This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
In 2023 fast fashion giant Shein was everywhere. Circumnavigating the globe, the planes transported tiny packages of her ultra-cheap clothes from thousands of suppliers to tens of millions of customer mailboxes in 150 countries. Influencers’ “#sheinhaul” videos promoted the company’s trendy styles on social media, garnering billions of views.
At each step, data were created, collected and analyzed. To manage all this information, the fast fashion industry has begun to embrace emerging AI technologies. Shein uses proprietary machine learning applications – essentially pattern-recognition algorithms – to measure customer preferences in real-time and predict demand, which it then serves with an ultra-fast supply chain.
As artificial intelligence makes the affordable fashion business faster than ever, Shein is among the brands under increasing pressure to become more sustainable as well. The company is committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2030. and achieve zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.
But climate advocates and researchers say the company’s lightning-fast manufacturing practices and online business model are inherently emissions-heavy — and that using AI software to catalyze those operations could increase emissions. Those concerns were heightened by Shein’s third annual sustainability report, released late last month, which showed the company nearly doubled its carbon dioxide emissions between 2022 and 2023.
“AI is enabling fast fashion to become an ultra-fast fashion industry, with Shane and Temu at the forefront,” said Sage Lenier, executive director of Sustainable and Just Future, a climate nonprofit. “They literally couldn’t exist without AI.” (Temu is a fast-growing e-commerce titan with a merchandise market that rivals Shane’s in variety, price and sales.)
In the 12 years since Shein was founded, she has become known for her uniquely prolific production, which has reportedly generated over $30 billion in revenue for the company in 2023. Although estimates vary, a new Shein design can take as little as 10 days to become a garment, and up to 10,000 items are added to the site every day. The company reportedly offers up to 600,000 items for sale at any time with an average price of around $10. (Shane declined to confirm or deny these reported numbers.) One market analysis found that 44 percent of Gen Z in the United States buy at least one item from Shane each month.
