BIG INTERVIEW: THE UNITED NATIONS
A PARTNERSHIP FOR THE
FASHION CONSCIOUS
ABOVE: Peru children from the Amazon River hold aloft the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. ABOVE RIGHT: Kerry Bannigan, founder of The Fashion Impact Fund, and Lucie Brigham, chief of office for the UN’s Office of Partnerships.
I
t’s staggering, the things you can create during a pandemic. Some of us (not mentioning names) created an 11-second stop-animated clip of a Play-Doh monkey eating a banana. Meanwhile, Kerry Bannigan and Lucie Brigham – two names you’ll see adorning your SiLC agenda this year – created a United Nations-hosted platform to drive sustainable development across the multi-billion-dollar fashion industry. While the Play-Doh monkey video has since accrued 238 views and 26… 27 ‘likes’ on Instagram, the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network has pulled together some of the biggest names in fashion, media, and celebrity culture to expedite social change and mobilise industry stakeholders in support of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The Network even comes with its own mission statement: to
harness the creativity of leaders in the fashion and textile industries to design solutions that advance lives of dignity and equality for all on a healthy planet. Play-Doh Monkey just wanted to get a few laughs. We shan’t be mentioning him again. Not when the far more pressing matter is the work that both Kerry and Lucie are at SiLC 22 this year to discuss. Kerry is the executive director of the Fashion Impact Fund, a platform that supports women entrepreneurs lead educational initiatives to accelerate the fashion industry’s transition to a sector that values people and planet. Lucie, meanwhile, is the chief of office of the United Nations Office for Partnerships, helping to co-create partnerships for the UN system to advance the 17 SDGs. Together they make a formidable duo in driving fashion industry change.
Kerry Bannigan and Lucie Brigham are the duo behind the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, a UN-hosted platform for accelerating sustainable change in the fashion sector. We explore the role that licensing has to play in its sustainability story. “Today’s fashion industry is responsible for vast negative social and environmental impacts, including water pollution, textile waste, exploited labour, poverty, gender inequality, and climate change,” Kerry tells Products of Change. “Globally, the $2.4 trillion fashion industry employs more than 300 million people along the value chain. “Of the 75 million garment workers, 80% are women aged between 18 and 35 and the majority earn less than $3 a day. Additionally, the fashion industry accounts for about 10% of global carbon emissions and nearly 20% of wastewater.” The impact of the global fashion industry makes for some uncomfortable reading. Rare is it today that a licensing business will remain unaffiliated, at least on some level, with the fashion space; it’s a market that touches all of us. But this isn’t a doom and gloom piece, and the CFL Network isn’t here to wrap knuckles. Rather, it’s a platform to lift the industry and inspire change, by bringing together those at the forefront of it. That includes the licensing audience.
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