The aim of the Fashion Industry Target Consultation is to gather key stakeholder insights on important milestones that the industry must strive to meet to achieve a net positive industry and importantly to gauge what tools and support are needed by these actors to take action.

The Fashion Industry Target Consultation was a multi-stakeholder project led by Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Global Fashion Agenda

Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) is a non-profit organisation that fosters industry collaboration on sustainability in fashion to accelerate impact. With the vision of a net positive fashion industry, it drives action by mobilising, inspiring, influencing and educating all stakeholders.

The organisation has been leading the movement since 2009 and presents the renowned international forum on sustainability in fashion, Global Fashion Summit, in core industry regions around the world. GFA influences policy through its advocacy efforts including the Global Textiles Policy Forum, publishes thought leadership including The GFA Monitor, Fashion CEO Agenda and Fashion on Climate, implements impact programmes including the Circular Fashion Partnership and the Global Circular Fashion Forum, presents educational guidance through the GFA Academy, and connects companies with solutions through the Innovation Forum.

United Nations Environment Programme

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is a global authority that sets the environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. Since its inception in 1972, UNEP has employed several cross-sectoral subprogrammes, specifically its work within textiles takes form through the provision of strategic leadership and encouraging sector-wide collaboration to accelerate a just transition towards a sustainable and circular textile value chain, while supporting sound management of chemicals.

UNEP’s report Sustainability and Circularity in the Textile Value Chain: Global Stocktaking identified the environmental and socio-economic hotspots, and mapped initiatives working to address those. UNEP has since published the Sustainability and Circularity in the Textile Value Chain: A global roadmap which defines a common agenda of transformation for all value chain actors.

The consultation invites stakeholders and partners from across the global value chain including brands, retailers, NGOs, producers, manufacturers, land stewards, indigenous communities, data providers, innovators, intergovernmental organisations, policy makers, academia, certification bodies, financing institutions, and more to participate in the Fashion Industry Target Consultation. The consultation seeks to include voices of all stakeholders across the value chain, from all regions ensuring that trade-offs were avoided or mitigated, and that the ambitions will be holistic, inclusive, and effective.

The consultation is now closed for 2024 and will reopen in 2025. Results of this year’s consultation will be presented in the upcoming GFA Monitor, acting as a gauge of the industry. The next GFA Monitor is expected Q4 2024.

In developing the draft ambitions for consultation we built upon existing frameworks and targets, and consulted with the organisations behind those. Where targets existed, those are mentioned, where no targets existed yet we proposed new ones. It is our imperative to converge what is already established in the industry and create a holistic and aligned route of travel encompassing both social and environmental sustainability. The initial development of the ambitions released for consultation was done in conversation with leading subject expert initiatives, as well as in reference to existing frameworks including the Science Based Targets Network, The Fashion Pact, the Common Framework for Responsible Purchasing Practices.

The Fashion Industry Target Consultation follows Global Fashion Agenda’s Fashion CEO Agenda framework which outlines five priorities that businesses should focus on in order to secure prosperity for people and communities while working within environmental boundaries.  These priorities include:

• Respectful and Secure Work Environments
• Better Wage Systems
• Resource Stewardship
• Smart Material Choices
• Circular Systems

The GFA Monitor acts as an accompanying tool to support actors within fashion’s value chain with implementing action within the outlined priority areas, presenting proven solutions, tools, best practices, case studies and expert insights.

The Fashion Industry Target Consultation also aligns with UNEP’s Sustainability and Circularity in the Textile Value Chain: A global roadmap which sets out the priorities and actions all key stakeholders can take towards this transformation.

The five priority areas, and set of targets underneath them, should be viewed as a complete and complementary set – they are interconnected and designed to reinforce each other. The intention is for the textile industry to meet all targets, providing a holistic route of travel.

These ambitions are intended to drive industry-wide progress across a holistic priority framework. The aim is to catalyse a transition from planning to taking action by providing a common destination and point of reference for different stakeholder groups to facilitate industry-wide change.

The ambitions are intended to be at industry level and align the industry around a joint vision. They recognise and build on existing work in certain impact areas and individual company targets. Going forward, industry-wide progress against evidence-based ambitions will be measured and monitored. Annually industry-wide progress achieved against the identified ambitions will be presented through the GFA Monitor, which will act as an annual gauge of the fashion industry.

A net-positive industry is one that gives back more to the natural world, people and societies and the economy than it takes out. The ambitions defined by the consultation will not be directly accountable for a net-positive industry, but help to define the pathway towards it by encouraging ambitious sustainability strategies that reduce harm, but also deliver positive outcomes for the environment and societies.