An unprecedented water crisis is underway in Italy: (As Po dries up, Italy's food and energy supplies are at risk – WP). Agricultural water scarcity is expected to increase in more than 80% of the world's cropland by 2050. For the "future of water" (see Report) the agricultural techniques that retain rainwater in the soils and the reduction of consumption in industry are relevant. A single cotton shirt requires over 2500 liters of water. Leather, for bags and shoes, needs 160 liters per kilo. Machine and plant engineering suppliers can play a key role as producers of sustainable energy and water systems (i.e. Green Label)
As Po dries up, Italy's food and energy supplies are at risk
Water is so low in large stretches of Italy’s largest river that local residents are walking through the middle of the expanse of sand and shipwrecks are resurfacing.
Authorities fear that if it doesn’t rain soon, there’ll be a serious shortage of water for drinking and irrigation for farmers and local populations across the whole of northern Italy.
The drying up of the Po, which runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern city of Turin to Venice, is jeopardizing drinking water in Italy’s densely populated and highly industrialized districts and threatening irrigation in the most intensively farmed part of the country, known as the Italian food valley.
Northern Italy hasn’t seen rainfall for more than 110 days and this year’s snowfall is down by 70%. Aquifers, which hold groundwater, are depleted. Temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above season average are melting the tiny snowfields and glaciers that were left on the top of the surrounding Alps, leaving the Po basin without its summer water reservoirs.
Earth's Future Report
The new study examines current and future water requirements for global agriculture and predicts whether the water levels available, either from rainwater or irrigation, will be sufficient to meet those needs under climate change. To do so, the researchers developed a new index to measure and predict water scarcity in agriculture’s two major sources: soil water that comes from rain, called green water, and irrigation from rivers, lakes, and groundwater, called blue water. It’s the first study to apply this comprehensive index worldwide and predict global blue and green water scarcity as a result of climate change.
“As the largest user of both blue and green water resources, agricultural production is faced with unprecedented challenges,” said Xingcai Liu, an associate professor at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the new study. “This index enables an assessment of agricultural water scarcity in both rainfed and irrigated croplands in a consistent manner.”
In the last 100 years, the demand for water worldwide has grown twice as fast as the human population. Water scarcity is already an issue on every continent with agriculture, presenting a major threat to food security. Despite this, most water scarcity models have failed to take a comprehensive look at both blue and green water.
Green water is the portion of rainwater that is available to plants in the soil. A majority of precipitation ends up as green water, but it is often overlooked because it is invisible in the soil and can’t be extracted for other uses. The amount of green water available for crops depends on how much rainfall an area receives and how much water is lost due to runoff and evaporation. Farming practices, vegetation covering the area, the type of soil, and the slope of the terrain can also have an effect. As temperatures and rainfall patterns shift under climate change, and farming practices intensify to meet the needs of the growing population, the green water available to crops will also likely change.
Mesfin Mekonnen, an assistant professor of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama who was not involved in the study said the work is “very timely in underlining the impact of climate on water availability on crop areas.”
“What makes the paper interesting is developing a water scarcity indicator taking into account both blue water and green water,” he said. “Most studies focus on blue water resources alone, giving little consideration to the green water.”
The researchers found that under climate change, global agricultural water scarcity will worsen in up to 84% of croplands, with a loss of water supplies driving scarcity in about 60% of those croplands.
Sowing solutions
Changes in available green water, due to shifting precipitation patterns and evaporation caused by higher temperatures, are now predicted to impact about 16% of global croplands. Adding this important dimension to our understanding of water scarcity could have implications for agricultural water management. For example, Northeast China and the Sahel in Africa are predicted to receive more rain, which may help alleviate agricultural water scarcity. However, reduced precipitation in the midwestern U.S. and northwest India may lead to increases in irrigation to support intense farming.
The new index could help countries to assess the threat and causes of agricultural water scarcity and develop strategies to reduce the impact of future droughts.
Multiple practices help conserve agricultural water. Mulching reduces evaporation from the soil, no-till farming encourages water to infiltrate the ground, and adjusting the timing of plantings can better align crop growth with changing rainfall patterns. Additionally, contour farming, where farmers till the soil on sloped land in rows with the same elevation, prevents water runoff and soil erosion.
