Summary of a fashion summit
2019-05-19Cph fashion Summit is the worlds largest and most prominent meeting for the industry leaders within fashion, regarding sustainability. OPO Scandinavia was there to hear about how the fashion industry thinks about sustainability. The key words were circular, cooperation and action, something we would like to bring to the Eyewear business. Here you can read our notes from the summit of 2019 that was held in Copenhagen on the 14-15 of May. The notes are just notes, in chronological order and without personal views.
Link to Copenhagen Fashion Summit 19
INNOVATIONG THE FASHION INDUSTRY
Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman & CEO, Kering
Sustainability is shifting from a secondary to a primary motivation for consumption.
Fashion shopping is not rational. It’s emotional. That can be a reason why the consumer has a problem in consuming more sustainable.
Therefor new technology might be our best solution in supplying the consumers with desirable fashion.
The luxury industry has a special responribility for a sustainable development in fashion. Because they can, and because their designers are role models. They should lead by example and be transparent.
Our products give our customers a way to express their personalities. Therefor they can not also be part of destroying the planet.
Sustainability can open business opportunities.
What gets measured gets done
By 2025, Kering has an ambition to cut environmental impact with 40%
Kering has already decided not to use models below 18
Mr Pinault thinks that we should set targets without having the solution
Commit even if we don’t reach the target. Invest in innovation and open source solution
Kering has created an award for sustainable solution in China and they have a material innovation lab in Milan where designers work with suppliers to find sustainable solutions.
Apply the theory of change. Use collective intelligence.
It’s about the execution. We know what has to be done.
We need key leaders from the fashion industry that are bold. We might not succeed. We have to join forces. The financial institutions can become the game changer.
90% occurs outside our own space. We need to work across borders and companies.
Read more here: https://www.vogue.com/article/francois-henri-pinault-kering-sustainability-vision
COURAGEOUS FASHION - THE NEED FOR RADICAL CHANGE
Paul Polman, international chamber of commerce
The price to implement the 17 UN goals costs 3-5 billion euro every ear. It sounds like a lot. But is not in the bigger perspective.
10% of the global bnp goes to conflict prevention every year.
What we lack is human will power. We know how to grow food. We do it so well that we can waste 30% of it.
We need more leaders that know to put others interests before their own.
We know what to do, we just have to do it.
Courage, cour, heart.
The audience at CPH fahion summit belong to the 2% of the population on earth.
If you seek enlightenment, for yourself, you mispurpose. Seek it for others.
Brune Poirson
French secretary of state to minister for the ecological and inclusive transition
We need to focus on action instead of policy making. We need to show result.
Rebuild trust through transparency
Companies that are csr driven, have a higher growth
Mrs Poirson encourages everyone to join the fashion pact and to take responsibility for your waste. A circular system.
Eva Kruse, the founder and CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Summit
THE PULSE - A REPORT COVERING THE FASHION INDUSTRY, CREATED BY CPH FASHION AGENDA AND BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP
The pulse score is a way to measure the industry from a sustainable POV
The fashion industry is still growing and the amount of sustainable players has gone down. The pace has gone down.
The lager companies are still performing the best.
So, the bigger the company, the better. Smaller companies can´t or won´t invest in sustainable solutions.
It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep up the pace.
One segment in the industry has not moved at all and that is small scale production of garments that covers 20% of the market.
The industries that are doing good need to take leadership. Awareness is rising among consumers.
75% of the consumers cares about sustainability.
7% has sustainability as their primary consumption criteria.
Sustainability works very well in social media
TAKING THE PULSE OF THE FASHION INDUSTRY
Michael Preysman from Everlane
Sneakers is a dirty market.
Many different components.
“Virgin plastic” is new plastic as opposed to recycled plastic.
How to cut the carbon footprint and how to measure the carbon footprint
THE POWER OF CREATIVES
Charlotte Eskildsen, Designers remix
Sacrifices are needed. And investments. Invest in sustainable quality
Pandora, Stephen Fairchild, chief creative and brand officer
Add meaningfulness into the products
The new generations crave transparency
80%of the silver Pandora used in 2018 was recycled
Transparency in the supply chain
Ræburn, Christopher Ræburn, creative director
Ræburn works in a sustainable way. It’s a street brand with a brand lab where they hold workshops and open the door to their customers in order to be transparent an to design their apparel as a two way process with the customer.
Dialogue with students that upcykle used products that customers bring back.
To make sustainability cool: co create with the consumer.
THE HIDDEN SUPPLY CHAIN
Julia Ormond, Acress and founder of Asset
The work happening outside the factory walls.
In India, 18% of the work is child labour. This is made possible through “Home based working communities”. Factories/subcontactor/home based factories
As a consumer, Did you ask where it was made and how it was made? Allow people to open up and confess. How much of your profit goes to sustainability or csr
FROM FARM TO FASHION, ANIMALS IN FASHION SUPPLY CHAIN
La Rea pepper, managing director Textile exchange, Dr Helen Crowley, Head of sustainable sourcing innovation Keirng. Philip Lymbery, CE, Compassion in world farming.
The farm, outside our supply chain is 70% of the business.
Farming of crops and our way of living risks the lifes Bees, increases resistance against antibiotic, and increases the likelihood that our fish stock soon can be exhausted.
According to the UN, we have approximately 60 harvests left
How farming can deliver a positive experience by doing it right.
A future proof system needs a reduction of 50% of farm animals.
Change only happens when you are discomfort
Choose to use less diary products, meat etc
Not what the socs say about you, but what you can say about your socs.
Sustainability is about the next generation.
THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE
Dr Martin Frick, Senior director for policy and programme coordination, UN climate change.
Last week they measured temperatures of 29 degrees at the Barents.
The ices are melting and this caoses release of metan gas from the sediments of the bottom of the oceans, which in turn speeds up the greenhouse effect even more.
We have 5-12 years to make sure that the temperatures don’t go over 1,5 degrees
We need to keep our planet.
We have also found plastic in the Marianer grave 11 km below the see.
Fashion, has a 3 time higher carbon emission then air travelling.
Radical cooperation is needed.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY, A NEW WAY OF GROWTH
Robert van der Kerkhof, CCO, Lenzig AG, Roberto Canevari, Chief supplu chain officer Burberry, Emmanuelle Marie, European Commission, director general for the environment, head unit sustainable production, products and consumption.
Lenzing creates fabrics of watse. Its still a niech, and it´s still a manual process.
Lenzing needs waste as raw material. Waste is today a national issue, and not seen as raw material. Recycled material is still more expensive and the brands don´t want to pay the extra costs.
Roberto Canevari, Burberry
Innovation is what will provide the solution to sustainability.
Burberry holds a yearly innovation hackaton event. It gives them an idea for furure, sustainable solutions. For example, the trench-coat of the future, challenge students.
A holistic approach.
EU
TH European Union is trying to find a circular economy
The want to connect: waste/consumption/production
People, planet, prosperity are priorities. The change needs to accelerate in oder to scale up the positive sides of future fashion. If not, future fashion will remain a niche.
Recycled clothes are only used personal, it has to become an industry of itself.
HOW TO DISRUPT AN INDUSTRY
Michael Barton, VP and GM, Global commercial. Avery Denisson RBIS, Cyrill Gutsch, Founder, Parley of the oceans, Ian Pattison, Head of customer engineering, Google Cloud UK
The Fashion industry will miss the material revolution. We have ten years left to change.
Fashion can only survive in the future if they change now.
Google cloud
Colab with Stella mc cartney
Gaps in data regarding sustainability
How can machine learning be used to spot patterns?
Give organisations fast insights
Looking at raw materials
Deforsest, data can be processed fast,
Make data available through google cloud technology.
Fashion business tagging the product with information on where it comes from and what you can do with it afterwards
Parley has produced 5-12 Million sneakers from plastic in the ocean together with Adidas.
Transparency in the product, the supply chain should be possible to tracking through product information. Opt in technology at consumer level
10 YEARS OF SUSTAINABILITY IN FASHION
Use the word responsible instead of sustainable
Can we have a common language
What does transparency mean?
Can all brands take responsibility for their products after they have been used?
Tal group, 25.000 people. China
Sustainability has not payed off
We want to be more profitable
But we have invested a lot in sustainable solutions but the brands/customers don’t care.
Big brands CEO has to commit and work together. Invite them to the summit and make them commit on stage.
Information is needed, data regarding sustainability to the leaders/ceo.
Marks and spencer
Take the customer with you on the journey
If we don’t deal with our own industry we will be taxed for it.
The higg index is hard to communicate to the consumer. Employees have to demand from their employers to be bold.
WHAT´S ON THE CEO AGENDA? TRANSFORAMTIONAL PRIORITIES
H&M Anna Gedda
We need new business models
Circularity has to do with a change of mindset.
From minimum wages to minimum living wages. Next step is to work across the industry to get more fair wages.
How can small business work with bigger companies?
H&M being approached by many entrepreneurs within sustainability, but all ideas has to be scalable.
Nike
We are an innovation company
We create shoes from recycled polyester
Can we create new products from waste?
We need to set concrete goals
It’s not about the what, it’s about the how. Don’t try to do sustainable products, live sustainable through out.
If we don’t have a planet to play sports on, we don’t have a business.
Sustainability can not become competitive
LEADING THE FOURTH REVOLUTION
Levi’s Michael Kobori, ISKO CEO, Fatih Konukoğlu, Dan Rees, Director Better Work, internatinoal labour organization.
Levis is now using laser instead of a lot of washing in order to get the right look of the fabrid and the jeans. Lazer also brings the clothes faster to market.
Technology is changing a lot of the benefits for the consumer.
The fourth revolution should benefit the workers, not just the industry. Levi’s thinks that they as a brand are responsible for their own future.
ISKO
Automate production is what ISKO is doing now, and see as the future.
They have their own university and their own union for their workers.
ISKO has very visionary managers. They think that automation also benefits the people working for them. If they can plan the future, they can also make the workers situation better.
Dan Rees
40% of the people within the fashion industry are young women, immigrants etc. The poorest on the planet.
MAKING SUSTAINABILITY CENTER STAGE
PVH group, Emanuel Chirico, Chair and CEO, Wolfgang Blau, President, Conde Nast International
2006 sustainability was not an issue according to mr Chirico, CEO of PVH Group that owns Calvin Kline, Tommy Hilfiger, Speedo etc.
Their employees addressed the issue and the board/ceo had to act.
They found quickly that their supply chain was their biggest obstacle.
Until 2025 their best selling products will be circular.
Men’s dress shirts, Jeans and men’s underwear (Calvin Klines).
The leadership style has changed the past years and the pyramid is upside down. The workers closest to the consumers have the best answers to many of the issues.
Where is policy in this?
Mr Chirco has very low expectations in governments and regulations.
It will be a challenge to communicate both the core values of the brand and the sustainability values. Mr Chirco was “intellectually honest” about the fact that they don’t move fast enough in regards to the environment.
The consumers priorities are fashionability and price, not sustainability.
He is also asking, who should pay the price for sustainable clothes?