This three day virtual business conference will debate and showcase real world solutions to the most pressing and urgent challenges in commodity supply chains. Secure your ticket today!
This three day virtual business conference will debate and showcase real world solutions to the most pressing and urgent challenges in commodity supply chains. We’ll look at what’s driving value chain change and how business is working to deliver on increasingly difficult sustainability targets. We’ll also discuss forest and nature positive strategies on the route to net zero, and the practicalities of these targets on the ground.
IF is a purpose driven business based in London. Our people have collectively worked in sustainability for decades. Our mission is to help make sustainability mainstream in business. As a platform for change, we research, create, and facilitate debate-driven, focused events and discussions tackling the critical business sustainability challenges around the world. We support this work with online publishing, analysis and in-depth research into challenges we know are essential for business innovation towards sustainability, the circular economy, improved resilience and regeneration.
The concept of regenerative agriculture is being hailed as the new paradigm in sustainable supply chains. While it is predominantly food brands that have acted fastest to make significant commitments to regenerative, the future of cotton production could be based on similar practices that aim to restore, renew and replenish the environment. However, big questions still stand on definitions, processes, outcomes, and crucially what this actually looks like on the ground.
In this hour-long webinar, we took a closer look at how regenerative practices can be applied to cotton farming. We discussed:
- How regenerative apparel can be defined and how it differs from sustainable fashion
- The opportunities and challenges for brands, farmers and partners in implementing such program
- The key players in this transition and their roles in ensuring that these practices are scaled
- How to determine the impact and specific outcomes of regenerative programs
- Alison Ward, CEO, CottonConnect
- Rachel Kanter Kepnes, manager of supply chain social responsibility, farms and special programs, Patagonia
- Sheetal Nischal, sustainability projects manager, Primark
- Hanna Denes, Climate+ Strategy, senior manager, Textile Exchange
- Peter Stanbury, senior associate, Innovation Forum
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Felicitas Weber from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about some of the key conclusions from the recently-published latest Know the Chain benchmark into the forced labour risks in big apparel sector companies and investors.
The good news is that all the companies benchmarked have improved their performance at least a little. The less good is that there remains generally a significant difference between what companies say they should be doing compared with what they are doing in practice – with luxury brands not typically performing well. -
The textile and apparel sector is under intense scrutiny over its environmental and human impacts. In response, a number of initiatives and approaches are being taken by companies in the sector to reduce their environmental footprint and move towards genuinely sustainable apparel. Many of these have been set out and debated at our annual Sustainable Apparel and Textiles Conference over the last six years.
Yet much remains opaque. Despite all the attention the sector has received, and the work that has been done, many questions remain. There is clearly a need for a detached assessment of these and other issues. To address this, Innovation Forum is launching a new annual “Sustainable Apparel Barometer”.
Each year the Sustainable Apparel Barometer focuses on specific aspects of apparel production. This year, it looks in-depth into the challenges and opportunities in viscose production, how transparency in the cotton sector is evolving and what needs to be done to drive greater social compliance within apparel supply chains.
