Chief Sustainability Officers Become Collaborative C-Suite Execs with Major Fashion Influence

Virginie-Helias-CSO Procter Gamble (top) Marie-Claire Daveau CSO Kering (bottom)

Vogue Business profiles the growing influence of corporate Chief Sustainability Officers (CSO) including Kering’s CSO and head of international institutional affairs Marie-Claire Daveu, who sits on Karing’s 13-person executive committee; Virginie Helias, who actually created her top-level position at Procter & Gamble, by pitching it to the CEO; Nike’s CSO Noel Kinder, who reports to Nike COO, Eric Sprunk and Tom Berry, who is the global director of sustainable business at Farfetch.

The position of CSO could also be good for career advancement, writes VB. Tom Berry sees the role eventually becoming attached to the role of chief innovation or strategy officers.

“I’m convinced that in the coming decade, more CSOs will progress toward other C-suite roles,” says Daveu. “A successful CSO has to be a visionary thinker, a creative problem solver, an operational implementer and a collaborative leader.”

“It’s now seen as a transversal mission. It’s all about courageous leadership toward things that have not been done before, and about being able to develop an ambitious vision,” says Helias.

Article Take Aways

1) The Global Fashion Agenda’s recent Pulse of the Fashion Industry report concluded that fashion isn’t implementing sustainable solutions fast enough to offset the negative environmental and social impacts that come with their growth.

2) The vast range of skills associated with developing sustainable practices prompts the trends towards inter and intra-industry collaboration. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which P&G joined with at least 40 companies in early 2019, is an example of the number of interests involved. 

“I’m spending more of my time thinking about how to collaborate externally,” says Kinder, who is now working through the Global Fashion Agenda and the United Nations. “H&M has been really ambitious externally, and Adidas — probably our closest competitor — does a nice job of collaborating. There has not been any reluctance to working [together] on big topics like waste or climate change. The challenges we face as an industry and as a species are bigger than any one brand.”

Noel Kinder NIKE COS

Cynthia Rowley Asks: Is Your Swimsuit Hurting the Oceans? Change Your Ways Then

If anyone can benefit from surfing in the Atlantic Ocean as a form of meditation, it’s veteran designer Cynthia Rowley. Montauk’s CR Suf Camp is headquarters for a meetup between Rowley and ELLE writer Faran Krentcil.

Rowley has battled fierce financial challenges for the last year, but her life is calm compared to the state of the world’s oceans. And surfers play their part in environmental damage. “Surfing is a reminder the world is bigger than me," Rowley explains, urging me back into the sea as the tide calms down. "The ocean is bigger than any of my problems.”

“Surfers are some of the most eco-conscious people in the world,” says Rowley, who's teamed with charities like the Surfrider Foundation to help promote cleaner beaches worldwide. “But for a long time, our primary uniform—the wetsuit—was made with polyester and really harmful plastics! The irony is mind-boggling... Once I saw how much plastic was in normal neoprene, I knew [surf wear] had to evolve.”

At a time when new designers are burnishing their eco-cred, Rowley has been marketing sustainable wetsuits, one-pieces, and bikinis for nearly 12 years. Partnering with a Thai factory for 12 years, Rowley may be one of the unsung heroes in today’s battle for sick oceans.

“We started with the basic stuff—figuring out how to make swimsuit ‘skin’ from recycled plastic bottles,” Rowley explains. “The ‘carbon black,’ which is the spongy filler inside neoprene? We make it with recycled tires. And then there are components nobody thinks about, like glue. Every wetsuit uses glue, and so do a ton of swimsuits. But glue is often made from harsh chemicals—we don’t want that. So we found a water-based glue instead. If some of it sheds or erodes, that’s okay—it’s water!” As for the neoprene itself, Rowley’s team makes it with limestone instead of liquid plastic, swapping out a toxic material for one that biodegrades.

And why not wear wetsuits year-round, asks Rowley. And be a poser? In response to die-hard surfers who object to wannabes co-opting their authentic fashion gear, the designer is frankly philosophical. “On the one hand, I get that some surfers treat their wetsuit like a tool, something that really belongs to them as part of surf culture, and they don’t want it co-opted as a fashion item. But we’re trying to change that, because surf culture can’t exist without sustainable living. And if you can turn one item of clothing into like three different outfits, and you love how you look? Then screw it and wear what you want.”

