Once the preserve of the wealthy, cashmere has become much more readily accessible in recent years, thanks to the high street— where a jumper made from the luxurious fibre can now be bought for as little as £70. But amidst growing concerns about its environmental impact, should we be thinking twice about purchasing that seemingly too-good-to-be true sweater? “Cashmere is one of the cosiest fibres we have, [but] it’s also one of the most problematic,” Kathleen Talbot, Reformation’s chief sustainability officer and VP of operations, tells Vogue. “It’s so resource intensive to make and process—it usually requires multiple cashmere goats to even get the fibre it takes to produce a sweater. And cashmere is really region specific—it has become so intensive in that region that there’s deep concerns about land degradation, overgrazing and really all of the environmental implications that come with that.”
Indeed, overgrazing and climate change are responsible for the degradation of an estimated 70 per cent of grassland in Mongolia, where the majority of the world’s supply of cashmere comes from. At Reformation specifically, virgin cashmere made up nearly 40 per cent of its carbon footprint from materials in 2023, despite the fibre making up less than one per cent of its fabrics sourced.
It’s why the Californian brand has been gradually moving towards recycled cashmere, introducing its 70 per cent recycled cashmere offering back in 2019. Despite concerns over the quality of recycled yarns, Talbot says the technology has improved exponentially in recent years, allowing Reformation to launch its first 95 per cent recycled cashmere collection at the end of 2024. “What really let us get to that next jump up was multiple trials to get the twist of the yarn right, and to test different washing and finishing of the blend,” she explains. “People are usually really surprised when they touch and feel it—they can’t really tell the difference between the conventional cashmere and premium recycled cashmere in terms of the hand feel, or how that product will perform over time.”
It’s worth noting that the majority of recycled cashmere currently on the market is pre-consumer recycled cashmere, meaning the yarn is produced using fibre that’s leftover during the production process, rather than from pre-existing garments that have reached the end of their life cycle. “Pre-consumer recycled [cashmere] is a really important place to start—whether you’re using pre-consumer or post-consumer, the impact compared to a virgin input is still really similar,” Talbot notes. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be greater use of post-consumer recycled cashmere—which is much more challenging to recycle at scale, due to the use of blended fibres and synthetic trims and threads—going forward, though. “We want to be developing the infrastructure and the right systems to also offer post-consumer recycled materials,” Talbot adds.
While recycled cashmere is one solution to address the fibre’s environmental impact, the social aspect is also key, considering that the fibre is still crucial to the livelihoods of goat herders in countries like Mongolia. Oyuna Tserendorj founded her eponymous brand, Oyuna, back in 2002 in a bid to shine a spotlight on local communities from her native Mongolia, and the beautiful high-quality cashmere they are producing. “[When it comes to the] cashmere industry, the main players in the guardianship of the land are nomads,” the founder says. “Cashmere is a very important source of income for nomads, so we can’t stop cashmere production.”
Tserendorj does point to the need to slow down, noting that the practice of cross-breeding goats to produce a bigger yield has led to a decline in quality of cashmere in recent years. “In order to make cashmere sustainable, we need to go back to how we used to do things a long time ago, when there wasn’t over-consumerism. There was a respect for the land; a respect for traditions,” she continues. “Cashmere cannot be a mass commodity.”
That’s why the brand has partnered with the Sustainable Fibre Alliance to ensure that its cashmere is being sourced from herders that are employing environmentally friendly and ethical practices. The non-profit’s Sustainable Cashmere Standard focuses on five key areas: improving animal welfare, safeguarding biodiversity and responsible land use, promoting decent work for herders, preserving and enhancing fibre quality, and operating an effective management system.
While there’s still a long way to go, it’s clear that the herders on the ground are an important part of the solution, given the growing impact that the climate crisis is already having. “Land provides biodiversity, it provides food security for all of our nation,” Una Jones, Sustainable Fibre Alliance’s co-founder, who was born in Mongolia, explains. “Well-managed rangelands can have a positive effect on biodiversity, a positive effect on carbon—they [can] sequester carbon from the environment.”
Still, the experts are in agreement that we cannot continue to consume virgin cashmere at the current rate, if the fashion industry is to meet its climate goals. “Cashmere should be a luxury product, and it should stay a luxury product,” Zara Morris-Trainor, the Sustainable Fibre Alliance’s head of research and policy, concludes. “If you’re seeing it [being sold for] cheap, then either the company is making gains elsewhere, or there’s been compromises along the way.”
Originally published on British Vogue.
