Fashion Transparency Index 2017 by Fashion Revolution. Provenance - Transparency - digital tools to share your product’s journey and your business impact on environment and society. The Global Leadership Award In Sustainable Apparel. About the Award The Global Leadership Award in Sustainable Apparel (GLASA) was launched in 2013 to inspire bold and courageous leadership in the apparel sector and to mobilize key stakeholders around promising ideas or practices that can significantly increase the sustainability performance of the apparel industry. The Glasa process aims to The GLASA process is coordinated by The Sustainable Fashion Academy (SFA), a not-for-financial-profit organization. To learn more about SFA, visit sustainablefashionacademy.org. Background As analysis increasingly shows that natural resource depletion, environmental degradation in conjunction with social inequalities pose potential threats to future economic growth and social welfare, citizens and decision-makers are turning to key industries and sectors to demand accountability for their social and environmental impacts as well as their leadership in delivering solutions that significantly address these problems.
Fashion Positive. WellMade - Improving Conditions in your Supply Chain. Patrick Grant's Community Clothing project, a ‘manufacturers’ co-operative’ - Creative Review. As the first designs appeared on Community Clothing’s eBay store last month (jeans, sweatshirts, cardigans and jackets for men and women), you’d have been forgiven for not recognising the brand’s direct link to Savile Row, that bastion of British tailoring. Yet the company’s founder, Patrick Grant, has taken much from his experience of running bespoke tailors Norton & Sons (est. 1821) and ready-to-wear line E Tautz (est. 1867) in establishing a radical new model for the production of stylish – and affordable – British-made clothes. What also links these three very distinct brands is Grant’s determination to combat the wastefulness of ‘fast fashion’ and develop a socially-minded business, while helping to support some of the UK’s longest-established textile manufacturers. In the fashion world, the philosophy behind Community Clothing certainly represents a new way of doing things; or, at least, a new way of making the old ways work again.
Community Clothing. Make Clothes; Create Jobs; Restore Pride by Community Clothing. About this project Risks and challenges When it comes to fulfilment of order we believe the risks are low. As a team we are experienced in the design, manufacture and delivery of clothing we’ve been doing it for over ten years now. Our products have been designed, prototyped and tested, and all of our fabrics are well known to us. We know they fit, we know they last. We are of course subject to the usual unpredictability of product manufacture, but not more so than any other clothing business.
Our manufacturer will begin producing our clothing in March, allowing us for a delivery time as early as June. We are confident that you will love our products, and that you will be delighted with our service. Learn about accountability on Kickstarter. Rana Plaza two years on: Challenges and concerns. Two years ago today (24 April), one of the world’s worst industrial disasters took place when the Rana Plaza factory complex in Bangladesh collapsed, killing 1,134 garment workers and injuring 2,378 more.
The tragedy was undoubtedly a catalyst for change in the way the apparel industry looks at its responsibility towards the entire supply chain, but new concerns and frustrations are now coming to the fore for industry executives. The progress that's been made in Bangladesh over the past two years is "monumental," according to Rick Darling, executive director of government & public affairs at sourcing giant Li & Fung, who also sits on the advisory boards at both the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. "The two groups put $100m of their own private sector funds to do the inspections, the remediation, the corrective action plans.
The Bangladesh government last year put in $14m towards its portion of the project. " Darling agrees. Driving Fashion Forward. The Fashion Industry Must Network to Create Change. People arriving at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit | Source: Danish Fashion Institute/Copenhagen Fashion Summit COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Teetering on the brink of potentially fatal climate change, our world desperately needs innovators to lead the charge towards solving global environmental, social and ethical challenges. With its huge scale and brilliant creativity, the fashion industry has the potential to be one such innovator. To outsiders, fashion is not known for championing political, environmental or social causes. However, as one of the world’s most powerful industries — and a communication platform with the power to influence how consumers think and act — the fashion industry has a responsibility to create real and sustainable change.
There are three key areas the could drive this change: design, consumption and networking. Let’s start with the designers. Finally, networking is an essential part of the transition to a more sustainable future. The answer is slowly. Business of Fashion Platform. Ethical Fashion Forum. Raise the Curtain: Human Rights in Retail Supply Chains. Supply chain human rights issues continue to make the headlines.
