RE/GENERATE IMPACT the future of ​‘sustainable’ fashion

Is there a future for ​‘sustainable’ fashion? Insights from the 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit

Of course there is! The 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit is Germany’s most progressive platform for cross-disciplinary communication between researchers, innovators, and the fashion industry’s stakeholders. The 202030 Summit aims to bridge the gap between sustainable innovations and the industry’s need for transformation through guidelines. 

You couldn’t attend the 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit? Looking for a recap of the events? We’ve got you covered with our insights!

RE/GENERATE IMPACT Shaping the future of fashion at the 202030 Summit 

The 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit by Max Gilgenmann and Magdalena Schraffin has once again set the stage for transformative discussions and groundbreaking innovations in the fashion industry. This year’s Summit brought together visionary designers, sustainability advocates, industry leaders in fashion tech, and forward-thinking brands to explore the future of fashion. Over two inspiring days, attendees delved into pressing topics such as next-gen materials, more circular business models, Digital Product Passports, traceability tech and much more. 

From thought-provoking panel discussions and interactive community classes, the Summit highlighted some of the industry’s strides toward a more sustainable future. Join us as we recap some of the key takeaways from this year’s 202030 – The Berlin Fashion Summit. 

A huge leap forward was the announcement of Scott Lipinski of the Fashion Council, sharing their vision on how they will implement the Copenhagen Fashion Week Sustainability Requirements for the Fashion Weeks in Berlin. 

RE/PORT: Next Gen Materials: The Future of Leather?

There has to be a change in the fashion industry, that’s clear. But how do next-gen materials come into play?

Polyester: an example of how not to

Polyester production has doubled in volume over the last few years, and managing to surpass cotton. This material is very destructive, contributing to 32% of microplastic pollution affecting our oceans and marine life. Participants of the summit mostly agreed that we need to move away from fossil fuels and animal-derived products and look at natural and plant-based materials. These so-called next-generation fabrics are non-plastic, non-synthetic and vegan. These next-gen materials can be used instead of more harmful materials such as polyester or leather. Additionally, we must avoid using petroleum at all costs during production processes. As Meike Schützek from Ocean Now emphasized in her presentation, we must ​“put the planet over profit.” 

Next-generation fabrics or ​“next-gen” materials are non-plastic, non-synthetic and vegan fabrics that serve as ethical and sustainable alternatives to conventional fabrics for use in fashion, shoes, cars and home products.

Giving materials a chance to be reused

Talking about materials and waste, the experts pointed out that the industry also needs to focus on producing high-quality products and choosing quality over quantity. The main issue in working towards more circular business models lies in the type of materials used during production. Quality garments have a longevity factor, making it easier to reuse the materials and prolong the lifespan of an item. In contrast, the low-quality materials widely used in fast fashion are non-reusable. They break faster, making repair and resale difficult. This decline in quality over the past few years has been detrimental to sustainability efforts, creating difficulty for textile recycling.

‘The quality of clothing made by fast fashion is so low it doesn’t even have a shot.’ – Liz Ricketts, The Or Foundation

#StopWasteColonialism: Paving the way for a fair EPR

This poses a significant issue in countries like Ghana. Many people assume that the clothes entering countries such as Ghana are all used and ready to wear. However, the reality is that most of these clothes require a substantial investment of time and money to be repaired before they can be used again. The necessary infrastructure for such repairs, which is available in Europe, is often also lacking in African countries. As a result, these ​‘unusable’ clothes accumulate and create mountains of waste.

The industry should also start pushing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) harder. This approach ensures that producers are responsible for a product throughout its entire lifespan until it becomes waste. Currently, producers’ responsibility ends once a product is sold, making them less concerned about where it eventually ends up. Implementing EPR would encourage more sustainable practices and help address the environmental challenges posed by the fashion industry. 

RE/CONNECTING: Digital Product Passports – Challenges and Opportunities 

Our founder Niki has been progressing the fashion industry by introducing 100% transparency and traceability at honestby in 2011. Ever since transparency and traceability have become the new standard for more sustainable fashion, and the European law requiring full traceability is expected by 2027. Both PEF Product Environmental Footprint tools and Traceability tools, as well as care and recycling instructions, could be combined into a DPP. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a tool that provides information about a product throughout its entire value chain. 

In short, the DPP tracks the supply chain of a product for the consumers and gives insights on what to do with your garment. Extensive data collection is necessary to make this tool work, which can be challenging. At the same time, the DPP offers an opportunity to rethink products at every step of the value chain and make changes towards a more sustainable product lifecycle. Both stakeholders and consumers need to digest this extensive data.

Agathe Roussel from Fairly Made emphasizes that with the DPP, it is crucial not just to work with a sustainability team but to enforce sustainability topics across all teams and departments to drive change. She further discussed how suppliers should be connected with customers by providing supplier traceability, which is possible thanks to the product passport. After all, everything starts with the supplier, as they provide the materials to make products.

Sabine Paulsen from COSH! explained how the passport is a great tool in support of the Green Claims Directive and for customers to get real and viable information, creating transparency in the supply chain and clarifying what can be done with products. On top of that, it helps build stronger relationships between stakeholders, since they must work closely together to achieve this. Collaboration is key!