“Longer term, improving irrigation infrastructure, for example in Africa, and irrigation efficiency would be effective ways to mitigate the effects of future climate change in the context of growing food demand,” Liu said.
Drought conditions transform ecosystems from sinks to sources of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
It is extremely urgent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When not properly managed and predicted, drought is one of the drivers of desertification and land degradation, as well as among the causes of increased ecosystem fragility and social instability. The scale of drought-related impacts also depends on increased carbon emissions.
ICOS, the Integrated Carbon Observation System, has carried out a series of studies showing how nature and crops in Europe react to extreme drought conditions. The results published in Philosophical Transactions B show, for example, that in 2018 carbon sinks had decreased by 18% and crops had the lowest yields in decades. The results are significant in that such extreme drought conditions would have occurred much more frequently in the future, as is happening now.
The results of the 17 studies published in 2020 in a special issue of Philosophical Transactions B show how Europe's vegetation reacts to drought, that is, how the carbon exchange between vegetation and the atmosphere is affected: pastures have "yellowed" during drought, causing a shortage of hay for livestock, and many crops have produced the lowest yields in recent decades, causing financial losses for many industrial sectors.
Many of the studies have found that on a European scale forest have protected themselves by reducing evaporation and growth, resulting in a decrease in carbon dioxide absorption. Carbon sinks have decreased overall by 18% according to a study covering 56 sites.
Drought conditions have even transformed some ecosystems from sinks to sources of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
Apparel production accounts for 10% of worldwide carbon emissions.
Manufacturing new products is energy and resource-intensive process. The amount of water that is consumed and polluted in the processing stages of a product – called it’s Water Footprint or virtual water – is a looming threat our world can not afford in the face of dire water scarcity experienced by billions around the world every year.
A single cotton t-shirt requires over 2500 liters of water and the carbon emissions during production are 12 times more than the t-shirt’s own weight. Leather, for bags and shoes, needs 160 liters per kilo.
Add to this the shipping emissions which come from importing or outsourcing items and you have a recipe for environmental destruction.
How is it possible that in the face of the now undeniable catastrophe of global warming we continue to feed it?
It's no secret that consumers are increasingly interested in how and where their clothing is made. They often think about their purchases through the lens of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), i.e. the measurement ofthe environmental, social and corporate governance impact of a product.
Now the apparel industry could potentially be measured by ESG parameters. In January, a bill was introduced that would make New York the first state in the country to hold the world's biggest fashion brands accountable for their role in climate change.
The Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act — or Fashion Act, for short — is sponsored by New York State Senator Alessandra Biaggi and Congresswoman Anna R. Kelles is backed by a coalition of non-profit groups focused on fashion and sustainability. If approved, it will apply to global apparel and footwear companies with over $100 million in revenue doing business in New York. In short, almost all the big global brands.
ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance)
In the collective imagination, ESG investments (environment, sustainability, governance) are considered a more ethical choice, better for the planet and for the people involved. In recent years, the urgency of countering the climate emergency has led more investors to choose them, causing their global value to soar above 40 trillion dollars (Bloomberg estimate). But in the world of finance the acronym ESG is still interpretable, in the absence of legal definitions, and more and more cracks are appearing on the façade.
Last week markets learned with concern that the ESG division of Goldman Sachs, one of the world's most famous investment banks, is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2021 it was precisely the SEC that warned investors that it had found several funds in which the securities of companies that were decidedly not very "green" "weighed" a lot, despite the description of these funds, the advertising messages or their names.
In late May, another investigation by the American authorities led German police to break into the offices of DWS, Germany's leading asset manager. The investment arm of Deutsche Bank (which controls DWS) is also under the magnifying glass of the authorities. The suspicion is the same: greenwashing. And investors begin to sense that something is wrong.
Bloomberg reports that after three years of meteoric growth, demand for ESG financial products fell 36% in the first quarter of this year, and estimates that in May the U.S. stock exchange saw the highest movement in repayments from ESG funds ever. On average, ESG funds have lost 16% year-to-date. Signals also from Europe: there they lost 14% of their value, performing worse than the Stoxx Europe 600 index (11%). Dividends, which had passed the pandemic period without too many problems, are now decreasing.
