Sourcing Journal Radio

Sustainable sourcing begins with raw materials. Experts agree that a “sustainable materials mix” should be a priority for the fashion industry because they can reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, pare back water and carbon footprints and pose less of a burden at the end of their lives. But what makes a material sustainable? And should we look to the past or the future for answers?

In this episode, Sourcing Journal reporter Jasmin Malik Chua speaks with Rebecca Burgess, executive director, and Jason Kibbey, CEO of Higg Co., about how novel materials such as synthetic spider silk derived from yeast stack up against agricultural systems both conventional and “regenerative.”

“I would say we’re at the very earliest phase of this and few of the new, interesting and exciting materials have come to scale,” Kibbey said. “But we also have to support innovation and try to find these new materials that do reduce impact, and do allow us to give optionality in a changing world.”

Burgess cautions, however, that the current regulatory system is ill-suited to managing the growth of synthetic biology and its waste streams. “I think...we have is a history of launching things into our biosphere, without having measurement frameworks or scientific analysis about potential impacts to dynamic ecosystem function,” she said. “So I have concerns and I'm not the only one.”

Regenerative agriculture, she explains, increases soil fertility and biodiversity, helps with sequestration of atmospheric carbon and helps the land “self-renew without synthetic inputs...just the magic of biology.”

Kibbey agrees that a balance between old and new is necessary to clothe the people of the future. “It’s very important that we both have to support innovation and support new ways to look at clothing...but we also have to be very careful of the unintended consequences of those materials as we develop them...and carefully try to understand and reduce or ideally eliminate those unintended consequences.”

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G-Star RAW's denim and sustainability expert, Adriana Galijasevic, has a wealth of knowledge she wants to share with the industry.

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While the ultimate impact of COVID-19 won’t be known for years, apparel has already begun to assess the damage, as businesses across the value chain chart a course through the pandemic. From a rocky start filled with cancelled orders and fractured relationships, the industry is now looking ahead to the initiatives, technologies and culture shifts that could finally transform it.

In this episode of Sourcing Journal Radio, Steve Hoffman, partner at McKinsey, discusses the results of an industry-wide survey the consulting firm conducted in collaboration with Sourcing Journal. The findings, which were published in the company’s report “Time for Change: How to use the crisis to make fashion sourcing more agile and sustainable,” details the damage that’s already been done to liquidity and partnerships as well as how fashion firms plan to battle back—and the likelihood that they’ll successfully achieve their goals.

While the survey found that the pandemic may be the catalyst for the industry to finally put initiatives like speed and flexibility in place, Hoffman says, the landscape is likely to be bifurcated, with those he dubbed “immediate and bold” as the winners.

“The new normal is really what's going be a key factor here, because if in the new normal certain things play out such as a reduced assortment… that will help accelerate speed and flexibility because the complexity of doing that will be a lot easier," he said. "There's a couple of factors that we would wait to see if they could be enablers, but by and large, you're going to see the retailers or apparel wholesalers who are currently more advantaged, probably more advantaged coming into the crisis, that will be able to sort of double or triple down on those speed and flexibility aspirations. And I would say the vast majority the industry will sort of be left a little bit behind, and maybe doing a handful or a more limited kind of speed and flexibility push, but I think will be far outpaced by the folks that are more advantaged.”

For the time being though, Hoffman said the winners will be those that quickly pull back and focus on managing cash in the short term before aggressively jumping on new opportunities once the dust settles.

Listen to the episode to learn more about how retailers can overcome the “distracting” financial concerns that might make them hesitate rather than move forward, the root causes holding much-needed initiatives like on-demand manufacturing back and why funding sustainability will continue to be a challenge.

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Kontoor Brands senior director of global sustainable business Roian Atwood is somewhat of a wonk for denim sustainability.

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Warp + Weft founder Sarah Ahmed talks inclusivity and building a direct-to-consumer.

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Outland Denim founder James Bartle dishes about his decision to dabble in crowdfunding.

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Jason Denham, founder of Denham, talks quality, premium jeans and preparing for pandemics.

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Fashion needs to rethink its take-make-dispose model.

With the COVID-19-stalled supply chains exacerbating the millions of tons of of textile waste produced every year, keeping clothing out of the landfill has become more vital than ever.

In the this episode of the Sustaining Voices podcast, Sourcing Journal reporter Jasmin Malik Chua speaks with Gwen Cunningham, lead of the Circle Textiles program at Circle Economy, andJonas Eder-Hansen, public affairs director at Global Fashion Agenda, about what the industry needs to do to prevent textiles from becoming waste, the close interrelationship between consumption and disposal practices and why investing in recycling alone isn’t the answer.

“We’ve seen the consumer, between 2007 and 2014, buying 60 percent more and keeping the clothing for half as long as they used to,” Cunningham said. “And so these materials are becoming post consumer quicker than ever before.”

While textile waste can be broadly categorized into two streams—pre-consumer and post-consumer—tackling the problem requires multi-pronged approach. Waste is a symptom of an issue that requires new design approaches, life-extending business models such as repair and resale, and beefed-up infrastructure for end-of-life management.

Policy, too, isn’t emphasized in discussions nearly enough.

“I think the role of policymakers in actually addressing textile waste is something that hasn't really been accounted for,” Eder-Hansen said. "The ability to actually engage in constructive dialogue with policymakers is something that many brands and retailers have shied away from because policymakers are seen as to impose further regulation. But if you turn that around, policymakers can also help accelerate and shift the transition to the circular economy, including also scaling up some of those technologies that are necessary to address textile waste.”

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Sustainability has moved from the sidelines to the center of the conversation but even so, the apparel industry is facing so many headwinds, it’s fair to wonder how and if the C-suite can and will prioritize true change in this area. In this episode, Karl-Hendrik Magnus and Sara Kappelmark, apparel industry experts from McKinsey & Company, discuss the McKinsey Apparel CPO Survey, which revealed purchasing officers’ plans for creating sustainable sourcing at scale.

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Talking about the state of today’s apparel industry without focusing on sustainability is impossible. After years of poor, inefficient practices, marked by the rise of fast fashion, the industry is now struggling with nearly every aspect of sustainability—how to make less, what to consider while making it, what to do with it at the end of its life, and how to even define what sustainability should look like.

And although we’re seeing more technologies that promise to improve things, advancing sustainability is more than just installing new tech or even fixing legacy production processes.

In this episode, we’re going to talk with the co-founder of a tech company who believes sustainability is really a holistic mindset that companies need to adopt throughout their entire operations—starting with the very top of the C Suite.

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