How have you seen sustainability practices evolve in the fashion industry?
I have been working on sustainability issues with brands and, in particular, with the textile supply chain for ten years now, and everything has changed completely during this time. For instance, ten years ago, sustainability was:
- a voluntary initiative of just a few brands or manufacturers
- Without rules on “how to do things right.”
- based on confusing and uncertain data on fashion impact
- and devoid of cooperation between different industry players, stakeholders, and competitors.
Nowadays, sustainability, thanks to the knowledge achieved and the incoming legislation such as the EU Green Deal, Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, or European strategy for sustainable and circular textile, has become something “mandatory” to work on. Furthermore, thanks to the collaboration among different industry players, we achieved fundamental insights and shared knowledge that allows brands and suppliers to understand the priorities to work on and the path to follow.
What’s your perspective on the shift towards slow fashion and its role in fostering sustainability?
I think that changing consumers' minds is a fundamental element to achieving sustainability goals, and that can happen only by giving people enough information to allow more conscious choices. That’s why I think that the data and the knowledge we have today about the real environmental and social impact of fast fashion is absolutely important and needs to be shared as much as possible.
However, it is not just that. The millennials and Gen Z generations have grown up in a system that pushed them to consume more and more in every sector. This habit is hard to break, even if there is always more awareness about sustainability impacts. The real game-changer role here is that of brands and “influencers” in general to promote a different style of life.
The EU Commission stated that it is important to make “fast fashion out of fashion” However, I will add that it is not just fast fashion but consumerism in general that needs to find its way out of our lives.
What are some promising sustainable materials and preferred fibers in the fashion industry today, in your opinion?
New fibers are always very interesting, like Orange Fiber or bio synthetics. Still, often, they are not scalable at all or can have a huge environmental and social impact too, as soon as they achieve high volume. So, it is important to have a holistic approach while looking at new fibers, and I think there are great associations, like Textile Exchange, working to get this information and to scale sustainable fiber practices around the world.
Something I am glad we have started to talk about more in the last few years is biodiversity and regenerative agriculture. Our habits and needs for big volumes and standardization are really destroying our soil, and if you destroy the soil, you destroy life.
A few months ago, I had the chance to participate in a conference where an incredible researcher on this issue, George Monbiot, was speaking and made me think about the importance of investing in soil analysis and knowledge. We have invested so much money in the last years to explore what is above the universe but very little to study what is under our feet.
Scaling in farming organic practices, for instance, for cotton production, is now almost impossible to achieve, but maybe that’s only because we didn’t invest enough in soil research.
Can you tell us examples of successful initiatives combining sustainability, innovation, and business success in the fashion industry?
Let’s just think about the ZDHC Foundation, a group born in 2012 after the Greenpeace Detox Campaign that asked brands to eliminate hazardous chemicals from their fashion manufacturing processes. They had an incredible challenge to manage with no rules to follow.
For the first time, they were able to bring brands, textile suppliers, chemical manufacturers, IT service providers, fashion associations, and industry experts, which I was part of, to the same table. The power of collaboration brought great results and innovation in chemical management that were completely unexpected at that time.
Given the prevalence of synthetic fibers derived from non-renewable sources, do you see an end to this prevalence soon? Do the trends point to this possibility?
I think and hope great innovations will soon come to help scale the textile-to-textile recycling process of polyester. New fibers comparable to polyester are coming out, but scaling is a huge challenge that might need a long time. So, the priority, from my point of view, is to start being able to recycle this fiber. In addition, that surely needs to be combined with strict rules on sustainable design to reduce the fiber mix that often makes recycling impossible.
In your experience, what motivates brands to adopt sustainable practices, and how can this motivation be enhanced?
During the last ten years, I have seen many different situations, but motivation has always come from three main factors: reputation, legislation, and consumers.
In the past, reputational risk was the strongest motivating factor for brands to start working on sustainable practices, and that is still very important. Working on sustainable practices also has a financial angle to it, such as the ESG performance indicators.
Nowadays, the incoming European legislation, I believe, is the key factor in accelerating change in the industry, but I can see a true change happening in the future only if we really achieve a shift in consumer habits.
What role do educational institutions play in influencing future designers and industry professionals to prioritize sustainable alternative materials?
I am a sustainability consultant and a teacher, and I believe in the power of the future generation. Everything we have talked about during this interview hinges on the need for cultural change, and that can be achieved only by educating future designers, managers, politicians, and consumers.
