Whatever is agreed upon will ultimately impact our industry, and designers including Stella McCartney will be in Glasgow to discuss the urgent need for better regulation and support for fashion from governments. Still, with climate headlines worsening by the day, we have no choice but to be hopeful about COP26’s outcomes.
Tellingly, few of those governments’ pledges included new laws or regulations to achieve their goals. Their proposed measures would produce just one-seventh of the additional emissions cuts needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s easy to be skeptical of what will come of it a United Nations report earlier this week found that new climate pledges from a number of major governments-including the United States, Canada, the European Union, Argentina, Britain, and South Africa-are inadequate in mitigating disastrous climate change. We’re expecting that conversation to build at the COP26 summit in Glasgow over the next two weeks as world leaders negotiate an agreement to set a limit on global warming. We’re seeing it in Europe, to an increasing degree, but we certainly are not there yet in the U.S.” “We need to do the work of regulation at the country level, certainly at the international level, and create structures for corporate accountability in the supply chain. “B Corp is not a substitute for regulation, there’s no question about that,” Barboni Hallik says. If a company was fined for treating its clothes with noxious chemicals, or for failing to consider the end-of-life of its fabrics, or for creating misleading marketing campaigns around sustainability, then we would be more likely to see dramatic change in those areas. With real lines in the sand, you’d be able to weed out the businesses that are actually operating within the bounds of the planet from the ones that are inherently unable to do that.” “But we desperately need government-regulated standards, and there need to be actual fees and penalties for failing to achieve them. “I think tools like B Corp are very important as quasi-regulatory spaces where the right standards are being figured out,” Maxine Bédat, the founder of the New Standard Institute, explains. Government regulations and policies, on the other hand, could result in swift action. That inevitably takes us back to Hearst’s point about fashion being unregulated: As long as it’s up to individual brands to voluntarily draw down their emissions, pay living wages, phase out chemicals, and do about one thousand other things, the industry isn’t going to change as quickly as it needs to. If a company slips below 80 points, it loses its certification, but only suffers reputational damage there’s no penalty or legal recourse. It’s a legal designation, but B Corp’s standards are not legally enforceable setting goals and meeting targets is still at the discretion of brands. It’s worth pointing out that Barboni Hallik and her team weren’t legally obligated to boost their local engagement just because they’re a B Corp. “Those aren’t things you just flip a switch on, but it’s an area of increased focus for us.” “It shifted the lens for us to be more active in supporting our local industry,” Barboni Hallik adds. That feedback spurred a partnership between Another Tomorrow and Custom Collaborative, a program that trains and empowers women from low-income and immigrant communities in New York to design, sew, and sell sustainable clothing. The B Corp process reinforced Another Tomorrow’s strengths-supply-chain transparency, animal welfare, chemical management-and revealed areas that could use attention, like engaging with the brand’s local community and creating jobs. It’s an incredible tool to channel positive intention into action, and to make brands think twice before they say something they can’t substantiate.” In the absence of something like this, you’re just hearing a lot of piecemeal claims that may not represent how a company actually operates. “I call it an architecture for accountability. “B Corp was always a core part of our founding principles,” Barboni Hallik says. The process can take years for large brands that are working backwards or wrestling with global supply chains, but Another Tomorrow had the benefit of starting from scratch with rigorous standards in place. By June of last year, it had earned its B Corp badge. Of all the clothing brands that are B Corp-certified, the only other luxury proposition is Another Tomorrow, founded by Vanessa Barboni Hallik in January of 2020.
0 kommentar(er)
