Sustainability Pulse #25
Sustainability Trends & News Worth Exploring — February 13th, 2022
New platform for textile-to-textile recycling
TALLINN - A new online platform - which bills itself as the "Uber" of post-consumer textile waste recycling - has been launched to accelerate the fashion industry's transition towards circularity.
Reverse Resources aims to facilitate textile-to-textile recycling by bringing together collectors, sorters and pre-processors on one platform, which will also house recycling locations and services.
It was created in a collaboration involving Accelerating Circularity, Fashion for Good, Global Fashion Agenda's Circular Fashion Partnership, Smart Recycling and UK waste recycling charity WRAP.
This is how to dress sustainably in 2022
By now, it's no secret that fashion is one of the most polluting industries in the world. As of 2022, it's responsible for 10 per cent of global carbon emissions, while an eye-watering 300,000 tonnes of unwanted items of clothing are binned each year.
So far, much-needed change has been happening at a pretty glacial pace across the fashion industry, although the tide is slowly starting to turn. Consumers are taking a more holistic, eco-conscious approach to shopping, and governments are closing in on big brands: in July, France passed a law that requires fashion companies to attach carbon labels to garments to inform shoppers about the environmental impact of their wares.
In the US, the Garment Worker Protection Act helps ensure that factory workers are paid minimum wage and can work in safe conditions, while New York City's historic Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act, if passed, will attempt to hold said brands to account for their contribution to the climate crisis.
On an individual level, though, the solution lies in how we approach shopping, and by definition, dressing. There are plenty of ways to do that sustainably in 2022 – even if renting clothes isn't your bag. Below, we've come up with a handy round-up of our favourite sustainable brands to splash your cash on. Outfit repeating has never looked so good.
Click of A-Z of sustainable fashion
How Luxury Brands Are Manufacturing Scarcity in the Digital Economy
Can digital be luxury?
Traditional luxury goods companies have treated digital as a channel. But they're now starting to treat it as a marketplace in its own right, thanks mainly to Blockchain technology, which has delivered the Non-Fungible Token. Today, the key ingredients of luxury – rarity, exclusivity, and cost — can also apply to virtual products, as companies like Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci have realized.
Copenhagen Fashion Week leans on sustainability and TikTokers for revival
Copenhagen is establishing itself as the centre of Nordic fashion. As international guests slowly return to fashion week and the CIFF trade fair, brands and fashion councils hope for a strong AW22.
Copenhagen Fashion Week opened the same day as "freedom day" in Denmark, when the Danish government lifted all Covid restrictions. Backed with a return to physical shows, its continued sustainability focus and local TikTokers front-row, the revival was on.
Why Fashion Still Hasn't Cracked Rental
The recent shuttering of rental start-up Seasons highlights how logistics costs and uncertain cash flow have dimmed the prospects of a once-hot retail concept.
Seasons'KEY INSIGHTS Menswear rental companies Seasons and The Rotation both shuttered recently. Most established players like Rent the Runway struggle to reach profitability as logistics costs remain high. Newer concepts, including peer-to-peer rental marketplaces and services focused on accessories, look to address the rental model's issues.
The plant-based craze is coming for fashion
Next-generation materials, or "livestock-free" replacements for conventional animal-based materials produced in nature-friendly ways, are gaining pace.
A major shift in fashion production is underway, with a swell in the number of fashion brands experimenting with so-called next-generation materials like vegan leather.
From Gucci to Salvatore Ferragamo, fashion brands are exploring "livestock-free" replacements for conventional animal-based materials that are also made in nature-friendly ways, in a bid to transform their production models, according to a new report from the Material Innovation Initiative (MII) out today.
Are you a sustainable fashion brand in need of support or exposure?
Join the Global Fashion Marketplace pitch room
Wear it Wise Sustainable Fashion Initiative
*New Program Alert* Back by popular demand, the Wear It Wise Sustainable Fashion Initiative is back this spring!
Apply to receive $300 in campaign funds to engage and educate your community about how they can change their closet to change the world. Applications are due by March 1st. #WearItWise
Please share with your network!
Part 2 | How to talk about sustainability: a guide for brand communications
How can brands create communications that not only avoid greenwashing, but help to improve sustainability practices? The first of our two-part series looked at what greenwashing and environmental claims actually are, referencing a recent publication from the UK's Competition and Market Authority (CMA) – their Guidance on Environmental Claims on Goods and Services.
Six guiding principles are a series of critical questions for you to use when developing brand communications such as press releases, strategies or reports, public events, product or service launches, campaigns, manifestos or statements of intent, social media content, etc.
New postgraduate degree in a sustainable fashion to equip Kingston School of Art students with creative and ethical problem-solving skills
A new course launched by Kingston School of Art has been designed to increase action around sustainable fashion while addressing ethical issues with solution-led outcomes.
Sustainability has long been a foundational element studied by emerging designers at Kingston School of Art's fashion department. Many tutors and students are passionate about combatting both waste and inequality within the industry. The new masters degree acknowledges the importance of addressing these issues while producing graduates who will provide solutions.
Helmed by sustainable fashion champion, author and media commentator Dr Sass Brown, the programme sets out to affect systemic change in the fashion industry by offering alternatives to the mainstream system.
Students are invited to choose their area of focus with either practice, business or a system-design outcome. This creative freedom opens opportunities for exploration and various ways to showcase outputs. From websites and apps, services, exhibitions, installations, and product development – the course intends to investigate the business of design as a problem-solving tool, not a means to produce more stuff.
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