Hope might be on hold for sustainable fashion, but advocacy isn't
The Global Fashion Summit was exceptionally downbeat this year—but in that quiet, we’re reminded just how vital leadership voices, big and small, really are.
If you've been reading the coverage from the Global Fashion Summit held in Copenhagen last week, you'll have seen it was a rather sombre affair this year.
Sarah Kent from The Business of Fashion called it “unusually downbeat”, while Bella Webb from Vogue Business pointed out that the mood among attendees - which "offers a useful pulse check of the broader state of sustainable fashion", was “dejected and defiant”.
Indeed, on what I think was my sixth or seventh year of attending, the majority of my conversations were focused on the huge challenges facing the industry's progress in this field right now, from regulatory rollbacks and Trump's tariffs, to team cuts and tightened budgets.
As Jasmin Malik Chua of Sourcing Journal wrote: "The event’s dour note was hardly unexpected. There is simply no way to spin the current climate, whether political, environmental or otherwise, no matter how many times someone insists that there is no business on a dead planet."
"To be sure, advocates for a greener, kinder fashion industry have quietly acknowledged that the movement was struggling for a while. But they held out hope that moves to toughen up regulation would keep forcing things forward. This year, that has all but evaporated," Kent explained. "Instead of looking for progress, many in the space are just trying to figure out what can be saved."
Frankly, finding any semblance of positivity feels more challenging than it ever has.
So what does one personally do in these scenarios then? When we've built an entire movement on not just science, but hope and optimism to keep going against all odds, what happens when that stalls?
It reminds me of a question I got asked in one of my sustainable fashion office hours a couple of months back by a young individual in the US. She was questioning whether she really wanted to pursue a career in this space when there was so much pushback on it from the administration in her country. Would she ever be able to actually effect change, or was it a fruitless task that would only lead to disappointment and failure? Should she fight, or give up (and "get a real job")?
Ultimately the answer I gave her was that she had to decide how much she cared. (This was ironically in fact the key message from Paul Polman, author, thought leader and former Unilever CEO, during his keynote at the Global Fashion Summit last year).
I don't think there's any other reason we're all here. If not for fame and fortune, then for change, no?
Frankly, this isn't for everyone, and I think you've got to really believe in it to be here. Especially right now. This particular person on my call was a fighter; she didn't miss a beat before responding exactly that.
Which leads me on to another piece that was published in The Business of Fashion last week that I think not only provides a lot of the answers for what driving change in this industry must look like, but supports each of us individually with understanding the growing and evolving role we need to play.
Written by Maxine Bédat, executive director at New Standard Institute and the lead behind the New York Fashion Act, it focuses on the role of advocacy above all else.
"It is clear change won’t come without political support. Real climate leadership from brands means recognising this, speaking out and calling for regulatory change. Instead, many trade groups — including those that represent brands with publicly progressive climate policies — are actively lobbying to undermine tougher environmental regulations, leaning into the political narrative that stiffer oversight is bad for business," she writes.
The power and role of this shouldn't be underestimated. The adoption of the French fast fashion bill this week, even in the face of huge lobbying against it, is a ray of light showing that it CAN be done.
As written in a piece in Bloomberg Businessweek, signposted by Bédat since: "A company’s political actions are vastly more important than its pollution-trimming efforts. Any environmental bona fides should be measured by whether—and how vocally—the business supports government regulations that require all market participants to go green."
Bédat calls for the industry to not only navigate the current turbulence but show up in the storm and lead. (On that note, you might also be interested in this piece I wrote following Climate Week in New York focused on why we need leaders to lead).
This role of the CEO and senior leadership in the policy space is paramount of course. But it reminds me again that all of us can use our voices for change.
In The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook I authored for UNEP in 2023, there is an entire chapter dedicated to the role of advocacy. This is primarily about how brands can empower consumers into their role as citizens to demand change from businesses and policymakers. But it also talks to the role of internal advocacy - how players at all levels within brands, and within this industry more broadly, can voice the need for policy and persuade senior leaders to back it.
The Bloomberg story references an organisation called ClimateVoice, which "seeks out and trains workers to push for change inside their respective companies. This includes speaking up at town hall meetings, posting on internal message boards, booking an outside speaker to discuss sustainability or starting a group with concerned co-workers."
At the end of the day, change isn’t something we wait for. It doesn't fundamentally come about at conferences and in side discussions. It's something we both demand and we build. The only way we’re going to get to progress is to push for it, even in - and especially in - the face of adversity and uncertainty.