One of my heroes in business is Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. He has three straight talking recommendations for anyone wishing to develop an environmental policy, and we will follow his wise words:

  1. Get yourself a credible narrative
  2. Don’t sugarcoat your message. Be bold. If you believe it, say it.
  3. Be true to your message in what you do, not just what you say.

For me, the most credible narrative is being written by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Their work, encapsulated in the Sustainable Development Goals (shown in the Figure right), is delivering the best chance we have to collectively learn about climate change and develop the tools and methods to combat it. It is the strategy from which everything else will flow. As a very small company, in a very globalised and fragmented industry, we need to learn from and collaborate with our peers in order to succeed in this endeavour.

The UNFCCC have done the science, developed the policy, and are now beginning to lead industry sector engagement. One of the first industries they are helping is ours, the global fashion industry. The Board of John Smedley has agreed to commit our company to the recently developed Fashion Industry Charter drawn up by 73 of the largest global fashion brands. Our commitment letter is shown in full below. The primary commitment detailed in the charter is to reduce our Green House Gas (GHG) emissions by 30% over the next 10 years. In addition, there are numerous other commitments that you can read about in the Charter document which can be linked to below. Taken together, these form the basis of our policy.

Read Letter:

During 2018 fashion stakeholders meticulously worked to identify means in which the textile, clothing and fashion industry can move towards a commitment to climate action – the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action was created; containing the vision to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050…

 

 

 

Read documentation:

Today, we know we are a very long way from reaching the goals set out in the above documents. That said, we have laid out our honest intent and welcome the external pressure placed on us by the Fashion Industry Charter. The UN’s Fashion Charter group will 

grow, engage and produce best practice that we can both influence and follow. All of our subsequent actions will come from learning as we go and will drive us along the necessary path. We will report our actions and outcomes on these pages of our web site.”

– Ian Maclean, Managing Director