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Global names sign up to Circular Fashion System at Copenhagen summit

Lauretta Roberts
12 May 2017

Many of fashion's biggest names made a commitment to improving sustainable practices by signing up to The Call to Action for a Circular Fashion System, presented at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit yesterday by Global Fashion Agenda, the summit organiser's.

By the end of the day names such as Inditex, H&M, Adidas, Kering, M&S and Bestseller had all signed a commitment to accelerate a circular business model. By signing Call to Action the businesses have committed to defining a circular strategy, to setting targets for 2020 and to reporting on the progress of implementing the commitment.

"I'm very pleased that some of the world's leading and biggest companies signed our Call to Action for a Circular Fashion System. I take this as a clear sign that the industry is not only aware of the need to change and the need to strive towards a closed loop system, but also ready to act," said Global Fashion Agenda CEO Eva Kruse.

The summit's nine-hour programme was kicked off by sustainability leader and co-founder of the Cradle-to-Cradle movement, William McDonough, who proclaimed that "being less bad is not being good". The nine-hour programme, included more than 50 high level speakers, including Tiffany & Co. CEO Michael KowalskiThe New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, circular economy authority Dame Ellen MacArthur, founder of Eco Age Livia Firth, fashion designer Prabal Gurung and Hugo Boss CEO Mark Langer.

Earlier this week, ahead of the Summit, Global Fashion Agenda, in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, published an in-depth assessment of the fashion industry's environmental and social performance – the first edition of the Pulse of the Fashion Industry report.

The 139-page report shows that the industry's sustainability pulse is weak - scoring only 32 out of 100 points - and that especially small and medium-sized firms, which represent about half of the market, have done little to improve their impact. The report is the first of its kind to ever use data from the HIGG Index, the world's leading standard in measuring sustainability performance.

The report is available to download here.

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