 Hello everyone and welcome to this session Meet the Pioneers of Sustainable Fashion part of the Sustainable Development Impacts Summit 2021 hosted with the World Economic Forum. My name is Holly Sirott and I'm an alumni of the World Economic Forum Global Shaper Community and the Senior Sustainability Manager at Global Fashion Agenda, a non-profit aimed to mobilise bold action on sustainability in the fashion industry. I'm delighted to be the moderator today and honoured to be soon introducing two sustainable fashion pioneers to talk about what's next and what's now in sustainable fashion and most importantly what actions are needed from both industry actors, industry enablers and citizens alike. We have a little under 30 minutes and we'll start by hearing from our two sustainable fashion pioneers hearing their initiatives and projects both on the human and the environmental aspects of the fashion industry then together we'll be zooming out to look at the broader industry what's needed at a global level, how to reinvent business models and then zoom in to understand what individual actions are needed for both companies and people and people part of the fashion industry alike and basically since we're all wearing clothes we all have actions to take. We invite you to interact with us we have a Slido poll that I'll be introducing later and for everyone dialing in on top link please feel free to interact with us and ask questions using the chat function or virtually raise your hand. So to get us started the premise of today's meeting now more than ever we see that compute consumers are increasingly and I prefer the word citizens to be honest but increasingly caring about the environmental and social consequences of their fashion spending and so to a growing group of investors who are becoming aware of the risks of not investing in sustainable businesses and of course the consequences of crises like the climate. Furthermore we see increasing policies on the horizon that will be streamlining more over sustainability communications over production, reconfiguring textile waste streams and requiring due diligence throughout the supply chains. Besides this growing awareness and these developments were also in an increased state of urgency. I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone on the call how the IPC has warned us against the unprecedented and irreversible chains of climate change but what many people may not be aware is the fashion industry's actual impact. It's a substantial contribution to climate change being responsible for four percent of emissions globally and only last year there was a publication by McKinsey and Global Fashion Agenda on fashion's impact on climate which had a shocking figure namely that the fashion industry was off track to meet the Paris climate agreement by 50 percent. Those trajectories can be reversed but to understand we're off track by 50 percent now action is urgent. Not only that the UN estimate there's approximately 70 million workers in the fashion industry and many of which are being fabled by an industry that has been profitable for so long with unsafe work environments, undignified work, salaries lower than the cost of living, something has to change. So that's what we'll be talking about with our two fashion pioneers today and as I said I'm truly honored to be introducing Safia Mini, MBE founder and founder of People Tree and also Real Sustainability Advisor who's a Schwab Foundation social innovator and Javier Goyaneche who's the founder and president of EcoAlph from Spain and also a Schwab Foundation social innovator. Thank you both I'm absolutely delighted to have you today in a whirlwind session I'm sure we could spend much more time together. Safia I'd like to start with you. You founded People Tree in 1991 truly a pioneer in sustainable and fair trade fashion. You're known for sustainable materials if I'm not mistaken with the first certified World Fair Trade Organization fashion brand. I've done remarkable collections with the likes of the Victorian Albert Museum and BBC Earth Collection. Besides that you're also published author and in your last book touched upon modern slavery and how with the topic slave to fashion can you start us off with explaining how the fashion industry has involved since you launch People Tree and how the brand is involved with it? Thank you Holly, thank you for the question. Well I think there have been positives and that we have now we have enough answers to know that we can produce fashion sustainably. The industry if you like has an ecosystem where you know unlike where we were 30 years ago when I started in Japan developing the first organic cotton supply chains and certifications. We do have now an infrastructure we do need to innovate much more strongly. I think the the sadness is that in 30 years we haven't reversed the trend at all. We've increased production and consumption of fashion by 60% just by the year 2000. So we need to reverse that trend so it will be a question of the kinds of innovations that we're going to be discussing today but it also is about looking at the elephant in the room which is looking at degrowth. So you have seen in one way positive trends of this ecosystem of all the more materials being available but actually no no shift in the the biggest issues that are that the fashion industry is played by and can you share with us why you shift to your latest initiative that I believe touched on both the climate ecological aspects of the fashion industry? Yes well I think many business leaders have been re-inspired, reinvigorated by extinction rebellion in the school strikes in 2019. We set up business declares and we've put together a network of people sharing best practice to decarbonise to really take into consideration social justice as we look at a just transition in business. I've been working on a new book called regenerative fashion