Schedule 2024

The global fashion industry will be required to reduce emissions by 50% to meet the 1.5 degree target by 2030. 2025 is the year that all nations will submit their updated national climate targets and strategies to the UN for all sectors. These Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are submitted every five years. The goal is to limit temperature increase and have robust adaptation and mitigation plans in play across all sectors.

Fashion and textiles is not currently recognised as a formal industry in the UK’s climate targets. Join us to establish the foundations of a roadmap for decarbonising the British fashion industry and understand how business, both multinationals and SMEs, can take action to support the UK’s ambitious climate targets.

This session will delve into the significant opportunities for fashion businesses to strengthen their efforts through science-based carbon targets and carbon reduction plans and highlight the importance of climate finance in driving system-wide change. 

Collectively, consumers play a key role in advocating for the broad and systemic change required for the fashion sector to reach its sustainability targets. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), once 3.5% of the population are mobilised on an issue, far-reaching change becomes possible. Further, only 10-30% of committed individuals are required to set new social norms.

This session will highlight the powerful role of storytelling and sustainability communications from brands and retailers to influence this shift. We will explore the brands and retailers using their platforms to empower customers - from those enabling the public to challenge businesses and policymakers for greater accountability, to those providing access to opportunities to help support change or giving future generations a voice in decisions being made.

Further, in response to the EU's Green Claims Directive aimed to combat greenwashing, UK businesses must comply with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidelines. These regulations require companies to substantiate their environmental claims with scientific evidence to ensure transparency and trust with consumers.

Decoupling is the process of increasing economic output while reducing negative environmental impacts. As product cycles accelerate and inventory grows, the fashion industry faces pressure to decouple traditional business growth from resource use and inefficiency. This session will explore how decoupling can help brands address inefficient use of resources and shift their focus to improve profit margins by reducing waste and production levels.

What are the market trends that support this shift, such as the demand for circular products, and how can decoupling boost efficiency, reduce markdowns and free-up creativity? The session will also explore how reducing waste and excess inventory aligns with net-zero goals, while creating value-added services and circular offerings ultimately driving both sustainability and profitability.

This session will explore the transformative potential of embedding circularity in the upstream stages of product lifecycles—spanning design, sourcing and manufacturing— as a key lever to decarbonise.

Our panellists will share practical strategies on how to reimagine product design to minimise waste, enhance recyclability and reduce environmental impact. We’ll dive into innovative approaches to optimise energy use and resource efficiency as well as decarbonise manufacturing processes. Lastly, we will look at how to navigate sustainable material sourcing to reduce carbon footprints across the supply chain.

The recent and evolving wave of EU regulations that have come into effect impacts all UK brands distributing products in the EU market as they will need to comply. The UK regulatory landscape currently does not align with the EU. This session will explore the need for the UK to align and what UK businesses can do now to navigate these regulations.