Stopping by CynthiaRowley.com to shop swimsuits, we note that there’s no mention of the great story behind the designer’s sustainable credentials. Searching in earnest for discussion of her commitment to sustainability, we note her CR Surf Camp story but nada on any mention of her concern for oceans.

Perhaps this is why eco-conscious fashionistas know little about Cynthia Rowley’s passion for returning our oceans to their natural glory. That’s a shame, because her story is a good one. ~ Anne

Cynthia Rowley’s CR Girls Camp in Montauk, Long Island, New York

Burberry Launches Econyl Sustainable Nylon Collection In Both Heritage + New Icons Designs

Burberry joins Prada’s June 2019 similar announcement of launching collections made with Econyl, the sustainable nylon yarn made from regenerated fishing nets, fabric scraps and industrial plastic.

The highlights of Burberry’s Econyl capsule include its heritage trench and lightweight classic car coat silhouettes, as well as what the brand is calling new icons, the logo-print oversized cape, fleece-lined puffer and reversible bomber jacket.

Burberry states that the introduction of the sustainable fashion collection is part of its plan to tackle what it calls an “environmental waste issue while creating a sustainable and versatile material” and is “just one example of the 50 disruptions Burberry is making throughout its supply chain to create a more circular fashion industry”.

Giulio Bonazzi, chief executive at Aquafil added: “We are delighted to collaborate with Burberry for this capsule collection. We believe innovative fibres like Econyl regenerated nylon are the future and are proud to support brands who use our yarns, transforming waste into incredible designs and raising the profile and possibilities of a more circular fashion system.”

Burberry’s Econyl collection is the latest innovative sustainable introduction, recently the fashion house collaborated with company 37.5 to use volcanic sand and waste coconut shell in thermoregulation technology for its quilted jackets, and it introduced Refibra, a new yarn produced by upcycling cotton leftovers from the Burberry Mill in Yorkshire, to make its dust bags for all jewellery and leather goods.

Stella McCartney's 'All Together Now' Collections Honor Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' Mindset

Stella McCartney's 'All Together Now' Collections Honor Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' Mindset

Stella McCartney is on a genius blitz these days and none of us can keep up with her. At the end of June Stella launched a celebration of her new ‘All Together Now’ collection, inspired by the iconic 1968 Beatles film. A collection of Stella luvs joined hands at the Electric Cinema in London’s Notting Hill to watch the film together.

“The beauty of the lyrics blows me away,” McCartney said in a statement. “I found that I was removing myself from the fact that it was family, and just finding myself as a fashion designer watching a piece of material that was massively and emotionally effective to me.”

Digitally remastered for its 50th anniversary last year, Yellow Submarine is a psychedelic adventure through a colorful world that brings people together with love and music, sending a message of togetherness that is as important in today’s political climate as it was when it was originally released. Stella’s personal connection to the film’s legacy with her father Paul McCartney inspired her to celebrate this message through the collection and its upcoming campaign, spreading this statement of unity to a modern audience and encouraging them to be agents for change.

LVMH Takes Minority Position In Stella McCartney | Makes Stella Sustainability Adviser To Arnault

Stella McCartney is making front page news with the announcement that the designer, who abandoned her relationship with Kerring in 2018, has now joined forces with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group.

McCartney will remain in her role as her brand’s creative director and also as majority stockholder in the Stella McCartney business. Her additional responsibilities include becoming a special adviser to Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s chairman, and also to the LVMH board, on the topic of sustainability.

The fashion industry has an enormously negative and earth-harming footprint on the environment, and no one in fashion world is better prepared to fill this role of LVMH adviser on sustainability than Stella McCartney.

The addition of Stella McCartney’s voice and brand to the LVMH creative and leadership stable underscores the company’s commitment to gender equity. Since 2017, LVMH has named Maria Grazia Chiuri to head Dior and Claire Waight Keller to lead Givenchy. Arnaut has taken a minority position in the also sustainability-focused Gabriela Hearst, while creating a blockbuster disruption of the entire luxury industry with the creation of a new fashion house Fenty, created with Rihanna.

