Responsible fashion resources

Centre for Sustainable Fashion is the UAL London College of Fashion research centre currently provoking, challenging, and questioning the status quo of fashion.

Circle Economy: Amongst other circular initiatives, they enable the infrastructure needed to valorise textile waste at end-of-life and increase apparel brands’ capacity to adopt circular strategies. Their mission is to connect a circular supply chain of producers (manufacturers, retailers and brands) and solution providers (collectors, sorters, recyclers, remanufacturers, logistics, laundry etc).

Dana Thomas's book Fashionoplolis: 'A gripping investigation into the true cost of fast fashion, and a blueprint for how we get to a more sustainable future.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation has a vision of a new economic system that provides superior outcomes for people and the planet. It’s on a mission to expedite the global economy’s transition into a circular economy, which is built progressively on renewable materials and energy, diverse, distributed, and inclusive. To help make the fashion industry more circular, they’ve created a blueprint for the fashion industry to help redesign the way they create clothes. With their blueprint, the Ellen MacArthur foundation empowers fashion makers to build an industry that designs products to be:

used more
made to be made again
made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs

In addition, by inspiring and working with academia, business, institutions, and policymakers, the group helps develop, promote, and mobilize system solutions on a global scale.

Environmental Justice Foundation operates to lower the environmental and human costs of cotton production. It exposes human rights issues, water-shortages, pesticide misuses, and calls for transparency in the supply chain. Notably, EJF has investigated and uncovered forced child labor that was state-sponsored in Uzbekistan, which resulted in rapid improvements to retailer and supply chain policies. EJF believes cotton could be a sustainable option if cultivated using best-practices, not the worst-practices it currently utilizes. The Foundation is dedicated to advocating for organic cotton as an economically viable and environmentally sustainable alternative and supporting a greener future.

Fashion Act Now was inspired and created by the Extinction Rebellion. The crowdfunding group is on a mission to challenge the fashion industry to transform its current practices and culture of exploiting the world’s resources. It seeks an industry that supports humanity’s wellbeing and regenerates the environment. The initiative comes together around campaigning, dialogue, and research to inspire and strengthen activists worldwide in their non-violent methods they are using to bring about the change Fashion Act Now desires.

Fashion Revolution is a non-profit organization that is working to secure radical change in the way that our clothing is produced, sourced and consumed. They are pushing for greater transparency in the fashion supply chain through social media outreach, investigative research, innovative events and inspiring, informative content. Their vision is “A global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit.” And to achieve this, they tackle the big three fronts of culture change, industry change, and policy change through empowering citizens, brands, retailers, producers, unions, educators and journalists.

Fashion Takes Action works to advance ethics, sustainability, and circularity in the global fashion industry through research, awareness, education, and collaboration. Through various initiatives, research projects, speaking engagements, meet-ups, and global awareness campaigns, Fashion Takes Action is helping to change the industry.

The non-profit is also a platform for consumers to engage with the industry in meaningful discussions about fashion’s negative impacts and share ideas on how to accelerate positive outcomes.

Global Fashion Agenda is an industry-led non-profit organisation that fosters industry collaboration on sustainability in fashion. Their initiatives include the Global Fashion Summit- a meeting held at least once a year gathering actors in the industry (brands, manufacturers and others); The Global Circular Fashion Forum- a new global initiative to spur local action in textile manufacturing countries to accelerate and scale recycling of post-iindustrial textile waste; the Circular Fashion Partnership- involved in the development of the textile recycling industry in Bangladesh; and other initiatives.

Global Fashion Exchange creates an impact through curated talks, innovative clothing swap events, and global cultural activations.

Good Fashion Fund: Initiative to create systemic change in the textile & apparel industry by financing the implementation of highly impactful & disruptive production technologies in Asia. The Fund targets long term USD debt investments in textile & apparel manufacturers in India, Vietnam & Bangladesh.

Project Plan B: '...leaders in garment manufacture and its recycled use... offer a design to delivery full manufacturing service, with end of life recycling... [are in partnership ]with the Circular Textiles Foundation, a not for profit body who guide you through how to design for circularity, and certify products that have been designed to be recycled through specific recycling technologies.

Redress (not to be confused with Re/DRESS!) is based in Hong Kong and works among the various sectors of people driving the fashion industry in Asia to reduce the region’s textile waste. To date, the company has saved over 23 tons of discarded clothing from landfills in Hong Kong. They have also hosted many pop-up shops, launched a design award, and collaborated with designers to help create a global shift toward a more sustainable future.

Sustainable Fashion Forum supports conversations about fashion and sustainability to teach, empower, and encourage its community to envision a new future for fashion.

Textile Exchange is a non-profit that is building a global community of major brands, suppliers, and retailers to collectively make a positive impact on the climate. They create, administer, and promote a series of leading industry standards as well as publish collections of essential industry data and insights that empower the community to measure, maintain, and track their use of favored materials and fiber. By creating a reference point for the industry and offering ready-to-use tools for improvement, the Textile Exchange is leading the way to a better tomorrow.

With gratitude to Impactful Ninja for some of the above blurbs. Visit them for more info about making a positive impact on the world and society.