The last few weeks have made one thing piercingly obvious: some of the resources we have built our businesses and societies on are finite and fragile. As our Prime Minister recently said, Aussies are feeling the pinch of scarcity and price hikes “at the servo and at the supermarket”. 

But does this have anything to do with the clothes we buy?  

How Our Purchases Reach Us

Australian Fashion is almost entirely produced offshore. The 2024 National Clothing Benchmark for Australia by Seamless reports that 1.55 billion of the 1.56 billion items of clothing brought into the Australian market each year was made overseas. All of this needs to be imported, and companies can choose whether to use sea freight or air freight.  

Some quick calculations on Eco Transit’s emissions calculator tells us that transporting a T-shirt from Ningbo, a manufacturing hub in China, to Sydney by plane accounts for 1.38kg of CO2 emissions, while the same journey by ship emits only 20g of CO2. If sea freight is cheaper and more environmentally friendly, why don’t we always choose it? Because it takes planning and patience. Sea freight takes about 20 days from Asia to Australia, whereas air freight can take only a day or two. This means a brand needs to lock-in their designs much longer in advance for this to work. If you consider a brand like Shein, who capitalises on fleeting trends and on-demand production, their business model almost never allows for the foresight and timelines of sea freight.  

If sea freight is cheaper and more environmentally friendly, why don’t we always choose it? Because it takes planning and patience.

This raises another issue when it comes to transportation: how shoppers choose to have products delivered to them. According to Australia Post’s 2026 eCommerce Report, consumer expectations around delivery speed have steadily increased. Younger generations or urban demographics often decide who to buy from based on their estimated delivery times, as around a quarter of consumers have come to expect same-day or next-day delivery. The problem is that the quicker a product gets to you, the less efficient its journey has been. Rather than being transported by the most efficient route for many deliveries, the priority is speed—even if that means switching from train to truck, or routes that go out of the way to reach you in a certain time frame. 

So, if slower deliveries for customers are cheaper and more environmentally friendly, why aren’t we choosing that option? Because it takes planning and patience (are you noticing a pattern here?). Shoppers need to be able to plan ahead with their purchases and choose patience. But if we’ve forgotten that birthday present for tonight’s party or are desperate to see if our impulse purchase fits us, we’re likely to overlook the benefits of waiting.  

What Are We Actually Transporting?

Next, it’s time to consider what’s in all of these imports and deliveries. Over half of all clothing sold in Australia is polyester or another synthetic fibre—materials that are derived from petroleum. In a time when our nation is rightly concerned about fertilising our food crops and fuelling our vehicles, it makes you wonder why we direct so much of this finite resource to the clothes that we wear (over 300 million barrels of oil per year—yikes!). 

Over half of all clothing sold in Australia is polyester or another synthetic fibre—materials that are derived from petroleum.

This is not a warning about how your activewear is about to double in price (though recent reports found the price of polyester jumped more than 10 percent in the course of a week). Rather, this is an invitation to ask, “if these resources are finite, how and where would I like them to be used?”  

An Opportunity For Innovation

Necessity is the mother of invention. However hard we may wish that innovation was accelerated by peace and collaboration instead of crisis or competition, we have seen this play out time and time again.  

The Covid pandemic brought undeniable hardship and isolation, but it also reshaped our society for the better in so many ways. GPs and medical clinics took up telehealth appointments, making healthcare more accessible and keeping people safe. Business made huge progress to upholding work-life balance and facilitating Work-From-Home arrangements. Covid also taught me, and many Australians, the habit of coughing or sneezing into our elbows.  

Today, we find ourselves again in a period of crisis that threatens to disrupt our daily rhythms of life.  And as with all crises, those facing the earliest and most extensive impacts are vulnerable communities—those living rurally, without a safety net, or with less work flexibility than others.  In the thick of these current cost pressures, we strive to remain buoyant ourselves while considering those without the resilience or privileges we may enjoy. At this time, may I also encourage us to turn to hope for a different future?   While you wait for a non-express delivery, imagine:  

  • What if Australia invested in onshore textile recycling? Rather than extracting more crude oil to create virgin polyester, or shipping our clothing waste to one of the few recycling facilities globally, we could make high quality recycled polyester right here. (You can read more about this from Seamless) 
  • What if fashion seasons slowed down to focus on timeless durable pieces so that rather than rushing trendy items to consumers, collections could be made and transported slowly, and in more environmentally considered ways? 
  • What if Australians took this opportunity to fall in love with the diverse fashion that is already on our shores? If the price of polyester increases the price of new clothing, how wonderful would it feel to be oblivious to this, as we continue to mend our clothes, swap with friends and shop second-hand. 

In our economy, markets are highly globalised and integrated, which means the challenges faced in one region or commodity have far-reaching impacts. The reverse is also true: solutions made in one region or commodity also have widespread impacts. For better or worse, a rising tide can lift all boats.