which is looking at all of these multiple pathways to creating a future that works within planetary boundaries but creates if you like within the context of donor economics that that sweet spot where we do fulfil the needs for livelihoods and to put food on the table for those millions of people that are involved both in the fashion industry and who are impacted by the pollution at the moment of the fashion industry. We're also putting together something called fashion declares which is a network of people within the fashion industry who are looking at sharing best practice, putting pressure within their companies to hold their management teams accountable for that decarbonisation and for that just transition within their businesses. So that's going to be launching in January. It's similar to many other professional networks like architects declares or doctors or music declares and will be launching in January as I say next year. So yeah I hope people will go on to the fashion declares website and sign up to the mailing list but I think we know that we need to work together. We don't have time, we cannot afford the trajectory of fashion increasing to maybe as much as 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and that's the trajectory that we're on and we just have to take out if you like this prop of the fossil fuel industry which is creating the synthetics which are responsible now for the microfiber shedding which is creating the most incredible pollution for both aquatic life and human health at the same time as generating through the agriculture and sorry the pesticides and insecticides the most colossal damage to both in the context of climate change and phosphate and nitrogen loading. So I think there's this urgency to really shift fossil fuels are responsible for 89% of greenhouse gas emissions. You know how do we take out fossil fuels from the fashion industry? How do we move to regenerative agriculture? How do we move to putting small scale farmers and even artisans and craft manufacturers central to create social impacts and social justice. So that's very much the area that I'm looking at now having built and worked with the people tree model which I can see has very great advantages we need to really scale that way of thinking throughout the industry. Thank you. There we go sorry I was muted but hey thank you so much Safia and you really set us up wonderfully to bring in Javier to hear more about how you set up ego out with this mission to use and cherish resources in the fashion industry instead of creating virgin ones. Would you help us understand how you approach that and how I believe you're not only a fashion brand but really a material development organization. Well to be honest we are a fashion brand. The thing is that when we launched the company in 2009 and we decided to try to create a sustainable fashion company we believe the most sustainable thing to do is to stop using natural resources in a careless way so recycling could be a solution and we were to make a new generation of recycled products with the same quality and design as the best known to recycle. The problem is that when I went to the market in 2009 there were no cool recycled fabrics. The fabrics that existed were recycling a very small percentage and they were not very fashionable. The textures were not very good. So we had to start developing fabric. We have developed over 540 different recycled fabrics from different types of waste and it's it's part of the DNA of the company to develop materials develop filaments develop to work with companies around the world to make improvements. I think right now I think I said it very well. I think fashion cannot just be about looking good anymore. It also has to do about doing what is right and feeling good about it. I think what you do is not enough. I think how you do it is more and more important. Anybody can make a t-shirt. Anybody can make a shirt. But what does what footprint does that t-shirt live in the world or what that shirt know. And I think here it's it's many. I think we have many issues. I think of course we have the circularity issue which is for me one of the biggest challenges and that starts by designing. So at the beginning designing teams need to understand they need to design to be able to put that shirt again into the system in time. I mean they call us a lot at a golf to give talks around circular economy and I would say the same thing. We're not circular economy until we're unable to transform all the garments we make and again into filament and again into fabric and again into another jacket. We won't be circular economy. I think micro plastics as Sofia says also not a big challenge but also we I think we have also a huge challenge with with education. I think we need to start changing the way we consume. I think that's one of the biggest issues. Now when we go to universities now and we give talks to young people and they they are very much into sustainability and they want to be really sustainable but at the end of the day they want keep on wanting to to buy 20 t-shirts of five euros per year. So that's not possible anymore. You have to decide and they always say what do we do and so we buy less. You don't need 20 t-shirts. You have to start buying less and buying with more sense of responsibility. So I think because there's not going to be enough natural resources. I mean 150,000 more people in the world every day. We're going to be two more billion people by 2050. There's not going to be enough forest to keep on burning to plant cotton. There's not going to be enough water. There's not going to be enough landfills. There's not going to be enough natural resources. So we have to change the way we consume. So I think we have a lot of challenges between companies, between consumers or citizens and of course people who legislate who also have to start taking action. Exactly. So we're