Designers, politicians, scientists, and climate activists spoke with one voice for the urgently needed transformation of the fashion and textile industry. The textile and fashion industry is one of the world’s largest contributors to CO2 emissions and water pollution. Accordingly, there is great leverage when it comes to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 in the fashion industry and creating a better world with measures to fight poverty, injustice and exploitation and halt climate change, according to a press release by Messe Frankfurt.
Transformative change and innovative thinking across the full global supply chain are needed to accelerate a significant change process. The new Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit provided valuable impulses on initiating multi-stakeholder collaboration, sharing knowledge around sustainability and activating the entire fashion sector to make the fashion industry more sustainable on an international level, at these crucial junctures.
The topics of the Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit were aligned with the priorities announced by UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, for 2021 to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Keynotes, interviews, panel discussions, and performances highlighted the global problem areas of the fashion and textile industry and showed solutions for a sustainable future: sensible business, in harmony with nature, responsible towards people in a globalised world, this is how a new fashion era can emerge, according to Messe Frankfurt.
A scientific perspective on the dramatic situation in the oceans, which is largely due to the fashion industry, was brought to the conference by professor Boetius, director at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research.
The first Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit formed one of the core elements of the digital Frankfurt Fashion Week and could also radiate to the other formats of the Frankfurt Fashion Week. Thus, a clear awareness of the urgency of the topic of sustainability is omni-present. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were made visible and tangible for an international fashion and lifestyle community to tangibly drive change in the industry. From 2023 onwards, the SDGs will also become a binding condition of participation for all exhibiting companies at the Premium, Seek, and Neonyt trade fairs.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)
The recently held Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit, that brought together leading industry stakeholders along with UN representatives and public officials, strongly focused on fashion sustainability. The conference was presented by the Conscious Fashion Campaign and realised by Messe Frankfurt, in co-operation with the United Nations Office for Partnerships.