Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2017 commits to recycling

Copenhagen Fashion Summit, the fifth edition of the leading event on fashion sustainability, held on May 11, 2017, saw key players of the fashion industry signing call to action by Global Fashion Agenda. The companies are set to create a unified effort among fashion brands and retailers to increase recycling of garments for a circular business model.

A significant outcome of Copenhagen Fashion Summit was the launch of the Call to Action for a Circular Fashion System, presented on stage by Global Fashion Agenda, the Summit organiser.

Eva Kruse, CEO of Global Fashion Agenda said, “I’m very pleased that some of the world’s leading and biggest companies signed our Call to Action for a Circular Fashion System. I take this as a clear sign that the industry is not only aware of the need to change and the need to strive towards a closed loop system, but also ready to act.”

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Signatories of the Call to Action commit to defining a circular strategy, to setting targets for 2020 and to reporting on the progress of implementing the commitment. Various global leaders like Inditex, H&M, Adidas, Kering, M&S, and Bestseller pledged their support.

Proclaiming that “being less bad is not being good”, sustainability leader and co-founder of the Cradle-to-Cradle movement, William McDonough, kicked off the Summit’s nine-hour programme, which boasted more than 50 high-level speakers, including Tiffany & Co. CEO Michael Kowalski, The New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, circular economy authority Dame Ellen MacArthur, founder of Eco Age Ltd. Livia Firth, fashion designer Prabal Gurung, and Hugo Boss CEO Mark Langer.

In the two days prior to Copenhagen Fashion Summit, students from around the world worked to draft a UN resolution, the first ever on fashion. They hit the stage at the summit to present the draft, which will be presented to the UN in New York later this year.

Ahead of the Summit, Global Fashion Agenda, in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, published a ground-breaking in-depth assessment of the fashion industry’s environmental and social performance - the first edition of the Pulse of the Fashion Industry report. The 139 page report shows that the industry’s sustainability pulse is weak, scoring only 32 out of 100 points, and that especially small and medium-sized firms, which represent about half of the market, have done little to improve their impact. The report is the first of its kind to ever use data from the HIGG Index, the world’s leading standard in measuring sustainability performance.