talking about all of the different actors in this circular fashion value cycle but need to come to action. I'd really like to talk more about what this industry can look like and hear your definitions of what the future industry must become. Before that, Javier, I'd love to hear more about your project to capture ocean plastic upcycling into materials. So I know that's something you've founded in a small way with just I believe a few fishermen but this is really scaled across the industry. I think it would be really interesting for our audience to hear more about that initiative. Thank you. We have been recycling discarded fishing nets of Nile and Six for many years and one day, I think it was end of 2014, I was in a port and one fisherman said, Javier should come out and fish with me and see how much waste gets in the nets every time we pull up the nets. So I went out fishing with him and it's true. Unfortunately, every time they pull up the nets mixed with the fish, there was a lot of waste. So we decided to start the project. We convinced three fishermen from the east coast of Spain of a little port in Alicante to let us put a little container boats and all the waste that gets collected in the ocean, put it in the container and take it to the port instead of throwing it back to the ocean. What started with three fishermen now, it's over 3,400 fishermen in Spain. And I spent like every Thursday for a year going to a different port waiting for the fishermen to come from fishing, embedding them to a beer and convincing them to start taking the waste with us. Then we were contacted by the government of Thailand to help them replicate this in Thailand. So we've been there going for three years, helping them replicate this in Kotao, Samui, Radyan and Phuket. And now we have a quite ambitious goal, which is try to replicate this in all the Mediterranean and work with over 10,000 fishermen by 2025. So we've signed the first 16 ports in Greece. We're signed, we've already signed one in Italy, about to sign five more, four in France by the end of the year. And the idea is to see if we can do a beautiful project with people from fishermen from France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Egypt, North of Africa in an amazing cleaner project, which we're not going to clean the Mediterranean because unfortunately we're taking right now around 200 and something tons per year out of the ocean. If we manage to do this, it will be probably near 1000 tons. But there's a track of 16 tons of waste getting into the ocean every minute. So this is more about creating awareness than really putting a final solution to the problem. And it's an appalling statistic that you shared, what goes into the ocean. But also inspiring to hear how you can get two flies with one stone, basically, by both being able to clean up to a certain degree and reuse those materials. And I think, wasn't it you that said, waste isn't waste until you waste it and see how can we both redesign the model so we're taking waste streams or stopping waste from going out of the industry and see how we can recapture it. To be honest, that sentence is not mine. That phrase is from Will I Am, the singer of the Black Eyed Peas. Okay. Well, we'll credit him accordingly. Thank you, Will I Am. Sophia, you talked about your initiative to bring together different players in the fashion industry and collaborate. Can you both share with us how you feel about pre-competitive collaboration? How can we bring together different brands, manufacturers, maybe other innovators to collaborate? And how do you see this future industry coming together? How do we decouple the disparity of the industry from the growth? And what are your thoughts on that? Well, I think there already are some fashion initiatives. You know, we have the global pack, we have the global fashion agenda. I think what's lacking is if you like the energy and the communication from everybody within the fashion industry, because we know that it isn't enough just to have some progressive corporations and small innovative brands like Javier and my own, that we need every business to change. And we need regulation and policy and standards to be put in place so it chokes off the laggards, so it chokes off those that are putting profit before the environment and people and the prospects of future generations. We just need to share best practice and to be open with it, to really treat it like an emergency. So there is, I think, and I'm hearing from, whether it's leaders within apparel in supermarkets or in luxury fashion, whether it's in the so global south or it's in high-income nations, I'm hearing a really, really strong set of voices that won't change. They want to work together. They want to know what workers need. They want to know how to reduce the water footprint or how to procure low-impact and preferred materials. But they also kind of need the tools to be able to go into their business and say, you know, there's a climate emergency. How do I get management to act like it's an emergency? Where is the climate plan? What are we doing against the climate plan? And so it was having some of those practical tools also to empower people to take those discussions within their company and to drive that agenda within their companies. Now, if you have, if there are people dialing in today, you think that's exactly the issue that I'm facing with. Where should they start? What tools can they find? Well, the first thing to do is to go on to fashion declares, as I said, the platforms launching in January sign up to our mailing list. When we launch, the tools will be there. You'll be able to get involved with it straight away. You can also go on to real sustainability, which is a resource for sustainable living and leadership, and certainly by following me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Okay, brilliant. Thank you. And Javier, how do you