Regenerative Fashion Manifesto announced
The SMI Fashion Taskforce, chaired by entrepreneur Federico Marchetti, has today announced its new Regenerative Fashion Manifesto which has been developed in partnership with the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA) led by scientist Marc Palahí.
In signing up to the Manifesto, Taskforce members are committing their brands, which are amongst the biggest names in the fashion industry, to a progressive shift towards Regenerative Fashion – a circular biobased industry that is inclusive, climate and nature-positive, using newly created or restored regenerative landscapes as the basis for circular bioeconomy value chains.
Regenerative landscapes are resilient, biodiversity-rich and deforestation-free. They produce a diversity of goods and services such as food, energy, and biomaterials, as well as ecosystem services including carbon sequestration. Such regenerative practices empower local and indigenous communities, support their prosperity and respect their ancestral rights.
The Himalayan Regenerative Fashion Living Lab
The Himalayan Regenerative Fashion Living Lab is the first project developed according to the principles and ambitions of the new Manifesto. The project seeks to demonstrate the potential of regenerative fashion to restore harmony between local communities, nature and the environment while creating sustainable fashion value chains.
The Himalayan initiative is a €1m project that will restore degraded landscapes and recover traditional textile craft skills in order to enhance the local cashmere, cotton and silk economies while addressing global challenges related to climate change and biodiversity loss. Work on the project will begin next month with help on the ground from Reforest’Action and the Balipara Foundation.
Fashion Taskforce Chair, Federico Marchetti said of the project: “The Regenerative Fashion Manifesto is another concrete step towards creating a much more sustainable fashion industry. It is not simply empty words, the manifesto comes with a concrete €1m project for the degraded landscapes of the Himalayas attached. This project will serve as a blue-print for what can be done to shift the fashion industry towards a more equitable, nature positive future.”
Marc Palahí, Director of the European Forest Institute and Chair of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance added “The partnership between the Fashion Task Force and the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance provides fashion brands with a unique platform for transformative and sustainable action – connecting the dots between landscapes and closets to transition towards regenerative value chains that support biodiversity and local livelihoods while mitigating climate change.”
More information
Find out more here: https://www.sustainable-markets.org/taskforces/fashion-taskforce/