In talking about her new partnership, Stella McCartney said that since ending her partnership with LVMH rival Kerring, she had been pursued by many potential partners and investors wanting to help expand her business.

In the end, McCartney made a seemingly wise decision, one that gives her an opportunity to have heavy influence on issues that matter to her a great deal, while tapping into funding and a professional contacts base that will give her enormous flexibility. The importance of Stella’s access to Arnault and the LVMH board of directors can’t be understated.

“The chance to realize and accelerate the full potential of the brand alongside Mr. Arnault and as part of the LVMH family, while still holding the majority ownership in the business, was an opportunity that hugely excited me,” she said.

Stella McCartney Talks Sustainability, Lensed By Matthew Sprout For Porter Edit June 21, 2019

Stella McCartney Talks Sustainability, Lensed By Matthew Sprout For Porter Edit June 21, 2019

Eco-fashion, sustainability leader Stella McCartney is styled by Hannah Cole in ‘The Fashion Revolution’, lensed by Matthew Sprout for Porter Edit June 21, 2019.

Emma Sells meets the woman on a mission, and we must listen up. Unlike designers finally taking notice of the almost unbearable toll that the fashion industry is putting on our planet, Stella McCartney has been all-in for Gaia from day one of her fashion career.

Central Saint Martins Student Mi Zhou Creates Gorgeous Toiletry Packaging Made of Soap

Central Saint Martins Student Mi Zhou Creates Gorgeous Toiletry Packaging Made of Soap

Central Saint Martins student Mi Zhou, a student in the premier design school’s Material Futures master’s degree program has brilliantly re-imagined the wasteful, earth-harming reality of most toiletry packaging by turning the vessels themselves into usable products. Zhou’s lotion, soap, and shampoo containers are made of soap.

Prada Declares 2021 Sustainability Initiative Converting All Iconic Nylon Bags To Econyl

Prada Declares 2021 Sustainability Initiative Converting All Iconic Nylon Bags To Econyl

Even iconic products like Prada’s famous nylon bags need to advance to retain their original meaning, relevance, and status. Miuccia Prada is increasingly onboard with sustainability, giving up fur a month ago and now pledging to convert the “virgin nylon’ used in her famous bags to Econyl. a regenerated-nylon yarn that can be recycled an infinite number of times. The new fabric is made from reclaimed ocean plastics, fishing nets and textile fiber waste.

Net-a-Porter Launches Net Sustain With 26 Brands, Big Plans + Beauty Coming Soon

Net-a-Porter Launches Net Sustain With 26 Brands, Big Plans + Beauty Coming Soon

Online luxury retailer Net-a-Porter has joined the effort to promote significant changes in the apparel industry, with the launch of Net Sustain.

The platform is launching with 26 brands and over 500 products that meet core sustainability criteria determined by Net-a-Porter. The criteria ranges from "considered materials and processes to reducing waste in their supply chain, taking into account human, animal and environmental welfare and aligning with internationally recognized best practices in the fashion and beauty industries."

Wrangler Launches Indigood™ Denim Revolution In Denim Dyeing, Production Process

Wrangler Launches Indigood™ Denim Revolution In Denim Dyeing, Production Process

Denim manufacturing is known for producing iconic, must-have products grounded in an ‘everyman’ , unpretentious sensibility. In reality, denim manufacturing has a deadly reputation when the focus is sustainability and being good stewards of the environment.

US jeans brand Wrangler is determined to change the anti-environmental reality of denim manufacturing and especially creating excessive levels of water waste.

Wrangler’s corporate parents Kontoor Brands have partnered with Texas Tech University (TTU) and the Valencia-based fabric mill Tejidos Royo to create a foam-dyed, water-free process, eliminating the waste generated from the traditional dyeing processes.

