Vaela is an entirely sustainable business and, as a start-up, we should have no excuses not to be. We have no supertanker to turn or operating model to flip. But, as a business that must inevitably partner with established suppliers and manufacturers, we’ve been surprised by the opacity of the supply chain. It’s taken us time to find those companies that are really addressing the dilemmas facing the industry.
In the course of our journey, we’ve found some incredible businesses like @CandianiDenim in Italy. Founded in 1938, it has transformed itself into the World's most sustainable denim mill creating amazing fabrics. At the other and of the scale, @Doppelhaus is a new Anglo/German business taking a radically different approach to textile design. They ‘hack’ highly efficient non-woven textile production techniques to make natural, ecological fabrics at lower environmental and production costs.
Although behind the vanguard, it’s clear that fashion’s biggest companies are talking about environmental and social responsibility more than ever before. These are businesses do have supertankers to turn but the changes required to avoid catastrophic climate change and to address broader social imperatives – such as workers’ rights – are starting to happen.
Measuring Fashion’s Sustainability Gap — Download the Report Now
"Brands are talking about sustainability more than ever before, but does their rhetoric stand up to scrutiny? BoF’s new report, The BoF Sustainability Index, benchmarks 15 of the industry’s biggest companies against ambitious environmental and social goals and finds fashion is falling short."