Hosts: Christina Binkley, Rachel Kibbe & Shilla Kim-Parker
Category: ☁️ Carbon Reduction | Fashion Climate Gap
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[4:57] CB: “The Apparel Impact Institute (Aii) […] put out a number of how much money we need to spend to reach some climate goals that have been set out by the UN. […] We got to cut fashion's carbon emissions in half by 2030, hit net zero by 2050. And they're estimating that it takes a trillion dollars to get there. […] In March, H&M and Lululemon each made a commitment to contribute to a $250 million fund that AII has pledged to start. They each said […] they would put in $10 million. […] H&M made $23 billion in revenues in 2021, Lululemon […] 4.4 billion.”
[6:51] SK: “$250 million in the context of that trillion dollars, that's 0.025% of their own goalpost. Now, I don't want to be overly defeatist about it, because I think something is better than nothing. And I think there is power in H&M and Lululemon putting their names on something like this, I think that is a big deal.”
[11:26] RK: “Why is fashion so uniquely difficult to clean up? […] The sprawling global supply chain of fashion […] employs 75 million people around the globe, from […] agriculture to mining. […] It depends on this low cost, high volume, endless growth model. […] The supply chain is always moving, chasing the lowest price to produce our clothes. So how do you track that? How do you change it? It becomes very complicated. […] 96% of our emissions come from […] scope three emissions.”
[18:07] RK: “50% of those scope three emissions are in something called tier three, which is material production, […] [so] making fabric. […] That particular part of the supply chain is fueled by coal. […] And so this isn't about putting solar panels on top of buildings. It's about governments, infrastructure, policy of those areas where the production is happening and changing all of that is a big lift.”
[19:14] SK: “I think there's something else going on with the funding too. […] Women drive 70 to 80% of consumer decisions. In climate tech, VCs invested $40 billion in 2021 across 600 deals. Single digit percentage went into consumer and within that apparel. […] [Fashion] is a trillions of dollars of industry, it's a substantial contributor to carbon and waste. And I do feel like there is a strong correlation in funding when something is viewed as a women's industry versus when it's not.”
[30:01] SK: “Ecommerce is still only around a fifth of total global retail sales. We are wired to love shopping in person. […] There are different kinds of trade offs between shopping in person and shopping online.”
Rating: ☁️☁️☁️
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify | Google
🕰️ 52 min | 🗓️ 06/23/2022
✅ Time saved: 50 min
Additional Links:
Article: “H&M, Lululemon Back $250 Million Fashion Climate Fund” (Sourcing Journal, 2022)
Report: Decarbonizing Fashion (Aii/Fashion for Good, 2021)
