Eco Fashion World

The question of how the recession is affecting the social and environmental policies and practices of brands and retailers comes to mind frequently, especially when meeting CSR managers, product developers and buyers from our member companies.

I was especially concerned about the success of our Organic and Sustainable Textiles seminar held in Düsseldorf some time ago. Would there be enough interest? Would we have enough brands joining?

It came as quite a surprise to see the overwhelming response from European brands and retailers once we launched the invitation. The seminar was sold out with over 90 people attending from about 60 companies including representatives from Germany, The Netherlands, Macedonia, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland and Hong Kong. Stunningly, registrations were up on our previous trainings seminars. A great number of pressing issues were addressed reflecting growing interest and commitment to implementing environmentally friendly collections and socially responsible sourcing programs. The seminar covered a wide variety of topics from the different sustainable cotton options to certification and customer communications. The marketing session was certainly one of the highlights where we tried to identify the ethical consumer for fashion brands. Also the success cases from C&A, Jackpot and Kuyichi raised the participants’ interest.

As we were told, the seminar offered a great opportunity for networking and learning from other delegates. These events are also an excellent platform for the OE team to learn about developing concerns and new areas of interest in order to serve the sustainable textile community better. From my point of view the Düsseldorf seminar proved that, despite the difficult economic times, sustainability is here to stay and grow.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form