THE BIG INTERVIEW

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.

“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.

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.

“Like all sectors, the $275 billion licensing industry has a role to play, especially as sustainability continues to build momentum across consumer products,” continues Kerry. “The licensing industry can set terms and requirements that value people and planet for manufacturing, materials, and packaging. As consumers demand sustainably sourced products, the licensing sector will need to lead on this conversation.

“Given its global reach, the fashion industry is uniquely positioned to be a driving force of the Sustainable Development Goals; particularly in relation to climate action, gender equality, and responsible consumption and production.”

Products of Change was recently selected to be one among the CFL Network’s advisors to provide updates from the licensed fashion sector. It’s a clear indication that the role licensing will play in this story of sustainability really cannot be overestimated.

It’s Kerry’s 14-year career as a social entrepreneur, leading global fashion and media initiatives to “advance the creative economy as a driving force for sustainable development” that’s given her keen insight into what that role spans. It’s why SiLC 22 has been earmarked as an agendasetting event by the pair for “convening sector leaders to share knowledge, resources, and best practices to inspire action and strengthen engagement for sustainable development.” It all comes down to one thing: the facilitation of collaboration.

“The pandemic has underscored the importance of partnerships,” says The UN’s Lucie Brigham. “Response and recovery efforts across the globe have strengthened existing relationships and forged new collaborations, demonstrating the potential of partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network aims to highlight the collective power of collaboration for a better world.”

Ask the chief of office for her take on the most exciting developments in the fashion sector today and she’ll give you a comprehensive breakdown of some of the most pioneering organisations to be driving change on a global scale. Among them is a company called Recover Fiber which boasts a system that uses textile waste from pre- and post-consumer and post-industrial origins as raw material to create high-quality recycled cotton fibre, helping, says Lucie, “to tackle the huge quantities of textile waste disposed of worldwide.” Another is Arch & Hook, a team on a mission to eliminate the use of virgin materials and “empower the use of sustainable ones” through new clothes hanger designs.

“It’s a business that demands responsible production and consumption for our partners and industries,” Lucie explains. “And its sourcing and materials ensure circularity, alongside pollution clean-up and protecting life. Through research and innovation, the team promises to empower even the most negatively impactful industries on the planet to act on these fundamental goals.” These companies, and others like them, have fallen under the gaze of the CFL Network for more than their pioneering approach. Each is acting on the influence of the global fashion sector and their role within it, to drive change in alignment with those SDGs.

That same kind of potential is held by every company and individual in attendance of the Sustainability in Licensing Conference this 18 October.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to a long and beautiful relationship between the planet and its people. If we take inspiration from the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network today, then the time to get creative for our future prosperity is right now.

LEFT: Harvesting cotton in a cotton field, Maharashtra, India.

LEFT: Kerry Bannigan delivers the opening remarks at the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network annual meeting this year.

BELOW: The United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and planet.