Pic: The Apparel Impact Institute
The Apparel Impact Institute, an organisation working for scalable solutions for the apparel and footwear industry, has unveiled a new initiative in Italy with an aim to set up a platform for Italian manufacturers to coordinate, fund and scale environmental programmes with measurable impact. A few luxury fashion brands have already joined the initiative.
The luxury fashion brands, Burberry and Stella McCartney, as well as the global luxury group, Kering, have joined forces with Aii to lead the effort.
Aii will also partner with an Italian NGO and local experts to facilitate positive environmental impact in Italy’s supply chain by bringing together brands, manufacturers, philanthropy and nonprofits to work in collaboration, sharing Aii’s programming framework and best practices.
Aii identifies, funds, scales and measures the apparel and footwear industry’s proven environmental impact solutions. The organisation plays a critical role as the technical clearing house for partner brands, manufacturers and philanthropic donors, validating and aggregating proven environmental initiatives. Its focus areas are energy, water and chemistry, all of which will be the focus in Italy.
“This partnership is important to the industry as it allows us to continue bringing Aii’s proven and future methodologies to Italy’s luxury apparel and footwear producers,” said Lewis Perkins, president, Aii. “Now is a critical moment to include environmental stewardship in the industry’s efforts to build back better through this work. We are anxious to begin implementing with our partners.”
Stella McCartney, a legacy partner of Aii’s Clean by Design programme, has a proven history of implementing this type of environmental effort. The brand played a leading role in bringing environmental programmes to various countries, including Italy, as long ago as 2013, and continues those efforts with this new partnership.
“At Burberry, we believe empowering suppliers is fundamental to building a more sustainable future for our industry,” Pam Batty, vice president, corporate responsibility at Burberry, said. “From equipping our Italian suppliers in transitioning to renewable energy to helping our wool producers restore farmland in Australia, we know it takes targeted action and cross-industry collaboration to make a meaningful systemic impact. This is why we are delighted to support Aii alongside fellow brand partners – it takes shared ambition to pursue our collective mission to make fashion’s supply chains more sustainable.”
Géraldine Vallejo, sustainability programme director at Kering, stated, “When we launched our Environmental Profit and Loss account (EP and L), we realised that over 90 per cent of our impact was outside our own operations. Since then, and to reach our target of a 40 per cent EP and L reduction throughout all our supply chain by 2025, we have been engaging persistently with our suppliers on environmental performance. This is how we started implementing Clean by Design five years ago in Italy, a programme with positive economical and environmental outcomes, that has already been adopted by more than 35 of our suppliers. It is now time for Kering to scale it up by joining forces with Aii and other companies to weave even further sustainable practices locally.”
One of the Aii’s goals for the Italy project is prioritising the issues. That means clarifying the high-impact environmental issues for manufacturers and establishing a system to drive continuous improvement. It also aims to unlock collective action opportunities by maximising shared stakeholder benefit to increase the pool of influence, expertise and funding available, and drive solution awareness by elevating the level of localised expertise to establish and sustain a market of best practice for environmental improvement.
“When we first conceptualised this project, we knew there would be nuances adapting our model for a new market and challenges in launching during uncertain economic times, but that didn’t stop us from moving ahead,” said Kurt Kipka, vice president of programmes, Aii. “This is an incredible group of leaders who are equally committed to achieving their environmental aspirations. The next phase of this work is recruiting 10-15 manufacturers to participate in the project and inviting more luxury brands to join in our efforts. Ultimately, we want to make sure we’re establishing a viable programme for Italian producers long term.”
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (SV)
The Apparel Impact Institute, an organisation working for scalable solutions for the apparel and footwear industry, has unveiled a new initiative in Italy with an aim to set up a platform for Italian manufacturers to coordinate, fund and scale environmental programmes with measurable impact. A few luxury fashion brands have already joined the initiative.