2023
Towards a Collective Approach
Rethinking Fashion's Doomed Climate Strategy
Global denim suppliers identify a worrying disconnect between the industry pursuit of science-based targets and feasibility, equity and financing.
To effectively combat climate change in the fashion industry, we urgently need a collective approach. We define collective action as shared ownership and shared responsibility. This means shifting responsibility for climate action from suppliers to one that’s shared across the apparel value chain. Climate action must be our problem.
But we can't discuss a collective approach to climate action without first understanding why responsibility for climate change, as we currently approach it, unfairly places the burden on suppliers...
A COLLECTIVE APPROACH TO CLIMATE ACTION:
SHIFT MINDSET FROM I TO WE:
We must shift from a singular focus on targets to finding ways to transform the broader financial, cultural, and social ecosystem that makes delivering climate action, and yes targets, possible.
CENTER EQUITY:
We must negotiate how equity (including factoring in margins and profits), historical emissions, and the common but differentiated approach laid out by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 (which calls on “developed” nations to take the lead on combating climate change) should factor into targets and roadmaps.
FUND COLLECTIVELY:
We must devise new funding models and come together to collectively fund decarbonization projects that offer no returns or very long payback periods.
"
We've seen plenty of companies who are not doing the investment, not because they don't have fast payback projects, but [because]... there are constraints that block them from accessing finance, which could [simply be] not having future visibility to orders.
