Organised by the non-profit organisation Global Fashion Agenda, the Global Fashion Summit is the leading international forum for sustainability in the industry. The vision of the summit is to encourage industry collaboration through gathering and set stakeholders down a shared path to a net positive fashion industry.
Two major summits were held in 2022, the first in June held in Copenhagen, Denmark; the other in November, held in Singapore, which was the first international edition of the summit since its inception in 2009. This crucially brought the discussion to the Asian region, where much of the world’s garment manufacturing is still done.
On top of attending the summit’s main events, Closed Loop Fashion was invited to closed door round table discussions with industry leaders to talk in detail on the development of circular fashion systems.
June 2022 – Copenhagen, Denmark
CLF Founder, Marina Chahboune, attended the round table herself along with Arianna Nicoletti, Lead Consultant Circular Design & Textile Solutions. The discussion topic was establishing circular fashion systems in Indonesia. The round table was attended by industry leaders, including the Senior Director of Sustainable Products at Nike, Chief Sustainability Officier from Global Fashion Group, Chief Sustainability Officer at PVH Corp (Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, etc.). Key individuals from Global Fashion Agenda, as well as Nin Castle Co-Founder from Reverse Resources were also part of the discussion.
The different stakeholders discussed: what specific capabilities will drive industry recycling and processing capacity growth in Indonesia. What process innovation, industry collaboration or financing is required to build circular systems at scale. How to formalise demand signals for South East Asia/ Indonesian supply to advance capacity.
November 2022 – Singapore
Another round table was organised during the Global Fashion Summit in Singapore, with the main area of discussion being establishing circular fashion systems in Cambodia and Vietnam. This brought to the forefront the feasibility of replicating a successful partnership in Bangladesh — which facilitated the domestic recycling of post-industry waste — in these new Southeast Asian nations.
Key research from Germany development company, GIZ, revealed approximate annual textile waste quantities of 937,500 tons in Vietnam and 164,046 tons in Cambodia, kickstarting the discussion on the business case for textile-to-textile recycling. This saw detailed sharing on recycling infrastructure, responsibilities of different value chain actors, current barriers for circular fashion systems and required capabilities and technologies to see progress in these regions.
The round table at Global Fashion Summit, Singapore, was attended by an even wider-range of stakeholders, spanning trade associations, government authorities, private sector actors and technical consultants.
These included representatives from Nike and Puma, TÜV Rheinland, GIZ FABRIC, Reverse Resources, Fashion for Good and Closed Loop Fashion, to name a few.