Chopard Extends Luxury Brand Sustainability Drive To Chloe Sevigny's Handbag Inspo

Chopard Extends Luxury Brand Sustainability Drive To Chloe Sevigny's Handbag Inspo

Swiss luxury jewelry and watchmaker Chopard has made another advancement in its commitment to sustainability with a handbag designed by award-winning actor Chloë Sevigny.

The geometrically-styled, highly-recognizable evening bag featuring a large heart overlapping the front and side panel, was inspired by “iconic images of the 1940s,” according to a Chopard release on Friday. The bag, sold in three colors, is made from calf-skin leather that is sustainably sourced and “fully traceable,” Chopard said.

For the Sevigny-designed “Green Carpet Collection” bag, which retails for $2,360, Chopard sought to not only trace the leather lineage, but also to work with the tannery on environmental management systems that ensure “all processes and resources, including water, waste, and energy were responsibility managed,” according to Green Carpet, sustainability expert Livia Firth’s Eco-Age. Reinforcement materials on the bag also are made from natural latex and vegetable tanned leather waste.

Prada Goes Fur Free In All Company Brands Starting With Spring 2020 Collections

Prada Goes Fur Free In All Company Brands Starting With Spring 2020 Collections

Italian luxury Prada is joining the ranks of fur-free luxury brands, announcing that all collections starting with women’s spring/summer 2020 will not use fur. Prada previously used fur from foxes, minks and rabbits in its luxury collections.

The decision comes after working closely with the Humane Society International, Fur Free Alliance, and Italian animal rights group LAV. Prada’s subsidiary Miu Miu is on the same fur-free spring 2020 timetable. Products that have already been produced will be sold.

Malaika Firth + Sophia Ahrens For ARKET Sustainable Swimwear 2019 Campaign

Malaika Firth + Sophia Ahrens For ARKET Sustainable Swimwear 2019 Campaign

Models Malaika Firth and Sophia Ahrens are lensed by Laura Jane Coulson in ARKET Sustainable Swimwear 2019 campaign.

Simple, direct. Who is ARKET? Somehow we missed it. But of course! Google takes me to H&M.

Mumbai's Cardboard Cafe Inspires a Deep Dive Into Packaging Pollution In America

Mumbai's Cardboard Cafe Inspires a Deep Dive Into Packing Pollution In America

Our love for the convenience of Amazon and online shopping generally comes at an environmental cost. Especially in cities, there’s no enough money to educate our children, let alone cart away all the Amazon boxes at taxpayer expense.

Creative minds are asking themselves what we can do with all this cardboard — and Indian design studio NUDES, led by Nuru Karim has answered the challenge with the spectacular Cardboard cafe, located in Mumbai, India.

adidas Launches What Could Be Most Disruptive Product In The World: Futurecraft Loop Trainer

adidas Launches What Could Be Most Disruptive Product In The World: Futurecraft Loop Trainer

adidas shares the good news that Spring 2021 will be the launch date of its first fully recyclable trainer that comes with a never-ending lifespan. Let’s hope that America has a new president then, who has already announced that the US is rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement.

The adidas Futurecraft Loop trainer is a collab with Parley for the Oceans — an organisation working to raise awareness of the threat to the world’s oceans – to create the shoe, which will be made from reclaimed marine plastic waste.

“Taking plastic waste out of the system is the first step, but we can’t stop there,” said a statement from Eric Liedtke, executive board member at Adidas. “What happens to your shoes after you’ve worn them out? You throw them away – except there is no away. There are only landfills and incinerators and ultimately an atmosphere choked with excess carbon, or oceans filled with plastic waste. The next step is to end the concept of ‘waste’ entirely. Our dream is that you can keep wearing the same shoes over and over again.”

Stella McCartney Wins 'FUR FREE FUR' Fake Fur Trademark Battle With USPTO→

Stella McCartney Wins 'FUR FREE FUR' Fake Fur Trademark Battle With USPTO

Call the case Stella McCartney vs the US Govt — and Stella won.

Stella McCartney is one of most most committed voices in the global sustainability moment. In a trademark case that was a bit esoteric for the USPTO, McCartney sought to trademark the concept ‘FUR FREE FUR’ and not a specific textile composition. Stella wanted a category of existing and future fabrics not even created to live under her proposed ‘FUR FREE FUR” trademark label.

