Environmental organization Canopy has been making a name for itself with its Pack4Good initiative, which has been joined by dozens of well-known brands like Zalando, Mango and Fast Retailing to reduce the growing environmental footprint of paper packaging.
Now, Canopy has managed to unite 515 of the world’s top fashion designers and apparel brands, with combined annual sales of more than $857 billion. They have pledged to keep products that attack vital forests out of their supply chains and also want to encourage the production of low-carbon alternatives.
Newly added brands, joining industry giants such as Stella McCartney, H&M, Zara, PVH, Kering and Walmart include John Lewis & Partners, Wax London, Everlane, L’Estrange, Rachel Comey, BAM Clothing, Nique, Grain de Malice and BN3TH. Most brands that recently signed up are also members of Pack4Good.
Protection of forests and promotion of environmentally friendly alternatives
In addition to ensuring their products do not rely on the world’s most vital and biodiverse ecosystems, CanopyStyle signatories have also committed to investing in the development and use of low-carbon and environmentally friendly alternatives to deforestation, such as recycled textiles.
“We are proud to celebrate the remarkable progress made by the 500+ brand CanopyStyle collective. Together we have diverted almost half of viscose production from endangered forests, promoted conservation and the production of next-generation low-carbon textiles. The work is not done yet: In this decade of reversal, we will redouble our efforts to conserve old-growth and endangered forests, increase commercial production of circular alternatives, and accelerate climate action,” said Canopy CEO Nicole Rycroft in a press release.
“John Lewis & Partners is honored to be part of the CanopyStyle 500 and to join an initiative that has made such a huge impact in a short amount of time,” commented Marija Rompani, Director of Ethics and Sustainability at John Lewis. “Initiatives like these illustrate our commitment to preserving forests for the climate and biodiversity of our planet. CanopyStyle is an excellent complement to our sustainability work and we look forward to working together.”
Why our forests are so important
When CanopyStyle was founded, little was known about the hundreds of millions of trees felled each year for fabrics like rayon and viscose. To date, the initiative has ensured that 50 percent of the world’s viscose production is at low risk from originating from old-growth and endangered forests. She has also driven the transition to eco-friendly next-generation textiles, including work with the world’s first pulp mill using only textile waste as raw material, as well as small batches of viscose made from circular textiles by four of the world’s largest MMCF producers . The initiative, also working with local allies, has achieved initial protection and/or a moratorium on 11.4 million hectares of the world’s carbon-rich and biodiverse forests.
The use of trees to make fabric has more than doubled in the last 30 years and is expected to increase by another 50 to 60 percent over the next decade. This increased demand continues to threaten rare, old-growth forests, even though globally less than 20 percent of these vital ecosystems remain intact.
Forests are an important part of solving the climate problem as they are important carbon sinks. They are also home to most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. If the fashion industry continues to work together successfully to end deforestation and forest degradation in supply chains, it would avoid carbon losses equivalent to the total national emissions of a country like Switzerland, Guatemala or Denmark.