To ensure more sustainability in the fashion industry, a new Biodiversity Benchmark tool has launched to aid the fashion and textile industry and to improve the bearings its raw material choices have on environment.
The new Biodiversity tool is part of non-profit Textile Exchange’s Corporate Fiber and Materials Benchmark (CFMB) program, and was developed with The Biodiversity Consultancy and Conservation International and support from bio-based materials provider Sappi.
Highlighting nature in fibre and materials management and sourcing choices will convey long-term business profits, more robust livelihoods, health and wellbeing for societies, and safer boundaries between wild and managed lands and species, says the groups.
At the start of 2020, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report termed biodiversity loss as one of the top five dangers facing society.
In September, 77 political global leaders committed to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 at the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity in September, and over 1,000 corporations have signed up to the Business for Nature Coalition.
The CFMB has pursued corporate fibre and materials sourcing practices since its launch 5 years ago, encouraging the fashion and textile industry to accelerate the uptake of preferred materials such as organic cotton, recycled polyester, and preferred manmade cellulosics.
The program has around 200 participating brands and retailers, including Gucci, H&M Group, Norrøna, Patagonia, Tchibo and The North Face. In 2020, the CFMB opened to suppliers and manufacturers for the first time, and over 20 leading textile companies – including Birla Cellulose, Part of the Aditya Birla Group, Lenzing, The Schneider Group, Sulochana and World Textile Sourcing (WTS) – are taking part.
