This week, international environmental organization Canopy released an announced that over 400 brands and retailers that are now part of CanopyStyle: a game-changing fashion and forest conservation initiative that is transforming the fashion industry’s viscose supply chain. More than 200 million trees are cut down every year to produce fashion fabrics like viscose and rayon. Many of these originate from the world’s most important and carbon-rich forest ecosystems. CanopyStyle is galvanizing the fashion sector to change that.
In just the past few months, the initiative has added global heavyweights LVMH and its 75 luxury Maisons, sportswear brand Puma, Chinese logistics titan Li & Fung, Indian megabrand FlipKart, and Indian fashion leader House of Anita Dongre. Just days ago, 14 more brands became the newest CanopyStyle partners. Almost 200 of these new brand partners have joined CanopyStyle in the past 18-months, indicating the growing urgency to find climate solutions.
“CanopyStyle is transforming the viscose supply chain in real time with our 400 brand partners leading the charge. This is exactly the pace and scale of change that we need to see across all supply chains,” said Nicole Rycroft, Canopy’s Executive Director. “We’re confident that with the ‘CanopyStyle 400’ we can make the next decade one of solutions and preservation of the world’s forests. There is urgent work to be done.”
“As one of the first partners of CanopyStyle, Inditex is proud to see that more and more organizations join this important endeavour to leverage ever greater environmental gains for the benefit of our climate and species. This collective and pre-competitive effort is bringing a great value to protect the environment at a global scale,” said Luis Coloma, Head of Environmental Sustainability at Inditex.
“Being a signatory to CanopyStyle has allowed us to take real action that aligns with our policies, and positions us alongside 400 of our peers who also advocate for forest conservation around the globe and inspire us to keep pushing in this direction,” said fashion designer Mara Hoffman.
The initiative is already making a real world impact. To date, producers responsible for 90% of global viscose supply have developed commitments to stop sourcing from the world’s Ancient and Endangered Forests in response to the CanopyStyle initiative. Fifty-two percent of global production is now documented to Canopy’s “green shirt” criteria – these viscose manufacturers have acted to be at low risk for sourcing from Ancient and Endangered Forests. As a result of CanopyStyle, several major global producers are now manufacturing man-made cellulosic fibre (MMCF) with low-impact alternative fibre such as recycled textiles – the most significant production shift in this supply chain over the past 50 years.