It is not surprising that the authorities are gearing up to combat greenwashing also in the financial field. In the EU, asset managers and financial advisors will need to make sure that individual investors get exactly what they want from their ESG holdings, even if that means "handing them over" to a competitor, starting in August. Meanwhile, a revision of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (already delayed by almost a year) is taking shape, which should help bring clarity to a sector in the grip of confusion.
The underlying fear is that widespread greenwashing practices could jeopardize the ecological transition. That ESG funds and investments become unpopular enough to discourage investors who really want to mobilize money for environmentally and socially responsible goals. Legislation such as Fit for 55 can be the driving force of the transition, but the real multiplier of the transition is non-institutional investors, who must find a reliable destination for their trust and their money.
The one about the meaning of ESG is a conversation that becomes increasingly urgent, because the problem – singing the ESG praises of a project and ignoring, or even censoring those who question the veracity of green credentials – could be even more systemic.
An influential system overseen by retailers and clothing manufacturers classifies petroleum-based synthetics as "vegan leather" as more environmentally friendly than natural fibers.
An explosion in the use of cheap petroleum-based materials has transformed the fashion industry, aided by the successful rebranding of synthetic materials such as leather plastics (once less flatteringly called "leather") into fashionable alternatives such as "vegan leather," a marketing masterstroke intended to suggest environmental virtue.
Underlying this effort was an influential assessment system that assesses the environmental impact of all types of fabrics and materials. Called the Higg Index, the rating system was introduced in 2011 by some of the world's largest fashion brands and retailers, led by Walmart and Patagonia, to measure and ultimately help reduce brands' environmental footprint by reducing the water used to produce the clothes and shoes they sell, for example, or by limiting the use of harmful chemicals.
But the Higg index also strongly favors synthetic materials made from fossil fuels over natural ones such as cotton, wool or leather. Now, these assessments are being criticized by independent experts and representatives of the natural fiber industries who say that the Higg index is being used to portray the increasing use of synthetic materials as environmentally desirable, despite questions about the environmental toll of synthetics.
"The index justifies the choices fashion companies are making by painting these synthetics as the most sustainable choice," said Veronica Bates Kassatly, a fashion industry analyst and critic of the industry's sustainability claims. "They say: you can still shop till you drop, because now everything comes from sustainable sources."
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which manages the index and counts nearly 150 brands among its members , including H&M and Nike, as well as retail giants such as Amazon and Target, said the index uses scientifically and externally revised data.
Critics counter that some of the data behind the index comes from research funded by the synthetics industry that has not been fully open to independent scrutiny. Other studies incorporated into the Higg Index are sometimes relatively narrow in scope, raising questions about their broad applicability at the industry level.
The index ranks polyester as one of the most sustainable fabrics in the world, for example, using Data on European polyester production provided by a group in the plastics industry, although most of the world's polyester is produced in Asia, usually using a dirtier energy network and with less strict environmental rules. The Higg classification for elastane, also known as Lycra or spandex, is based on a study by what was at the time the world's largest producer of elastane, Invista, a subsidiary of the Koch Industries conglomerate. (Invista sold its Lycra business in 2019.)
The Higg Index itself was born a decade ago in the midst of a growing emphasis among consumers on sustainability, the environment and animal welfare concerns. It coincided with advances in synthetic-based fabrics that were not only inexpensive but had new features that buyers craved, such as better elasticity or improvements in the ability to evacuate sweat.
Many of the clothing brands that sit on the board of directors of the group that controls the index profit from two fashion megatrends that have directly benefited from advances in synthetic materials like these: fast fashion and athleisure. Fast fashion giant H&M, for example, shows what it calls Higg-based sustainability profiles along with some of its products.
"The members of Higg, many of them are fast fashion brands, and they all mainly use polyester. So it favors them to get a better valuation of polyester," said Brett Mathews, editor-in-chief of Apparel Insider, an industry-focused publication based in London. But the data used was "very scarce," he said, and "the net result is that higg's actual score, which states that this fiber is more sustainable than that, is misleading to consumers."
