The Global Fashion Industry Joins Forces at Copenhagen Fashion Summit

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, May 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Key players from the fashion industry gathered in Copenhagen today for the world's leading annual event on sustainability, Copenhagen Fashion Summit. By the end of the day global leaders like Inditex, H&M, Adidas, Kering, M&S and Bestseller had signed a commitment to accelerate a circular business model. 

     (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/511026/Global_Fashion_Agenda.jpg )

A significant outcome of Copenhagen Fashion Summit, which took place today on 11 May 2017 from 9am to 6pm, was the launch of The Call to Action for a Circular Fashion System, presented on stage by Global Fashion Agenda, the Summit organiser.

Eva Kruse, CEO of Global Fashion Agenda, states:

"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."

Signatories of the Call to Action commit to defining a circular strategy, to setting targets for 2020 and to reporting on the progress of implementing the commitment. Various global leaders like Inditex, H&M, Adidas, Kering, M&S and Bestseller pledged their support.

800 decision-makers gathered 

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

First-ever UN resolution on fashion 

In the two days prior to Copenhagen Fashion Summit, students from around the world worked to draft a UN resolution, the first ever on fashion. Today, they hit the stage to present the draft, which will be presented to the UN in New York later this year.

New global report: Pulse of the Fashion Industry  

Earlier this week, ahead of the Summit, Global Fashion Agenda, in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, published a groundbreaking 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.

These and many more of the report's findings are now available for download.

Images from this year's Copenhagen Fashion Summit are already now available at: copenhagenfashionsummit.com/press/. Click on "image bank" for high-resolution images. Next week, all films of the stage sessions will be available for download.

For videos in broadcast quality or any other specific requests for images, please contact our press department at [email protected].??

Please remember to credit Copenhagen Fashion Summit when using images and videos.

SOURCE Global Fashion Agenda