Sustainable fashion as a concept and initiative, (New to this term? please refer to our earlier blog post to understand the term ‘Sustainable Fashion’ better), is definitely gaining steam – especially in the Western world. The good news is that as a market response to the consumer consciousness growing in the West, clothing production hubs like India are seeing positive innovations introduced across the fashion value chain. These innovations incorporate both socially and environmentally responsible elements.
While a vast majority of these innovations are in the idea/incubation stage, we see incredible promise in what can be a textile production and retailing revolution. As an impact investor, Caspian includes the fashion transition issue in the fold of challenges it wishes to solve through impact investment. We are keen to offer our range of flexible financing options to help Sustainable Fashion entrepreneurs achieve their goals.
As a part of our learning and exploration of the fashion/textile sector, we at Caspian reached out to social activists, industry platforms, and Indian cloth/fashion innovators. Fashion for Good a platform that collaborates with the entire fashion ecosystem and supports innovations that can sustainably transform the clothing industry helped us to not only understand the real-time changes taking place at a sector level but also connected us to individual innovator firms engaged in developing, piloting and implementing unique solutions, technologies, and production techniques. These interactions have deepened our understanding of the inherent historical problems plaguing the sector and the solutions that entrepreneurs and innovators are coming up with to solve these problems.
The traditional Fashion Value Chain typically starts from the procurement of raw materials and reaches an abrupt stop once the fully finished clothes reach the store (retailing). However, as far as the sustainable fashion value chain is concerned, this is not the end of the line. The chain continues to post the retail stage with activities such as recycling or upcycling of used clothes. Not to mention, the changes incorporated within the existing value chain that reduce negative environmental and social impact are also regarded as part of the Sustainable fashion transition.
A closed-loop production cycle where everything ideally feeds back into the value chain supports the concept of a ‘circular economy’. A circular economy is a concept that intends to create a restorative or regenerative production cycle for goods and commodities. This concept envisions production cycle changes such as
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- Redesigning of value chains to encourage a shift towards the use of renewable energy
- Eliminating use of toxic chemicals and material in production
- Reduction and possible elimination of waste through the superior design of products and production systems
- Upcycling/recycling of waste that can re-enter the production cycle as raw material
In essence, a circular economy is an idea that hopes to reinvent the conventional ‘linear economy’ model – which typically utilises natural resources as raw material, transforms them into products, and abruptly ends the cycle by disposing of them. We were excited to come across innovations taking place either keeping in mind the circular value chain concept or a socially progressive outlook towards worker rights.
Some of the areas of innovation we came across are detailed below:
Alternate Materials:
The production of certain textile fabrics like cotton have been known to take a relatively heavy toll on the environment either directly or indirectly . Some innovators are experimenting with alternate natural fibers that are more eco-friendly, naturally available in abundance (in a particular region) and offer very similar if not identical comfort and cloth ‘feel’ to a consumer. Larger clothing and textile corporations are collaborating with these firms to run pilot programs that utilise these alternate fibres in yarn production. On similar lines, innovators are also experimenting by replacing chemical colouring dyes with natural dyes and colouring agents.
Transparency and Accountability:
Conscious consumers are increasingly interested to know the origin, quality, ethics, safety and environmental and social impact of the products they consume. In line with this growing requirement, producers are making additional efforts to adopt better practices and disclose the same. Innovators, ideally with backgrounds in technology and blockchain, have stepped in as ‘product tracing’ service providers to larger textile producers and garment manufacturers. They use technologies such as RFID (Radio frequency identification) and blockchain to monitor the origination of raw material and its movement along the supply chain, while capturing information on the quality and the people/companies who work on the product.
Community based production and localized supply chains:
Instead of the conventional large-scale production approach that is typically considered the norm in clothing manufacturing, some innovators have consciously decided to run ‘micro’ production units that can serve the local community in multiple ways. These solutions involve providing livelihood to the locals (example: Women SHG members being employed to source raw material) through involvement in the production process and re-adopting traditional local production techniques (example: handloom).
Cleaner/precision production:
In the garment manufacturing industry, both pre-consumer and post-consumer waste generation is a major concern and challenge. During the process of fabric cutting at the garment factory, it is estimated that nearly 10-25% of the fabric is wasted. Innovators have been involved in adopting and developing higher precision technology that significantly reduces fabric wastage. One such technology development is laser cutting – the use of high-precision lasers instead of conventional blades for cutting fabrics.
Upcycling/Recycling:
A section of innovators are focussing on developing technologies or methods to upcycle/recycle the waste generated during different stages of the textile production process. The challenge here arises from the fact that not all waste is directly reusable in its raw form. Finding ways to efficiently and affordably segregate fabric and cloth waste depending on its quality, market price, and technical use have attracted a number of passionate innovators.
Second-hand retail and rental solutions:
Rising consciousness about the need to change the ‘single use’ approach to clothing in general, and in particular festive wear (example – wedding dresses) has given rise to innovators who provide rental and second-hand retail solutions. Online aggregators who act as intermediaries between people looking to sell and buy used clothes and those who rent out wedding wear and other occasional wear are gaining a lot of traction.
Distribution and Packaging:
Every supply chain, including the cloth and textile chain, involves the movement of goods and materials which are packed in the best possible way to ensure minimal damage and at the same time appeal to customers’ senses. Such materials are typically made of cardboard and plastic, well known to be carbon footprint contributors. Packaging innovators are experimenting with recycled, biodegradable, reusable and other green materials, thus trying to reduce plastic pollution on land and water.
We at Caspian, understand that accounting for environmental and social costs while still wanting to run a profitable business can be quite a challenge. We are here to play our part in financing this transition, just as we have in other sectors like clean energy. We are on the lookout for fashion/textile innovators and entrepreneurs who are fuelling this transition with their zeal and commitment. Given the broad impact criteria that we have at Caspian, if there is a financing gap and the candidate falls into our own investment criteria, we would be more than happy to partner, fund and support these firms.
Please do reach out to us for any possible Sustainable Fashion leads or if you yourself are a ‘clothpreneur’ making a difference.
This article is a summary of our views based on our secondary research and interaction with various Sustainable Fashion entrepreneurs and accelerators. We are thankful to Fashion for Good for engaging with us and helping us understand this sector better.
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