This story is originally appeared in Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
By 2023, fast-fashion giant Shein was everywhere. Planes crisscrossed the globe, delivering tiny packages of its ultra-cheap clothing from thousands of suppliers to tens of millions of customers’ mailboxes in 150 countries. Influencers’ “#sheinhaul” videos advertised the company’s trendy styles on social media, racking up billions of views.
At every step, data was created, collected and analyzed. To manage all this information, the fast fashion industry has embraced emerging AI technologies. Shein uses proprietary machine learning applications — essentially pattern identification algorithms — to gauge customer preferences and predict demand in real time, which it then serves with a lightning-fast supply chain.
With AI making the production of affordable, trendy clothing faster than ever, Shein is among the brands under increasing pressure to become more sustainable. The company has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050.
But climate activists and researchers say the company’s breakneck production practices and online-only business model are inherently emissions-intensive — and that its use of AI software to catalyze those operations could drive emissions higher. Those concerns were reinforced by Shein’s third annual sustainability report, released late last month, which showed the company nearly doubled its carbon emissions between 2022 and 2023.
“AI is turning fast fashion into the ultra-fast fashion industry, and Shein and Temu are at the forefront of that,” said Sage Lenier, executive director of Sustainable and Just Future, a climate nonprofit. “They literally wouldn’t exist without AI.” (Temu is a fast-growing e-commerce giant, with a marketplace of goods that rival Shein’s in variety, price and sales.)
In the 12 years since Shein was founded, it has become known for its uniquely prolific production, reportedly generating more than $30 billion in revenue for the company by 2023. While estimates vary, it can take as little as 10 days for a new Shein design to become a garment, and up to 10,000 items are added to the site each day. The company reportedly offers as many as 600,000 items for sale at any given time, with an average price tag of around $10. (Shein declined to confirm or deny these reported numbers.) One market analysis found that 44 percent of Gen Zers in the United States buy at least one item from Shein each month.
That scale translates to massive environmental impacts. According to the company’s sustainability report, Shein emitted a total of 16.7 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2023, more than four coal-fired power plants emit in a year. The company has also come under fire for textile waste, high levels of microplastic pollution and exploitative labor practices. According to the report, 76 percent of its total fabrics are polyester, a synthetic textile known for releasing microplastics into the environment, and only 6 percent of that polyester is recycled.
