United Nations Climate Change
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About Sustaining Voices

Sourcing Journal’s Sustaining Voices celebrates the efforts the apparel industry is making toward securing a more environmentally responsible future through creative innovations, scalable solutions and forward-thinking initiatives that are spinning intent into action.

Overview

The Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action is pushing the industry collectively to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Deep Dive

The fashion industry is a carbon-spewing beast. It currently accounts for 8.1 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions—or greater than all international airline flights and maritime shipping trips combined, according to environmental consultancy Quantis.

In December, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—also known as UN Climate Change—united 40 fashion-industry heavyweights, including Adidas, Burberry, Esprit, Guess, Gap, Hugo Boss, H&M, Inditex, Kering, Levi Strauss, Puma, Stella McCartney and Target to sign a landmark commitment. The goal? To address the climate impact of the fashion sector across its entire value chain by going “beyond previous industry-wide commitments.”

Based on the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action comprises 16 principles and targets, including decarbonizing the production phase, selecting climate-friendly and sustainable materials, promoting low-carbon transport, improving consumer dialogue and awareness, exploring circular business models and working with the financing community and policymakers to catalyze scalable solutions.

Unlike pacts before it, the charter underscores “concrete progress” on time-bound, measurable commitments. Signatories, for instance, have agreed to collectively reduce their emissions by 30 percent by 2030 before zeroing them out altogether through reductions and offsets by 2050. Other objectives include phasing out coal-fired boilers or other sources of coal-fired heat and power generation in their own companies and direct suppliers from 2025.

Expanding the charter’s scope, a slate of trade and non-governmental organizations, including Business for Social Responsibility, China National Textile and Apparel Council, Global Fashion Agenda, Global Organic Textile Standard, the Outdoor Industry Association, Textile Exchange, World Wildlife Fund International and Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals, have also thrown in their support.

“The charter, which is open for other companies and organizations to join, recognizes the crucial role that fashion plays on both sides of the climate equation; as a contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions, and as a sector with multiple opportunities to reduce emissions while contributing to sustainable development,” UN Climate Change said in a statement.


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