How to Decarbonise your organisation – A Fashion Declares Webinar
Hosted by Fashion Declares’ Founder Safia Minney and with a brilliant panel of experts in the field:
– Nishanth Chopra of Oshadi (https://oshadi.in)
– Alicia Thew of Green Element (https://www.greenelement.co.uk)
– Debbie Luffman of ThinkCircular (https://www.think-circular.eu)
– Beba Greer of Reformation (https://www.thereformation.com)
– Tony Burns of ACS Clothing (https://acsclothing.co.uk)
Summary:
1. Safia contextualises the need to reduce GHG emissions to avert climate and social collapse. The global fashion industry is responsible for over 2 billion tonnes of GHG emissions, between 2-4% of global GHG emissions.
2. Nishanth Chopra shows us around his organic farm in South India, walking us through the processes of nurturing the soil. Nature-based solutions like these are crucial to decarbonisation. Nishanth speaks on the relationship between nature and farming needing to be “not an extraction but an exchange”.
One acre of each of Oshadi’s farms sequesters up to five metric tonnes of carbon. Oshadi also uses hand-weaving, which is carbon neutral, compared with using power looms, and their spinners rely on solar energy.
3. Alicia explains the basics for understanding scopes 1, 2 and 3 and how fashion companies can start to map and reduce their carbon emissions.
Scope 1: All direct emissions, gas, on-sight heating, vehicle fuel.
Scope 2: Indirect emissions, electricity, heat, steam.
Scope 3: Accounts for all other indirect emissions that occur in the value chain.
Once you have identified your carbon footprint, you can start thinking about setting science-based targets, to align with 1.5 degrees global warming.
4. Debbie focusses on her previous role as Product Director at Finisterre. Finisterre worked with Green Element on their own carbon footprint project. In mapping out Finisterre’s carbon footprint, Debbie highlights how the realm of decarbonisation is “a very noise space.”
With Green Element’s help, Finisterre began effectively tracking all their emissions, across all three scopes. The results suggested that the emissions largely came from the supply chain, which is typical of a fashion brand.
5. Beba Greer explains that Reformation has an ambitious goal to be climate positive by 2025. In order to reach this goals, they needed to first calculate their carbon footprint. And similarly to most companies, they found that the bulk of their emissions (98%) fall into scope 3.
Reformation identified 4 hotspots they need to focus on to reach their climate positive target:
1. Better Materials
2. Circular Practices
3. Transportation
4. Energy Management
6. Tony explains that ACS enable circular fashion, facilitating circular business models of clothing rental, resale, and repair. ACS work with ASOS, Next, Moss Bros, Reflaunt, Rotaro Resale, L.K. Bennett, My Wardrobe HQ, Hirestreet, Bundlee, Hobbs and Nudie Jeans, helping with the logistics of several rental brands.
Tony goes into how ACS has begun to decarbonise their own operations, using the steps outlined by Alicia to map and minimise their emissions.
Upcoming Fashion Declares webinars:
How to Promote Social Justice and Equality, 4th May, 4-5pm BST
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/258649657087
Low Impact Materials – Biodiversity and Regenerative Farming, 8th June, 4-5pm BST
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/313718248727
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/fashiondeclares
Resources:
The State of Fashion 2018 – McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/renewed%20optimism%20for%20the%20fashion%20industry/the-state-of-fashion-2018-final.pdf
IPCC Reports: https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/
It’s over for fossil fuels: IPCC spells out what’s needed to avert climate disaster, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/04/its-over-for-fossil-fuels-ipcc-spells-out-whats-needed-to-avert-climate-disaster?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Apparel and footwear – Science Based Targets: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/sectors/apparel-and-footwear
Reformation Carbon Footprint Report: https://www.thereformation.com/sustainability/what-is-refscale.html
source