The theory demands balancing the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, consumers, and the environment, yet the fast fashion model prioritizes shareholders’ short-term profit. Smith (2022) notes workers are treated as disposable inputs, facing exploitative conditions to sustain rapid production. Local communities (especially in the Global South) bear environmental and health costs of textile waste and dyeing-related chemical pollution, including contaminated waterways and air pollution linked to “bronchitis and cancer” (Ting & Stagner, 2023, p. 860)Future generations are left with depleted resources and a degraded environment. Even consumers are often misled by marketing that obscures the true environmental and social cost of their purchases.

Smith (2022) further documents cases where brands, despite internal awareness of devastating environmental consequences, deliberately continued or intensified overproduction to meet financial targets — a major ethical failure from a stakeholder perspective, as it consciously shifts costs to vulnerable parties with no say in corporate decisions.

Applied to fast fashion overproduction, a utilitarian analysis exposes a deeply flawed system: short-term benefits are far outmatched by widespread, long-term harms. These include global ecosystem degradation, pollution-related public health issues, and the severe suffering of millions of workers in poverty (International Labour Organization, 2022), resulting in overwhelmingly negative net utility. Smith's (2022) work supports this conclusion by highlighting how the pursuit of marginal financial gains for a few creates massive, distributed harm for many, making the current model ethically indefensible from a utilitarian standpoint.

Target 12.2: It contravenes the goal of “achieving sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources” through its excessive consumption of water, land, and petroleum-based materials (e.g., polyester, nylon).

Target 12.5: It flagrantly violates the mandate to “substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, and reuse” by design—overproduction is a core tenet of its business logic, leading to massive unsold inventory and textile waste.

Target 12.8: It undermines efforts to “promote universal understanding of sustainable lifestyles” by marketing a culture of disposability and hyper-consumption, normalizing frequent, unplanned purchases of short-lived garments (United Nations, 2023).

1. Implementing circular business models: Services like clothing rental let consumers access styles without buying new items, while repair services fix damaged garments—both extend garment lifespans and cut down on production demand, easing overproduction pressure.

   
   

2. Adopting radical transparency: Brands need to publicly share specific data, such as how many garments they produce per collection and their manufacturing-related environmental impact. This helps consumers make informed choices and holds brands accountable.

   
   

3. Developing industry-wide sustainable standards: Unified standards (jointly created by brands, policymakers, etc.) set baselines for resource use, waste reduction, and ethical labor. They avoid inconsistent sustainability efforts and prevent "greenwashing."

Backed by policies like the EU’s Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (2022), these actions can separate fashion’s economic growth from resource depletion and environmental harm, directly advancing SDG 12.