Vol 21: 4 key themes from the Copenhagen Fashion Summit
Rewiring, Regenerating, Redesigning, and more
This newsletter is about the fashion world needing to embrace the challenge of transforming into a more sustainable industry.
We were scheduled to go to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit in March. We’re still bummed as it would’ve been our first 😢.
But, we were incredibly happy to get to take part in this week’s two-day virtual event bringing together key stakeholders to a collaborative effort toward a more sustainable fashion industry. We know it’s not easy to keep up with over 8 hours of live broadcast, but rest assured, the CFS+ team has made a number of snippets on Youtube available to view.
And we’ll do our part. We did manage to catch a good amount of the virtual summit and highly recommend taking some time this weekend, and the next, and the next, to take in some of the talks. We’ve pulled four of the themes that most strongly resonated with us.
Happy Reading and Watching,
The Embrace Team
4 Key Themes on Fashion Sustainability from Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2020
Here are the key messages we took away with from CFS+ this year:
#1 The Fashion Pact, One Year In - WWD
A year ago, over 30 fashion and textile companies come together to form Fashion Pact and make a collective effort to transform the fashion industry. Fast forward one year, more than 60 leading global companies are committed to tackling the Pact's three key pillars: climate change, biodiversity and ocean conservation.
However, there is limitation to the Pact: companies can decide on voluntary basis whether and which sustainable practices to introduce. Only 30% signatories have mapped out their supply chains, which says a lot about the industry's transparency when it comes to complex supply networks involved at the production stage.
Still, it's worth noting how the pandemic accelerated the fashion industry's global players coming together and moving towards sustainability.
#2 Redesigning Value in the Fashion Industry
As normal lives have been put on pause during the past months, the health crisis made many of us reassess our values. And maybe it gave us our last chance to seriously rethink the unsustainable system in which we have settled so far.
Day 1's panel discussion on "Redesigning Value" started with some key data from Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute report on how income and carbon footprint emissions are interrelated, which set the tone for the rest of the session. As the report showed, the richest 10% of the world's population alone were responsible for more than half of carbon emissions generated in the period between 1990 and 2015.
The plenary speakers pointed out there is a need to recognize injustice in our economic system and business models that are leading not only to climate disruption but have social and environmental impacts. The economies need to reduce consumption, shift away from the GDP growth as a key indicator, and embrace the new economic thinking - the so-called wellbeing economy.
"We need to fully change our indicators within our economy. We need to work with people to make them understand the current ownership models that we have are not the right ones. Companies will have to take a hit, but if we properly cost the real cost of materials and labor, then we can really start to enhance people's lives and livelihoods." - Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of non-profit organization The Club of Rome
According to Sandrine Dixson-Declève, we're at the tipping point: the pandemic, climate change, and biodiversity loss exposed the flaws of the old systems. In this new world, if we don't de-risk the way we do business based on environmental and social externalities and build resilient economies, we won't last. She quoted the examples of Scotland, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland and Wales, which are already implementing wellbeing economy. These economies are embedding society and nature into their indicators.
How can this thinking be applied to the fashion industry?
The fashion companies need to reevaluate their business models, build long-term relations with suppliers, de-risk their value chains, and start viewing clothing as a service rather than just a product. In these new circular and regenerative business models, there will be a positive profit, but it will be much more distributed, more equitable, and is going to make companies much more resilient in a long term.
#3 Biodiversity and Regenerative Materials
Addressing biodiversity loss was another area of focus for the CFS+ summit. Biodiversity is affected by climate change and as it turns out, one of the largest apparel's contributions to climate change happens at the textile production stage, way before the final garment is made: more than 50% of the carbon footprint comes from fiber and yarn production and processing of raw materials.
Over the past few years, fiber suppliers, mills and fabric makers have been developing bio-based materials. The rise of regenerative agriculture is also changing the way how natural fibers are grown, bringing regenerative materials into the fashion industry.
#4 Rewiring Fashion
Remember the open letter to the fashion industry, led by Dries Van Noten? On Day 2 of CFS+ panel, fashion leaders with Imran Amed of BoF reexamined not only their experience during lockdown, but also lessons learned and what gives them hope for the fashion industry in 2021:
"If you wanna pause or take a hiatus or completely leave, [...] why not explore ideas that are meaningful to you and not meaningful to an industry?" - fashion designer Victor Glemaud
"Industry is beginning to feel like the "new cool" could be planted over profits that is not at the expense of creativity and imagination [...]. We're thinking first about the planet and then we're thinking about how to make money." - Shira Sue Carmi, CEO of Altuzarra
"Consumer and environment will be better off because we'll be making less product." - Julie Gilhart, CDO of Tomorrow
It looks like the fashion industry has finally started to embrace the desire for change and hopefully will succeed in bringing a positive impact not only to the planet but to the people. The future of fashion is about collaboration, equal partnerships and transparency.
Around the news
BCG X CFDA Report Reveals New York Fashion Week’s Environmental Impact - "Sustainability by Design: Rethinking New York Fashion Week" report showed transportation & logistics, event production and PR activities as major contributors to the NYFW's carbon emissions. While some brands have already started to offset their carbon footprint, CFDA urges to rethink the fashion week format and devise new ways to reduce carbon pollution.
H&M will turn your ratty old T-shirt into a brand new sweater - previously called out for its misleading take-back program, Swedish retailer brings recycling technology into the store: Stockholm customers can eye their old cotton clothing be rewoven into new garments in under 5 hours.
Leather industry calls for Higg Index suspension - key concerns include the use of inaccurate data, narrow geographical focus, misconceptions about the raw materials tanners use, and reluctance to take into account the durability and longevity of leather in assessing its environmental impact.
New Higg tool promises transparency on sustainability - expected to launch in 2021, Higg Co's Open Data Portal developed in partnership with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition will provide access for both consumers and stakeholders to the actual data behind social and environmental sustainability claims.
Only 20 Percent of Consumers Trust Brand Sustainability Claims - UK consumers are growing increasingly aware of greenwashing, according to a new report. The so-called "crisis in consumer trust" will require more evidence from brands to back up their sustainability claims.
IRREVERSIBILITY - refers to a point when the recovery of a disturbed system to its original state takes significantly longer than the time it took for it to get into its disturbed state.