Accelerating sustainability in the textile value chain: inspiring action and behaviour change

What: Accelerating sustainability in the textile value chain, inspiring action and behaviour change

Who: The United Nations Environment Programme is organising an Accelerator Session at the upcoming World Circular Economy Forum.

When: 15 September 2021

Time: 7:00 to 8:00 EDT (UTC-4) / 13.00 to 14.00 CEST (UTC+2) 

Where: This is an online event.

Background: The textile industry is one of global importance, providing economic growth (profits), high levels of employment, foreign exchange revenue and products essential to human welfare. However, addressing the circularity and sustainability of the sector is crucial: the world is producing and consuming more textiles than ever before, and the current very low reuse and recycling rates mean that more textiles are also being thrown away than ever before. This requires ever more land, water and fossil fuels, and leads to increasing pollution of the air, water and soil – not only damaging the environment but also harming the health of textile workers and communities. A shift to circular models is critical in delivering sustainability for the industry and will require global approaches with entirely new visions and radically different ways of doing business. This can only be achieved through the mobilisation of actors across regions and at all levels of the textile value chain.

Session context: This event promoted key outcomes of the upcoming UNEP roadmap report, which aims to set out a collaborative pathway to move towards greater sustainability and circularity in the textile value chain and which builds on technical findings and recommendations from UNEP’s 2020 global stocktaking report. The session has also featured insights from UNEP’s upcoming sustainable fashion communications strategy, focused on the role of consumer-facing storytellers and the power of shifting the narrative to strengthen demand for a positive fashion future.

Audience: Actors involved in the textile value chain, including policymakers, the private sector (including SMEs), civil society, technical organisations, and interested consumers.

Content: Moving the textile value chain towards greater sustainability and circularity requires ‘enabling systems’ that address the very design of textile products, accompanying aspirations, business models and customer offers, as well as interventions targeting specific value chain stages and the hotspots that occur in those. Consultations led in preparation of UNEP’s roadmap report confirmed the importance of changing consumption habits to shift the needle. This was also identified as a priority need in UNEP’s 2020 report alongside stronger governance and policies, and increased collaboration and finance.

Diving in on this key priority, this discussion will explore how brands and other actors can motivate consumers (which include government, businesses and individuals) to make more sustainable choices and how they can be empowered to demand better from businesses and government. Panellists have been chosen to reflect a diverse range of perspectives from across different regions and at varying levels of the textile value chain and are invited to discuss how to increase awareness of the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the textile sector and mobilise consumer demand for more sustainable choices to drive bottom-up change in the sector. The discussion will also consider the enabling environment required to help all consumers easily transition to more sustainable patterns, for instance by facilitating more desirable aspirations; by providing access and increasing understanding around sustainable options, such as textile repair services; or by increasing transparency around textile sources and recyclability of materials.

Key objectives:

• Move the textile value chain towards sustainability and circularity 
• Increase consumer awareness, behaviour change, industry accountability and policy breakthroughs

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iC2TCtMhSp68b_LWSgjTnA