Fashion Roundtable, Fashion Revolution, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, Common
Objective, Eco-Age, and The Sustainable Angle, along with leading fashion brands
and fashion sustainability advocates unite with a call to action for COP26, to stressthe urgent need for the world’s leaders to recognise the impactful role fashion canplay in reaching net zero and climate goals.
London, 26th October 2021
Fashion Roundtable, Fashion Revolution, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, Common
Objective, Eco Age, and The Sustainable Angle have penned an open letter, in collaboration
with businesses and civil society organisations to world leaders ahead of COP26.
The letter highlights the integral role and impact the fashion industry can play in addressing
net zero and climate change goals, should leaders recognise this importance and act
accordingly to encourage and pursue change.
Whilst the fashion industry has contributed to harmful environmental practices andconditions, as such a key part of our global economy and of everyone’s lives, it needs toplay a prominent part in the solution.
The resourcefulness and creativity to tackle climate change exists already within theindustry, but requires the support of world leaders to recognise the potential it has tocontribute to resolving the climate crisis.
In a call for global governmental action and recognition, the letter highlights the needfor collective action, waste elimination, business responsibility, clothing skills
development and education and a shift towards business models that contribute to ajust transition towards a well-being economy.
1) Collective action to achieve net zero emissions by no later than 2050
2) Resourcefulness in waste elimination
3) Increase responsibility by businesses towards their global supply chains
4) Support skills development in education to encourage children to learn the necessary
skills to make, repair and reuse their clothes5) Frame any solutions to the climate emergency around business models which shift thefocus from profit and loss, to a just transition towards the well-being economy
Tamara Cincik, CEO of Fashion Roundtable: “COP26 is a fantastic opportunity to remind
the world’s leaders, not only of the importance that the fashion industry plays in the global
economy, but also that many of us are united in seeking new ways of doing business, whichplace people and planet first. The world’s precious resources are finite: we need to embed aresourceful and collectively responsible business model into how we shift from a linear to acircular economy. This call to action is a united voice and we hope that the world’s leaderstake this moment to address the climate crisis, with the solutions and far reaching policies it
requires from all of us.”
Fashion Revolution: “Human rights and the rights of nature are interconnected andinterdependent. We are part of the wider living world and our right to a healthy environment
depends on the health of our planet. We need a revolutionary shift in our relationships witheach other, with our clothes, within fashion supply chains, and with the natural world, for ourown prosperity and wellbeing, and for the health of our earth, rivers and oceans.”
Dilys Williams, Founder and Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion: “The collective
ingenuity of the fashion sector is world-changing and we have a very clear brief, set out byscience, citizens and nature’s screams. Fashion can put earth and equity at the heart of its
activities, but until the current licence to do harm is taken away, until legislation supports
restorative practices, all of the ingenuity in the world will be outsized by a lack of will tochange at world government level. A coalition exists in fashion, the signatories to this letterand more, we require specific action on the five points outlined at COP 26. The world iswatching; we want to make history, not to be history.”
Organisations who signed the call to action include the following:Note to Editors
Full list of signatories:
Fashion Roundtable, Fashion Revolution, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, Common
Objective, Eco-Age, The Sustainable Angle, Maisie Allum, Anti Copying in Design (ACID),Sandy Black, Boncamila Limited, BoyWonder, Molly Bruce-Gardyne, Fiona Carter,
Circulatam | 7191, Comitato Lady Lawyer Village, Community Clothing, Connor Hill Co. |Circular Brand Solutions, Deborah Cure Yonace, DEPLOY London, Dvora Photography,Fashion Capital, Fashion Enter, Fashion Impact Fund, Fashion Takes Action, Future FabricsExpo, Hubbub, Debbie Huntley, Justice In Fashion, Lab 2030, Labour Behind the Label,Lady Lawyer Fashion Archive, Lady Lawyer Foundation, Julie Leonard, Erin Lewis, Make it
British, Minycled, Monty & Co, Mike Musial, New Standard Institute, No Sweat, Other day ,Phoebe English, Pipet Design, Ran by nature, Rplanet, Amanda Sellers, Lucinda Shand,
Sustainable & Social, Sustainable Fashion Scotland, Kolbra Sveinbjornsson, ThePartnership, The Right Project, The Trampery, VICKISARGE, Wardrobe Crisis, Amelia
Windsor
About Fashion Revolution
Fashion Revolution is the world’s largest fashion activism movement, formed after the Rana
Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013 which killed over 1,100 people. Fashion
Revolution campaigns for a clean, safe, fair, transparent and accountable fashion industry
through research, education, collaboration, mobilisation and advocating for policy change.
Fashion Revolution is a global movement with country offices and voluntary teams in 90
countries.
Contact Details: For further information and interview requests, please contact:press@fashionrevolution.org
Images: Please download images here and credit where appropriate.