Amber Valletta Fronts Zara's 'Chasing the Light' Spring 2019 Nature Woman Campaign

Amber Valletta Fronts Zara's 'Chasing the Light' Spring 2019 Nature Woman Campaign

Supermodel Amber Valletta is one of fashion’s loudest and consistently-articulate voices on sustainable fashion. AOC has taken the time to research any sustainable credentials behind Zara’s newest ‘Chasing the Light’ collection, and don’t that these beautiful all-white summer styles are part of Zara’s sustainable ‘Join Life’ project, currently estimated to be only 1.5-3% of sales. We wish ‘Chasing the Light’ had green credentials but can’t find any.

With Amber Valletta appearing as the nature-woman model, it’s easy to think the collection is sustainable, especially coming on the heels of last week’s release of H&M’s exciting Conscious Exclusive Collection. H&M actually used orange peels from the end of the juice production cycle for their Orange Fiber. If Valletta was also eating pineapple, I’d call foul. Piñatex, a leather alternative made from the cellulose fiber of pineapple leaves (which become waste after the fruit is harvested) is a key new fake leather product used in H&M’s 2019 Conscious Exclusive collection.

'Paris Good Fashion' Launches 5-Year Plan Making Paris Center Of Sustainable Fashion Industry

MERCI STORE PARIS. PHOTO BY ROBIN BENZRIHEM ON UNSPLASH

'Paris Good Fashion' Launches 5-Year Plan Making Paris Center Of Sustainable Fashion Industry

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of the world’s carbon footprint and is considered to be the second biggest polluter of fresh water globally, producting 20% of the world’s industrial wastewater. Forbes adds that the global fashion industry uses 24% of insecticides and 11% of pesticides required to produce crops used in garments.

Until now, London has led the international pace in the fashion sustainability movement. This week, Paris weighed in with a new five-year plan designed to establish French credentials in this critical arena of public policy and environmental action.

Called ‘Paris Good Fashion,’ the project outlines a five-year plan to build an open, collaborative community of fashion professionals, entrepreneurs, designers and experts working together to make Paris a sustainable fashion capital.

Frédéric Hocquard, deputy to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, and Antoinette Guhl, deputy in charge of social economy and solidarity, as well as former fashion journalist Isabelle Lefort, promised a more comprehensive project outline at a June 2019 event that will also feature campaigns promoting fashion recycling and conferences surrounding sustainable discussions

Eye: Amber Valletta Wears Agnona's SS 2019 Vicuña Fabric Collection, Lensed By Ezra Petronio

Eye: Amber Valletta Wears Agnona's SS 2019 Vicuña Fabric Collection, Lensed By Ezra Petronio

Supermodel Amber Valletta showcases key looks from Agnona’s Spring/Summer 2019 collection, lensed by Ezra Petronio.

Designer Simon Holloway dedicated the collection to artist American Joan Jonas, 82, previously honored in an exhibition at London’s Tate Modern. In this film, we see Jonas at work in New York.

Peru’s Vicuña Fabric Is Worth Its Weight In Gold

Key items in Agnona’s spring 2019 collection were made in vicuña, one of two wild South American camelids living in the high alpine areas of the Andes. Vicuña, along with the guanaco, is a relative of the llama. It’s believed to be the wild ancestor of domesticated alpacas, and it remains wild today.

Nearly hunted to extinction in the late 1980’s, the vicuña herds made a slow, steady comeback and are expanding today in the wild. Driven largely by their father’s adoration of the wool product, Sergio and Pier Luigi Loro Piana, the co-CEOs of Loro Piana, the Italian mill that was a part of the mid-century ‘Made in Italy’ movement and would eventually grow into one of the world’s largest producers of cashmere — and its biggest supplier of vicuña.

The fibers are collected using the chacu method of the Incas—a half-religious ceremony where the local community forms a human chain around the animals, slowly closing the circumference of their circle for shearing. An adult vicuna produces only about a pound of fiber a year, producing a cloth so fine it was considered to be cloth of gold, writes BofF.

For The Incas, Vicuñas Had Strong, Spiritual Powers