Even in industries like apparel, it seems we are far from solutions despite significant investments to address systemic supply chain human rights issues since the 1990s. Technological trends suggest that in the next several years we will enter an age of “hyper-transparency” in upstream and downstream supply chains with lower cost technologies like smart phones creating new communication platforms for workers and communities in the global south. This brave new world is empowering to some stakeholders and creates much needed transparency and thus accountability.
However, it may be of concern others. New engagement processes will be required as information loops exponentially picks up pace and brands lose control of their message and engagement strategies. In response to this evolution, every corporate apparel executive should be asking themselves the following questions: 1. Act One: Codes and Auditing Director’s Corner 1.
Anti-Fashion Manifesto - Lidewij Edelkoort. Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort has released an Anti-Fashion manifesto, outlining a ten point argument subtitled: “Ten reasons why the fashion system is obsolete.” Published through her Paris-based agency Trend Union, the report discusses key areas such as education, marketing, manufacturing and retail. Edelkoort read her statement during her annual presentation at Design Indaba in Cape Town declaring: “This is the end of fashion as we know it”. She thinks advertising and marketing have had a negative impact on the industry. “It is without doubt the perversion of marketing that ultimately has helped kill the fashion industries.” The industry is increasingly profit-driven, with publications merging editorial with advertising. She also spoke about how today’s designers endlessly recycle trends from the past and are required to focus their creativity on high selling product such as bags and shoes, rather than producing new, exciting clothes.
What Can You Do to Create Positive Change in the Fashion Industry? Image credit: Fashion Positive “What does it mean to be ‘eco’ or ‘green’ today? We need to redefine that. We need to modernize the fashion industry. This is where we need to be in the 21st century — all products need to be created with thought.” This statement was made by actress, fashion icon and social entrepreneur Amber Valletta at the public launch for Fashion Positive in New York on November 14, 2014. The Fashion Positive Initiative addresses the need to modernize the fashion industry by following the principles of the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program to transform the way apparel and accessories are made. Cradle to Cradle certification addresses the five attributes of Material Health, Material Reuse, Water Stewardship, Renewable Energy and Social Fairness. Valletta describes Fashion Positive as the work of many and a challenge that we need to tackle together.
Source Intelligence Membership. Project JUST. The Sustainable Fashion Academy - Industry Development. SFA believes that to significantly improve the sustainability performance of the apparel industry, a holistic approach is needed, so that actions by different actors, including public agencies, profit-driven companies and civil society advocates, are optimized so they accelerate sustainable practices. Examples of our industry engagements include: Our planet is under great pressure. We now know this. Natural resource depletion and accelerated environmental degradation along with social inequality threaten future economic growth and social welfare. But this new reality also creates a unique opportunity to transform the way we meet our needs – for the better.
We know the apparel industry is very influential – and therefore can lead the way to a sustainable society. But because the sustainability challenges we are facing are complex, systemic and critical, we need to accelerate our progress by learning from leaders and leading initiatives that have the potential to reshape the industry. Changemakers. Industry Leaders Need to Have the Courage to Be More Transparent. NEW YORK, United States — Fashion is a $1.2 trillion business. But, knowing the scale of environmental perils we face on this planet, our industry must change its old, destructive patterns.
I can’t help but think of the legendary Sierra Club executive director David Brower's famous words: “There is no business to be done on a dead planet.” In 2007, I helped create a New York Fashion Week show in conjunction with an environmental organisation called Earth Pledge. I asked major designers to create one runway look that was “eco-friendly” or “organic.” If people take this on — the business of sustainable fashion — and get beyond ‘sustain-a-babble,’ we have the possibility of re-imagining a world where decisions are made with regard to the true costs of environmental resources, we have the possibility of re-imagining a world where, according to artist, designer, filmmaker and conservationist Susan Rockefeller, “There would be innovation and creativity beyond our wildest dreams.”
Sustainable Brands Website. The past week saw continued momentum in the global push for a more sustainable fashion industry, some from some surprising sources. On Monday, the day after John Oliver’s blistering takedown of fast fashion on “Last Week Tonight,” leaders from Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Finland presented an action plan to establish their region as a driver of sustainable design, production and consumption by creating a circular economy for garments and textiles no later than 2050. "Sustainability must not be an accessory," said Kirsten Brosbøl, Denmark's minister of the environment, in her opening remarks. "It has to be straight to the core, and it should be in every fiber.
