Sustainability Pulse #27
Sustainability Trends & News Worth Exploring — March 6th, 2022
Worldwide fashion industry urged to show support for Ukraine
Some brands and designers have already issued statements and stopped Russian revenue streams.
Balenciaga has become the first Paris fashion week brand to make a solidarity with Ukraine. Ahead of a show scheduled for Sunday, the brand said it “would open our platforms in the next few days to report and relay the information around the situation in Ukraine”. It also donated to the World Food Programme.
Shein Has a Serious New Competitor
A new (fast fashion) brand from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is trying to use the Shein playbook to chip away at Boohoo and Fashion Nova.
AllyLikes is Alibaba’s new brand of trendy, China-made clothing sold direct to Western customers through a dedicated app.
Several other Chinese players in the fast and ultra-fast fashion segments are trying to emulate Shein.
An increasingly complex environment for cross-border trade between China and Europe and North America could restrain growth for new players.
She Sold Her Last Company For Millions And Now Is On A Mission To Create Sustainable Brands
Marci Zaroff has had a string of startup successes. She has raised, launched, grown, and sold various brands that enable us to live the change, eat the change, drink the change, be the change, and wear the change that we all wish to see in the world.
During her appearance on the Dealmakers Show, Marci shared the 5 P’s driving her long career in transforming industries to become healthier and more eco-friendly. We talked about developing supply chains, raising money, and picking your investors and acquirers wisely.
WHY YOU SHOULD INVEST IN A VINTAGE DESIGNER HANDBAG
Those who invest in a vintage designer handbag are actually making more money than people who put their money in gold. Truth!
Handbags are a little bit magic. When you find one you love, it becomes a part of you – you can’t leave the house without it, it shares great times and goes to great places with you, and people even associate you with it. So choosing the perfect handbag is an important task.
What does the IPCC report mean for the fashion industry?
Amid the constant news of record-breaking heatwaves, raging wildfires and unpredictable widespread floods in the past month alone, the evidence of climate change has seldom felt so crystal clear and undeniable. In the latest report published by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists warn that the human race has dithered for too long and done too little.
Sustainable fashion: the most important eco certifications and what they mean
Since industrialisation, human activity has indisputably altered the climate in such unprecedented ways that we now face the possibility of breaching the 1.5-degree limit as soon as the 2030s. The report calls upon world leaders, governments, and businesses to take more stringent actions fast and take them now.
So what can the brands do? First, they need to move away from marketing-influenced decisions and adopt a science-based approach to identify baseline, set 1.5-degree targets, measure and regularly monitor emissions. Secondly, they should create synergies between different stakeholders in the supply chain, whether incentivising supply chain partners to use renewables or investing in capability building and making a forward-looking impact. Third, fashion brands and retailers must also measure, mitigate, and communicate environmental impacts to reduce their climate impact tangibly. Lastly and most importantly, the industry needs to shift from a fast to slow fashion culture, linear to the circular business model and piecemeal to cohesive efforts.
Women Are Making Less and Spending More: How a Work Wardrobe Is Draining Our Wallets
According to a survey by CreditDonkey, women spend nearly 76% more than men do on clothing in a year. Why? As a woman who pours out a wild amount of money on clothes and shoes, I can tell you that on the one hand I just really like shopping. There’s a thrill in the hunt for bargain prices and hidden gems. It’s enormously satisfying to be asked, typically by another woman, “Where did you get that?!” just as it’s oh so fulfilling to don a dress that I haven’t yet worn on a sunny new day. But there are financial repercussions to keeping our wardrobes fully stocked.
The most ‘sustainable’ garment is the one that shows its wear, proudly
This article is part of Ask Umbra’s guide on How to Dress for the Planet.
To attempt to buy “sustainable” clothing in 2022 is to face a carnival’s worth of smoke and mirrors — that is, if you’re buying new. Any consumer seeking to verify the various promises of “recycled fabric,” “climate-positive cotton,” or “non-toxic dyes” will find themselves stymied because there’s perilous little in the way of enforceable standards for environmental responsibility in the fashion industry. And even if any of these claims are true, a significant quantity of research is required to determine if they matter.
Removing Textile Waste From Landfills
A not for profit is taking a unique approach to remove an issues that plagues landfills every year. Brandon Rowe finds out how fashion takes action is fighting to stop textile waste.
Kornit to unveil Fashtech Innovation Centre
LONDON – Print specialist Kornit Digital is to open what it says is the UK’s first ‘sustainable’ Fashtech Innovation Centre next month, which will be situated at the site of social enterprise Fashion-Enter.
Bananas to fish scales: fashion's hunt for eco-materials
Paris (AFP) – Sneakers made from banana or pineapple leaves, dresses from nettles or fish scales -- the search for sustainable materials has taken the fashion industry to some wild places.
Experts warn these new textiles are not a quick fix for fashion's enormous problems with over-consumption and waste, but may be a necessary step in developing cleaner technologies.
EU-Africa Business Forum wants action for sustainable garment sector
The Declaration calls for setting up an ‘EU-Africa Apparel and Ethical Fashion Fund’ for technology transfer and environmental, social and governance (ESG) support for capacity building and partnerships enhancement among value chain actors to advance compliance with ESG standards.
It calls for technology and knowledge transfer, and harnessing the potential of advanced technologies and digital solutions for traceability of sustainability performance and credentials, for small and vulnerable actors.
Sustainability Jobs Board
Reader: Sustainable and Inclusive Fashion and Textiles Design-London College of Fashion - John Prince's St, London UK
Sustainability Digital Marketing & Community Manager- Remote - US
Environmental Sustainability Intern- Mastercard- NYC
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