collaborate with your peers or throughout the sector? Do you have close collaborations with your manufacturers, for instance, to work on these different types of approaches? Well, absolutely. I mean, right now I'm in Portugal because I came yesterday to work with partners, which were making filament, were making fabrics, manufacturers. I think today you need to be very, very, very close to all the supply chain because especially if you want to have total trustability, in our case, from the waste to the final garment. So we need to work with all these supplies. And I think we need to work together because we need to go fast. So I think the way to go fast is to work all together, to share know-how, to share experience, and then we're going to move really fast. And you can see it now that over the last two years, I think there's people trying to move faster and faster in the good direction. And I think collaboration is key. In any case, I would say the same thing, that at the end of the day, the big change is going to come when the big players decide to take this really seriously. I think this is not about doing a capsule collection, which might be sustainable. And then the other 95% no. I think it's the big players who have the resources, who have the volume, who have the teams, who have the capacity to make this change as fast as we need. I think that's really interesting because one aspect we're talking about, how can we reduce the scale of the fashion industry? To Safi's point, there's more innovations, there's more awareness, but we're still scaling. And that scale can't work within planetary boundaries and has to be turned around. At the same time, you're saying we need to scale innovation. So it's how do we make the industry smaller, but at the same way increase innovation that's available? What needs to be scaled? I think the problem is, I mean, it's the economy's stupid, isn't it? I mean, it is just a totally dysfunctional economy. It has been for the last decades and decades. And now we're finally calling it, aren't we? We're saying that we need systems change. But we can't, we have to work with this imperfect market economy because we need the speed. So a carbon tax, if we simply look at a carbon tax on oil, it's $75, that would change the two thirds of synthetic fibres that come into this industry. Those that are, we cannot be burning virgin oils. We cannot be using virgin polyester. This is what's driving the greenhouse gas emissions. This is what is driving the micro shedding and polluting our waterways. That tax would make such a difference. Also, if one looks at, for example, cotton, conventional cotton grain, not organic cotton growing, conventional cotton growing, that is oil based synthetic insecticides and fertilizers. We've got regenerative agriculture beginning to be played with by food companies and by some textile companies. So that transition would make the difference. We have to reduce production and consumption of fashion by between 75% and 95%. We're not talking about, let's just snip a bit off, the 5% here or 10%. We're talking about a radical reduction. But we can do that in a way that supports farmers, in a way that supports makers, artists, and we can do that and provide work. We do that at people tree in many respects when we have a hand woven product. The percentage of labor in the FOB price can be as high as 30%, not 3% or 4%. So we can find livelihoods in the global south and more locally because we are going to be localizing fashion also by these fantastic initiatives like Javier's piloted and mainstreaming. So we can also, with Fibershed projects, we can also look at locally produced fibres and materials and with that employment. So I do think this contraction of the fashion industry is first seen as a negative, but actually it's an enormous positive. We just need to get out of that old fashioned growth mentality that has caused the problem. Yeah. And so Javier, do you have anything to add in our last minute there? Well, I absolutely agree with everything Sofia is saying. I think we need to change many things and the business model of fashion is one of them, which has to be redefined. I think we have now the, well, I don't know if it's now, but definitely now we have the opportunity and the responsibility to redefine a business model, which is not working, because you cannot have a business model, which is about buying, throwing, buying, throwing, and you trend every Thursday, discount, promotion, Black Friday. That's creating a huge amount of millions of garments going to landfill, which nobody uses. Each of those garments uses a lot of natural resources and water and chemicals and emissions and that's what's not working. It doesn't matter if you make those garments with a sustainable fabric. It's the waste you're creating, which doesn't work. So some people think just because you use a sustainable fabric is sustainable. Well, no. I think it's many more decisions you need to make. I mean, you cannot support of a production. You cannot support continuous promotions and discounts and Black Fridays and all these kinds of things. I think we have to go back and really find too many things. And it's actually lovely to start treasuring one's clothes. It's wonderful, isn't it? And if we start to understand that even a single t-shirt costs 2,700 litres of water, two and a half years of drinking water for a person on the planet, when we are under water stress, it's that piece of education that we really need to start to promote, I think. Thank you. By the way, when you go to school, children understand those things very easily. It's fantastic how they understand them. And we always say at a club, we spend a lot of time worrying about what planet are we going to live to our kids and we should be much more worried with what kind of kids are we going to live to the planet. And it's all about education. I think it makes a big change.