An Environmentally Sustainable Wardrobe

Sheesh, guess where I just bought new jeans -- d'oh!

Speaking of clothes, a recent report from a Berlin sustainability think-tank, the Hot or Cool Institute, calculates how many items of clothing the average person in a four-season G20 country such as ours really needs to fall within what the institute calls a "fair consumption space." This is defined as "a space where consumption levels stay below environmentally unsustainable levels yet above sufficiency levels that allow individuals to fulfil their basic needs." (See the news item found here).

The environmentally sustainable wardrobe number is 85 items in total. Clothing categories include coats and shoes, but not underwear and accessories.

Out of idle curiosity, I undertook a scientific investigation into my own closets and chests of drawers. This is the resulting data:

Coats: 5

Tops: 40

Pants, Shorts: 16

Sleepwear: 8

Athletic Wear: 3

Shoes: 10 pairs

Grand Total: 82 items

Phew! Just in under the wire!

And the kicker is that I don't even wear 30 of those items at all or only on a rare basis. For example, 5 pairs of shoes fall into this category. Most of these unused or rarely used items are kept "just in case I need them again some day," such as a few work-related dress pants, tops and shoes or my swimwear items. None of those items have been worn in the last 5 years or longer.

If those rarely worn items are removed from the calculation, my "actually worn" wardrobe total falls to 52 items. 

So either I'm some kind of

Environmental Superstar

or I'm walking around like a

Cheapskate

Fashion-Challenged

Ragamuffin

Hmm, I don't think I'll ask people to cast their votes on that particular issue.