" The plan consists of a four-pronged approach: “This is not going to be a quick change, it is a complete makeover — it is for the long haul,” Brosbøl said. “And we cannot do it alone. “[RefScale] helps us keep our true costs in mind when we make design and business decisions, and motivates us to create better solutions. Ecoterre. Sign up with Ecouterre to submit comments, stories, events and listings to us. Becoming an ecouterre member is free, takes 30 seconds and allows you greater access and participation in our active creative community of designers, influencers and makers. You can also sign up for our free weekly newsletter, which keeps you in the loop every week on the hottest new innovations in eco fashion. Ecouterre is a website devoted to the future of sustainable fashion design. We’re dedicated to showcasing and supporting designers who not only contemplate cut, form, and drape, but also a garment’s social and environmental impact, from the cultivation of its fibers to its use and disposal.
Our ethos: To follow the evolution of the apparel industry toward a more environmentally sound future, as well as facilitate a conversation about why sustainable fashion matters. Her goal with Ecouterre is for both designers and consumers to start taking the issue of sustainability in clothing design more seriously. Redress » Industry Engagement. How do we make Sustainable Fashion... Fashionable? How do we make sustainable fashion … fashionable?
That was the question that launched the sustainable fashion consumer research project with Mistra Future Fashion conducted by professors Lucia Reisch, Wencke Gwozdz, and me. While it sounds like a relatively straightforward question, the answer was decidedly less so. When it comes to sustainability, fashion it is out of style. Enmeshed in fuzzy terminology and encompassing a range of behaviors from purchasing to washing to discarding, “sustainable fashion” is hardly a mainstream practice and empirical research on the topic was limited. This was our point of departure. We scoured blog posts, skimmed Twitter feeds, and poured through content from far-flung reaches of the web, looking for everything we could find about sustainable fashion consumption. While the discussion was scant, we uncovered a small but vocal community of consumers actively promoting and developing ways to make fashion more sustainable.
Here’s what we found: Mistra Future Fashion. The purpose of the MISTRA Future Fashion Program is to deliver insights and solutions that will be used by the Swedish Fashion Industry and other stakeholders to significantly improve the environmental performance and strengthen their global competitiveness. The program consists of eight research projects, each aiming to generate new knowledge and recommendations that can be used by the Swedish fashion industry.
The program is organized so that it leverages the expertise and networks of leading Swedish and international research institutes and universities. It also aims to build up a national platform for research within sustainable fashion. Other stakeholders engaged in the program include governmental agencies, voluntary organizations, and companies within the whole textile value chain: forestry; pulping; textile manufacturing; recycling. MISTRA Future Fashion is generously funded by MISTRA, The Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. www.mistra.org. Patagonia Footprint Chronicles: Our Supply Chain. The Guardian Sustainable Business. Fashion Industry 2043: Risk Mitigation and Long-Term Competitive Strategy Through Scenario Work. Image credit: Iris van Herpen The fashion industry has gone through dramatic changes in the last 20-30 years.
Indeed it finds itself in the present at a crossroad: Resource scarcity is triggering shifts in business models and supply chains; waste is the new resource; customers are the sales channel of the future; and legislation is becoming ever more stringent. Yet few businesses venture to think about how their industry may look in five, 15, or 30 years’ time. Radical changes are bound to happen in our world, and its consumer and sourcing markets, over the course of the next few decades, and we will encounter serious challenges of running businesses if we continue as we have in the last few.
The value of scenario work Scenario work — the preparation for future industry realities — has proven to be among the most effective tools for sustained business development across all operations. The changes that affect the fashion industry, amongst others, are triggering radical market shifts. Want people to buy a product that lasts? Sell them an emotional connection. The Speed of Fashion - New York Times Piece. Naomi klein on fashion vs climate change. Doen Foundation - Grants for Entrepreneurs. MADE-BY. Making sustainable fashion common practice.
SFBC - Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium. Fair Wear Foundation. Business & Human Rights Conference. Nordic fashion to become the most sustainable in the world. Fashion Week is Getting Out of Hand. Christie Turlington to Fashion Industry. Sustainable Apparel Coalition - Home. Manufacture New York. Acumen Global Fellows are the Next Generation of Impact Leaders. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. Ethical Fashion Show Berlin. Rank A Brand - Compare Sustainability of Brands. About Us - The Farm Hub - Textile Exchange. Sustainable development goals 2015: all you need to know. Sustainable Value & Supply Chains Master's-Level Course.