subsidies are still approximately three times higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, showing no sustained reversal of recent trends.

For more information, please visit: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2025/

More details on SDG 12 in 2025: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2025/Goal-12/

The 2025 Extended Report on SDG 12 can be found here: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2025/extended-report/Extended-Report-2025_Goal-12.pdf

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Goal 12 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs

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Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

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Target 12.8: Ensure access to information for sustainable lifestyles

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Target 12.8: Ensure access to information for sustainable lifestyles

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Goal: By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.

Information asymmetry in fast fashion fundamentally blocks this target. By concealing data on waste and overproduction, fast fashion brands prevent consumers from making "responsible consumption" choices. Consumers cannot align their lifestyles with sustainability when corporations deliberately withhold data about production volumes, waste destinations, and environmental impacts. The current market failure isn't due to consumer apathy but engineered ignorance, a direct obstruction of Target 12.8's vision of informed sustainable choices.

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Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production - The Global Goals

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Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

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Strategic Disclosure Patterns in the Fashion Industry

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Strategic Disclosure Patterns in the Fashion Industry

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Jestratijevic et al. (2020) analyze transparency strategies across 98 fashion brands using Fashion Transparency Index data. The study reveals that 70% of brands employ problematic disclosure approaches: flooding reports with corporate policies while systematically omitting supply chain waste data, or refusing disclosure entirely. This strategic concealment creates the information asymmetry discussed in the utilitarian analysis above. The research demonstrates that without mandatory reporting standards, voluntary transparency initiatives fail to achieve SDG Target 12.8. Most significantly, the study confirms that opacity is not accidental but deliberate—brands selectively disclose information to protect competitive advantage while externalizing environmental costs onto communities least able to bear them.

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Australia's Landfill Crisis: Taxing Fast Fashion's Hidden Costs

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Australia's Landfill Crisis: Taxing Fast Fashion's Hidden Costs

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This 9News report exposes how hundreds of thousands of tonnes of clothing waste are overwhelming Australian landfills, prompting the government to introduce a new tax on fast fashion. The proposed policy represents a critical intervention in market failure—while fashion retailers profit from disposable clothing culture, the environmental costs are shouldered by taxpayers and future generations. Australia's taxation approach attempts to internalize these externalities, forcing producers to account for the full lifecycle costs of garments designed for obsolescence.

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Government looking for solutions to Australia’s growing fast fashion crisis | 9 News Australia

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Violations of Targets 12.5 and 12.8 create cascading failures across SDG 12. Current overproduction generates 92 million tonnes of annual textile waste (Chen et al., 2021), with recycling rates below 10%. This trajectory makes Target 12.5's waste reduction goals unattainable while undermining Target 12.2 (resource management) and Target 12.6 (corporate reporting). Breaking this cycle requires mandatory Scope 3 disclosure, Extended Producer Responsibility schemes with financial penalties, and blockchain supply chain tracking. Without enforceable standards by 2025, voluntary initiatives cannot achieve SDG 12's 2030 targets.