“COSH is following DPP’s on the foot as there are hundreds of players on the market, some with huge funding and clientèle and others without. Some are very extensive and reliable, and others less. They must also be regulated and checked upon. Not only how they calculate and produce but equally on the data collection. What are the feedback loops and are brands able to just fill out data and should they prove this data before it is shown to the end consumer on a label?” Niki de Schryver, Founder COSH!

Sabine Paulsen, CSR-expert for COSH! states: ​“COSH! is collecting a lot of details from the brand’s suppliers already, gathering as much proof as possible and really questioning claims brands make. This is happening to spot breaches with the Green Claims Directive. The difference between COSH! And DPP tools are that our paying client is the final retailer and not the brand itself. Retailers request us to do 1 ‑2 screenings of brands per year. As such, we aim to be more independent than DPP as our revenue is not directly dependent on the brand.” On top of that, the data interconnects between retailers and countries, making conscious shopping easy for consumers even before deciding which stores to go to. 

Customers are already wary of how truthful companies are with green claims circulating everywhere, there are so many certificates, customers no longer know which ones are legitimate. With the Green Claims Directive penalizing companies if the communication is not 100% in line with the directive, green hushing is on the rise; meaning more and more companies doing good are too afraid to communicate their actions. This has a negative spiral as by being silent we can’t inspire any longer. 

To make the digital product passport work, harmonisation is needed in the way data gets collected and processed, the panellists agree. Roman Houlbreque (Retraced) pointed out that there are currently two tools for collecting data. This needs to change, the manner of collecting and the format must be standardized so that people can compare the data properly. 

There are numerous stakeholders and working groups involved in the creation of each digital product passport. This ensures every voice is heard at every step of the product chain, making the passport much more feasible. This helps rebuild trust between companies and their customers. 

Data collection is already happening everywhere, but the methods and organization are still far from perfect. The collection of data and the processing are still very slow. Companies should start digitalizing every step and every interaction with their stakeholders to streamline the process and enable real-time decision-making based on collected data. 

Barcamp community knowledge

At the barcamp on Wednesday afternoon a group led by Niki de Schryver, founder of COSH!, discussed the different pitfalls and opportunities of the DPP. Two researchers from different independent universities discovered that 79% of consumers don’t trust any ​‘sustainability’ tags or hangtags on garments. Niki reports that they went into detail discussing which traits make a Digital Product Passport look reliable and what would gain consumer trust. 

A big Fashion Brand that joined the conversation from the Netherlands shared her internal experience. ​“We did a full traceability on one of our webshop pages and measured the clicks. Only 0,005% of website users clicked to read it. So from a marketing perspective, we don’t see the point. We are rather starting with eliminating all tags on our garments to save resources” 

So we are very curious to get your opinion on which traceability or sustainability tool and visualisation would you trust most? Please do comment in the social media posts with your numbers 1 – 5.

RE/BRAND x RE/TAIL: How to Sell Sustainability not Souls

‘Let’s be transparent, but let that not be the only thing we have to share.’ – Thimo Schwenzfeier, Conscious Fashion Store.

Thimo Schwenzfeier (Conscious Fashion Store) emphasises that storytelling is key in the fashion industry. The right message has to be conveyed. Big commercial brands succeed very well in sharing their story and wording it in a very positive way. As long as the more sustainable brands, who are part of the same industry, are not following that same path of storytelling, they won’t be as successful as they could be.

Niki De Schryver (CEO COSH!) adds that as sustainability advocates, we know on a global scale there needs to be a move towards degrowth with all citizens. Yet our voices are heard mainly in the sustainable bubble. This also contributes to the fact that there are fewer sales in sustainable fashion at the moment. If we want to succeed at driving circularity to the next level, we need more people buying into circular products or regenerative materials to scale the good initiatives. In conclusion, more people need to get aboard the more sustainable and more circular fashion train before we can push degrowth.

‘Let’s do a reality check. We need to address that the impact we have in the sustainable fashion scene is not even as close as we think it is.’ – Thimo Schwenzfeier, Conscious Fashion Store.

Selling their souls might be a phrase many brands striving for sustainability resonate with. Consider how much the big players in the market, like Shein, Zara and Temu, sell daily compared to smaller impact-driven brands. It’s just a fraction of those sales. This can be very discouraging for those wanting to make an impact in the industry. So we mustn’t be afraid to positively share the impact we make and sell products.

‘We are not here to just educate, but also to give people a choice.’ – Guillerno Verela, TwoThirds.

There needs to be more information out there for customers to make well-informed choices. This is where the Digital Product Passport can come into play once more. To change the industry, we should not push people into making more sustainable decisions but should provide them with the right information and the option to choose for themselves. We should be welcoming to all those that want to start shopping more consciously, but don’t know how or where to start. We even should welcome those who don’t want to join. There is an awakening, with people realizing what’s going on with our planet and starting to make more conscious decisions.

COSH! is also trying to introduce new buying habits and ways to optimize wardrobes. For example, by encouraging people to reuse pieces they initially forgot about. COSH! helps people save their money by digitalizing their wardrobes through the digital wardrobe app, encouraging them to re-wear what they already have. The next step is making users realize the cost per wear for every item, comparable to the viral ​‘girl math’ trend. The cost per wear reveals how well-made an item is and whether it can be worn frequently before it starts to break. This will hopefully create a shift in mindset in the long term, making people realise buying better is not more expensive. 

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