If you’re wearing a buttoned up top, chances are that secreted somewhere on its inside is a spare button, sewn onto a label, tucked under a hem. If your shirt were to pop a button, would you be able to make use of this spare? Or would you just throw away the shirt and order a new one? Sewing a few stitches used to be a skill as basic as reading and writing. But the fact that we collectively send £140m of clothing to landfill each year suggests that things have changed.

Today marks the end of London Fashion Week, the annual devotion to the worst excesses of this environmentally destructive industry. Across the EU, almost six million tonnes of new clothes are bought per year, which averages out at about 13kg each. Here in the UK, we buy the most, and throw away a million tonnes a year. The environmental impact of producing, manufacturing and disposing of this amount of produce is self-evidently ruinous.

Despite all this, we exalt the brands on display at London Fashion Week as the highest of high culture, even as their business model trashes the biosphere. This has to stop. Last year, the Environmental Audit Committee put together a set of recommendations for making fashion more sustainable, such as mandatory environmental targets. This comes not a moment too soon. It’s time to think big about how we make these companies lessen their impact in an age of climate emergency.

Here’s one idea. Across the EU, there is a right to repair on white goods, meaning that manufacturers of goods like washing machines and refrigerators are obliged to fix or provide spare parts for any units which break down for up to ten years. Imagine if we applied the principle of this legislation to clothing manufacturers, meaning that brands were obliged to help you repair and restyle clothes, rather than encouraging you to throw them into the bin and pick the shopping basket back up.

You might go into your local Topshop, and along with the slew of new “experiences” with which late capitalism uses to woo its customers into bricks-and-mortar shops, you might have a repair station, both to provide minor fixes, but also to lead workshops on upcycling and restyling. At a time when high street brands are struggling to bring people in, they could help bring people together to learn new crafts, while keeping textiles out of landfill.

Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures California In this decade, humans have become ever more aware of climate change. Calls for leaders to act echo around the globe as the signs of a changing climate become ever more difficult to ignore Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Athens, Greece Fierce wildfires have flared up in numerous countries. The damage being caused is unprecedented: 103 people were killed in wildfires last year in California, one of the places best prepared, best equipped to fight such blazes in the world AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Redding, California Entire towns have been razed. The towns of Redding and Paradise in California were all but eliminated in the 2018 season AP Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Athens, Greece While wildfires in Greece (pictured), Australia, Indonesia and many other countries have wrought chaos to infrastructure, economies and cost lives AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Carlisle, England In Britain, flooding has become commonplace. Extreme downpours in Carlisle in the winter of 2015 saw the previous record flood level being eclipsed by two feet AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Hebden Bridge, England Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire has flooded repeatedly in the past decade, with the worst coming on Christmas Day 2015. Toby Smith of Climate Visuals, an organisation focused on improving how climate change is depicted in the media, says: "Extreme weather and flooding, has and will become more frequent due to climate change. An increase in the severity and distribution of press images, reports and media coverage across the nation has localised the issue. It has raised our emotions, perception and personalised the effects and hazards of climate change." Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Somerset, England Out west in Somerset, floods in 2013 led to entire villages being cut off and isolated for weeks Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Dumfries, Scotland "In summer 2012, intense rain flooded over 8000 properties. In 2013, storms and coastal surges combined catastrophically with elevated sea levels whilst December 2015, was the wettest month ever recorded. Major flooding events continued through the decade with the UK government declaring flooding as one of the nation's major threats in 2017," says Mr Smith of Climate Visuals Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures London, England Weather has been more extreme in Britain in recent years. The 'Beast from the East' which arrived in February 2018 brought extraordinarily cold temperatures and high snowfall. Central London (pictured), where the city bustle tends to mean that snow doesn't even settle, was covered in inches of snow for day PA Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures London, England Months after the cold snap, a heatwave struck Britain, rendering the normally plush green of England's parks in Summer a parched brown for weeks AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures New South Wales, Australia Worsening droughts in many countries have been disastrous for crop yields and have threatened livestock. In Australia, where a brutal drought persisted for months last year, farmers have suffered from mental health problems because of the threat to their livelihood Reuters Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Tonle Sap, Cambodia Even dedicated climate skeptic Jeremy Clarkson has come to recognise the threat of climate change after visiting the Tonle Sap lake system in Cambodia. Over a million people rely on the water of Tonle Sap for work and sustinence but, as Mr Clarkson witnessed, a drought has severley depleted the water level Carlo Frem/Amazon Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Addis Ababa, Ethiopia In reaction to these harbingers of climate obliteration, some humans have taken measures to counter the impending disaster. Ethiopia recently planted a reported 350 million trees in a single day AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Morocco Morocco has undertaken the most ambitious solar power scheme in the world, recently completing a solar plant the size of San Francisco AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures London, England Electric cars are taking off as a viable alternative to fossil fuel burning vehicles and major cities across the world are adding charging points to accomodate AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Purmerend, The Netherlands Cities around the world are embracing cycling too, as a clean (and healthy) mode of transport. The Netherlands continues to lead the way with bikes far outnumbering people Jeroen Much/Andras Schuh Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Xiamen, China Cycling infrastructure is taking over cities the world over, in the hope of reducing society's dependency on polluting vehicles Ma Weiwei Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Chennai, India Despite positive steps being taken, humans continue to have a wildly adverse effect on the climate. There have been numerous major oil spills this decade, the most notable being the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures Amazon rainforest, Brazil More recently, large swathes of the Amazon rainforest were set alight by people to clear land for agriculture AFP/Getty Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures California This decade may have seen horrors but it has led to an understanding that the next decade must see change if human life is to continue Getty

Remember that spare button. The fact that it’s still sewn into new clothes speaks to a deeply rooted tradition of repair which fast fashion has only recently swept away on a tidal wave of cheap clothes. It reminds us what we know to be true: there’s really no reason we should be throwing away so much perfectly good clothing for want of a small bit of stitching, or worse still, because it is declared to be out of season by an industry which demands exponentially increasing sales.

There are undercurrents of backlash against fast fashion, evidenced by skills like knitting regaining popularity among young people in the form of things like “stitch and bitch” societies in students’ unions. While such skills skipped over baby boomers, redundant and passe in the golden decades of consumer capitalism, a revival of craft is now threading post-crash millennials back to their thrifty make-do-and-mend grandparents. This is hugely encouraging.

As with any aspects of the climate and ecological emergencies, individual action alone isn’t going to solve the crisis. Like fossil fuel extraction, factory farming, and all other major drivers of the climate crisis – fast fashion is another symptom of an economy which demands perpetual growth. This guarantees a reckoning with planetary limits. Instead, we must move to a more circular model of production, and develop a deeper appreciation of the things which we own, fostering a culture of reusing, repairing, and restyling.