What is Global Fashion Agenda?
The Global Fashion Agenda is a not-for-profit organization and the main driving force behind the 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment. It is a leadership forum for achieving sustainability in the fashion sector and as an organization, it leads and defends ideas centered on public-private cooperation. It guides and supports key industry players to change the way we produce, market and consume fashion. The Global Fashion Agenda leads the fashion industry’s journey towards a more sustainable future where “a world beyond the next season” exists and is preserved.
This same organization also publishes annually, in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group and Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the relevant and exhaustive report Pulse of the Fashion Industry; which you can download, in its different annual versions, in the following links:
Pulse of the Fashion Industry 2019 | Pulse of the Fashion Industry 2018 | Pulse of the Fashion Industry 2017
2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment
Despite progress, the fashion industry is still far from being sustainable and circular, as highlighted in the Pulse of Fashion Industry 2019. The pace of industry performance on sustainability has slowed and sustainability solutions are not implemented quickly enough to counter the negative environmental and social impacts of the rapidly growing fashion industry. A strong collaborative ecosystem is urgently needed to address the challenges ahead, and governments and policymakers have an important role to play in creating a supportive regulatory framework.
Since 2009, the Global Fashion Agenda has organized the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, the world’s leading business event on sustainability in the sector, and it was precisely at the 2017 Copenhagen Fashion Summit that it urged the fashion industry to take action on circularity and sign the 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment (hereafter 2020 Commitment) as a concrete way of turning words into action and accelerating the industry’s transition to a circular fashion system.
“While it is encouraging to see 12.5% of the global fashion market take concrete steps towards circular business models, we must urgently and cooperatively address the main obstacles to pave the way for systemic change towards circularity”. – Morten Lehmann, Director of Sustainability, Global Fashion Agenda.
The four points of immediate action
To establish a direction during this transition, FGA described four points of immediate action.
- Implementation of design strategies to achieve circularity.
- Increase the volume of worn clothing and footwear collection.
- Increase the volume of re-sale of used clothing and footwear.
- Increase the production of garments and footwear made from post-consumer recycled textile fibers.
The 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment was developed by Global Fashion Agenda to encourage the fashion industry, brands and retailers to take real, effective and prompt action on circularity. It is designed and engineered to be inclusive and to be a starting point where all companies, of all sizes and from different market segments can participate. For this reason, it is important to note that the signatories’ objectives, progress and individual efforts differ and do not constitute a point of comparison.
The Global Fashion Agenda has supported the signatories in achieving their objectives by developing a toolbox for each of the action points.
- Circularly designed toolbox.
- Used garment collection toolbox.
- Used garments resale toolbox.
- Textile recycling toolbox
In this article we not only analyze the main guidelines of this commitment and the report on the year 2019, but at the end of it, you will be able to download for free both the current 2019 and the previous year’s 2018 reports.
“The 2020 Commitment has definitely influenced our business practices. Circularity is now the main Ethos for us as a company and we follow the mission of educating and impacting future generations with responsible actions: from design to delivery, reuse and recovery, idea to innovation. Adopting circularity is valuing people and the planet at every step of the way”.
“Adopting circularity is valuing people and the planet at every step of the way”, says Shamini Dhana, founder and executive director of Dhana Inc.
2019 Annual Report
he Global Fashion Agenda publishes an annual report on the state of the commitment to change in order to follow up on the signatories, on progress in implementation and on the achievement of the objectives set.
This status report covers the second year of the commitment (corresponding to 2019) and sheds light on the signatories and their initial actions to reach the established objectives. It seeks to provide an overview of overall progress for each action point, with special emphasis on key experiences and lessons learned to inspire the whole industry with real actions towards a circular fashion system.
Results 2019.
As of July 2019, the signatories have reached 45 of 213 targets (21%) and have set 17 new and/or more ambitious targets in the four action points. After the analysis and the new targets, each of the action points was thus balanced:
- Implementation of design strategies to achieve circularity – 41% of total target.
- Increase the volume of worn garments and/or footwear collected – 24% of total target.
- Increase volume of re-sale of used garments and/or footwear – 13% of total target.
- Increase the proportion of garments and/or footwear made from post-consumer recycled textile fibers – 22% of total target.
Global Fashion Agenda Tool Boxes.
In the next four articles on this incredible commitment by fashion industry leaders, we will analyse each and every one of the tool boxes that GFA has provided to signatories to help them achieve the proposed targets.
Circular fashion: list of articles in this blog.
In these links you can find the articles in which we have been analyzing the development and the different processes of circular fashion:
Circular Fashion | Digital Technology of Circular Fashion |Physical technology of circular fashion | The biological technology of circular fashion
Fashion as a services and rental fashion to close the loop
Thank you very much and let’s meet again in the next post!
Download the report here
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