The Sustainable Market Initiative’s Fashion Taskforce: The Dream Team or the B Team?
Marina Lor
In the wake of COP26, the reality of climate change and the necessity for standardized sustainability practices across various sectors has once again taken centre-stage. Pressured by consumers, NGOs, and governments, many industries are quickly realizing that they cannot keep their heads in the sand about their unsustainable environmental practices if they wish to remain competitive in the global market. One industry that has been trying to improve its sustainability practices is the fashion industry, which accounts for nearly 10% of global carbon emissions and 20% of industrial water pollution.[1] This has not gone unnoticed as HRH Prince Charles of Wales’ Sustainable Market Initiative (SMI) included a “Fashion and Textiles” branch when it was launched in January 2020. On October 8th, 2021, the SMI announced that they had created a Fashion Taskforce,[2] which would spearhead new initiatives in cleaning up the fashion industry.
The Fashion Taskforce is tasked with developing initiatives, products, and services to help guide both the industry and customers towards sustainability and circularity. However, the Taskforce is exclusively made up of CEOs of major fashion houses and e-commerce companies, such as Marco Gobbetti of Burberry and Gabriele Maggio of Stella McCartney.[3] The announcement of the membership of the Taskforce was surprising, considering that the SMI aims to promote cross-industry collaboration and the Prince of Wales has stated that working with various industry actors and government entities creates the potential to “move mountains.”[4] Yet, a taskforce made up of CEOs once again places the responsibility to initiate sustainability practices back into the hands of the very corporations that are most culpable for the industry’s carbon emissions.
If the SMI truly wants to create effective change across the industry, they should diversify the Taskforce to better represent all relevant industry actors to foster a chain of accountability. In the Taskforce’s open letter,[5] they highlighted that one of their two goals for 2021-2022 is to promulgate regenerative farming, particularly for raw materials like cotton, linen, and wool. The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is an international not-for-profit organisation trying to foster sustainability practices like improved crop protection, water stewardship, and soil health.[6] The BCI invests and partners with governments and other NGOs to educate and support farmers as they adopt improved sustainability methods.[7] Mulberry and Burberry are members of the Fashion Taskforce and BCI, therefore they are familiar with the BCI’s mandate and are working with BCI to better their cotton practices. What is baffling then, is why an international NGO like BCI was not asked to join the Fashion Taskforce, particularly when it is already connected to many facets of the industry.
Another questionable aspect of the Taskforce’s membership is the fact that no grassroots, sustainable brands have been included. It is evident that major fashion houses are globally recognized and interested in fostering change within the industry, which is why they agreed to be part of the Taskforce. However, many of the members, like Giorgio Armani, have only recently adopted basic sustainable practices and their brands are still very much in the process of becoming truly sustainable.[8] As such, involving brands that from the outset have maintained sustainability as their main ethos would demonstrate to the public that the Fashion Taskforce encompasses a range of brands across the spectrum of sustainability, thus providing a truer representation of the existing market composition. If the Fashion Taskforce is trying to set sustainability standards for the entire industry, they should include smaller, sustainable brands in order to represent a wider breath of customers, price points, and experiences. These sustainable brands have diverse experiences and challenges that luxury brands on the Taskforce like Chloé and Burberry simply have not encountered. While luxury brands maintain a certain prestige and clientele that is prepared to pay a premium price, sustainable brands like Reformation[9] have successfully built a customer base that is prepared to pay a higher price knowing that they are purchasing sustainably-made pieces. Bringing in this unique knowledge by providing these smaller brands with a seat at the table would likely elevate the quality and diversity of the solutions that the Taskforce brings forward and raise their credibility in the eyes of the public.
As it stands, the SMI is expecting retailers and brands who maintain harmful environmental practices to regulate themselves and become an example for the entire industry. This approach simply echoes what has already been done in the past and it is evident that a self-directed approach to improving sustainability practices is usually too incremental and too slow. The SMI Fashion Taskforce has the potential to reduce the fashion industry’s environmental footprint, which is an essential action in combatting climate change. However, it is vital that the Fashion Taskforce diversify its membership to represent a broader range of the industry and to set standards to improve sustainability practices that will truly shape the fashion industry moving forward.
[1] Mathilde Charpail, “What’s Wrong with the Fashion Industry?” (2017), online: Sustain Your Style <https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/whats-wrong-with-the-fashion-industry#anchor-environmental-impact>.
[2] “Fashion Taskforce” (2021), online: Sustainable Market Initiative <https://www.sustainable-markets.org/taskforces/fashion-taskforce/>.
[3] Ibid.
[4] The Fashion Law, “Fashion and the Need for Cross-Sector Sustainability Efforts Were on the Table at the G7 Summit” (13 June 2021), online: The Fashion Law <https://www.thefashionlaw.com/fashion-and-the-need-for-sustainability-was-a-topic-of-discussion-at-the-g7-summit/>.
[5] Supra note 2 at “Letter of Intent”.
[6] “Who We Are: Our Aims and Strategy” (2022), online: Better Cotton <https://bettercotton.org/who-we-are/our-aims-strategy/>.
[7] “Who We Are: Partners” (2022), online: Better Cotton <https://bettercotton.org/who-we-are/partners/>.
[8] “Environmental Protection and the Efficient Use of Resources” (2022), online: Armani <https://www.armani.com/en-us/experience/corporate/social-responsibility/social-responsibility-environment>.
[9] “Sustainable Practices” (2022), online: Reformation <https://www.thereformation.com/sustainability/sustainable-practices.html>.
Marina Lor is a 2L at McGill’s Faculty of Law. She is passionate about fashion development and global consumer culture, with an emphasis on accountability and sustainability within the fashion industry. A special thanks to Spencer Williams (Senior Editor at MJSDL) and Alysia Lor-Knill for their support in preparing this article.