Why "Green washing"? Why hasn't the environment sincerely become the number one priority for everyone?
These are the questions that the deputy editor of the German weekly Zeit Bernd Ulrich and Fritz Engel, who is his son and a doctor of philosophy, try to answer with an article that is also an essay, a sort of critical manifesto of a new ecological consciousness.
To explain our inaction in the face of the environmental crisis, the two therefore disturb Sigmund Freud and his idea of the three great "humiliations" inflicted by science on man.
The two authors now propose The "ecological" humiliation. The diagnosis is that the analyzes on the environment can have, in addition to their visible content, also a partly hidden psychological effect that, consciously or unconsciously, causes resistance and defensive reactions. It is this, according to them, that prevents human beings from drawing the consequences of what they already know: "if we want to avoid self-destruction we must stop destroying natural ecosystems".
In this context of "mental rejection", there is the hesitation of many companies to undertake a path of sustainable transformation, becauseit is not clearhow this can bring an immediate advantage to the company.
In the climate crisis, disaster no longer stems from the misdeeds of powerful criminal individuals, but from inaction and the inability to apply the necessary remedies. And a step in the right direction at the wrong pace is a wrong step, because over the time of hesitation more and more carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere.
The truth no longer lies in the middle between technology and mandrcato, but rather in the middle between technology and physics. If there are these new rules for reducing environmental impacts, even if only in addition tothe use of already known technologies, the temptation to reject them is great because they question a considerable part of one's life history. This is the biographical dimension of the mortification caused by the climate crisis, which also affects the original missions, individual and collective, of companies refractory to change related to the fashion sector.
The ecological breakthrough is one of the greatest transformations in the history of mankind and machine technology plays a fundamental role
As part of the reduction of environmental impact, the demand for energy technologies and the use of clean and low-consumption water sources is growing rapidly. Here, machine and plant engineering suppliers can play a key role as manufacturers of sustainable energy systems, developed to forward-looking standards.
The sector is facing profound structural changes that represent a challenge and require an innovative effort from companies. Sustainability has become an integral part of various post-Covid relaunch initiatives. In this sense, in order to promote the circular economy within the fashion system, for example, Italy has introduced the obligation of separate collection of textile products with a 100% recovery target.
Suppliers of machines and plants are increasingly acting to limit their environmental impact in both production and research and development, but also through intensive and continuous maintenance services offered to customers.
In turn, digitalization is bringing extensive innovations to the fashion system along the different stages of the supply chain. Downstream, the shopping experience is increasingly digital, thanks to the greater spread of e-commerce on different platforms and the use of artificial intelligence in the test rooms of physical stores. Upstream, however, the application of augmented reality allows you to reduce waste by working on 3D models and producing only the necessary parts.
Industry 4.0 technologies make it possible to reduce production costs, time-to-market and waste generated; the evolutions of the blockchain, moreover, can allow a better traceability of each phase of the life of a fashion garment, making the supply chain more transparent.
The EU Commission wants to restore the adjective "green" to its real meaning and asks that every communication on the sustainability of a product be supported by valid scientific evidence. After finding with a recent survey that 40% of brands' sustainability claims are false, communication campaigns ambitiously projected towards the future (e.g. "we will be climate-neutral by 2030") will no longer be granted if they are not based on concrete sustainable development plans. And it is also expected that each brand will have to communicate to customers the commercial durability of its products and offer services on how, possibly, to repair them.
The area in which machine suppliers can offer the greatest contribution is energy because in addition to being the main lever for activating "net zero emissions" programs, it also represents one of the main factors of production cost that has undergone a further surge as a result of the current international geo-political framework.
Now the efforts made by business organizations, such as the Italian Assomac and Acimit, with the "Green Label", in creating an effective governance system have produced particularly satisfactory results, highlighting among the textile and leather companies many responsible subjects that apply clear systems of monitoring the results.
To date, accountability is the most critical issue that hinders the success of sustainability programs and makes them more "guidelines" than concrete activities.
In the field of energy management, many companies, with the help of machine technology, can implement sustainability strategies, monitoring the consumption of individual departments or production areas, thus being able to resort to efficiency systems that arise from the analysis of such data.
