Fashion is ecocide. Let's stop this injustice

Aim

Help us launch a groundbreaking global summit to galvanise the fashion industry to reduce its impact on climate and ecological breakdown.

We’ve got just 10 years left to save the planet. Donate to Fashion Act Now and help us create an action plan to get the whole fashion industry to stop its contribution to the climate emergency NOW!

Overconsumption in the fashion industry is predicted to grow by 63% in the next 10 years. To drastically reduce the impact and to create real systemic change in the industry, we need your support.

• Fashion contributes around 10% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 20% of freshwater pollution and 35% of micro-plastic pollution in our oceans
• From 2000-2015, clothing consumption doubled. In the next 10 years, continued growth will mean a 60% increase in fashion’s carbon footprint
• In 2017, it was reported that less than 1% of clothing was recycled into new. Despite high profile initiatives, this figure hasn’t reported to have changed

Now is the time that we need action and change!

Our crowdfunder target of £30,000 will help us launch our first groundbreaking global summit to galvanise the fashion industry.

Just about every summit that has tried to address Fashion's sustainability problem has been sponsored by large corporations. This means that they are basically designed to fail, always playing safe to protect growth in profits and therefore planetary exploitation.

We are asking YOU to help us leapfrog the corporate stranglehold of traditional sponsorship. Lets fund a people powered solution to break through this deadlock.

We will bring together campaigners, economists, scientists, policy makers, industry insiders and crucially, garment workers, asking them to challenge our economic systems and business models. 

We will ask for a consensus on the tough questions: How fast does the industry need to downsize resource use in order to play its part in keeping global warming to below 1.5°C? What does that look like for ordinary people? And how can this be done in a way that centres the most vulnerable? We will also:

• Forge relationships with key players and advisers that will make this a success.
• Organise a series of consultations with experts and process key findings into an action plan for industry-shifting change to be presented in the assembly.
• Form a code of conduct and get industry partners signed up.
• Drive press and media coverage

We need to tackle this differently. 

Fashion Act Now proposes:

• To challenge the economic systems and business models which depend on competition and growth, at odds with the needs of people and planet. 
• To present the irrefutable science to the fashion industry and its audiences. Carbon emissions targets set by brands and governments are chronically inadequate, potentially contributing to the deaths of millions, even billions.
• Pressure governments to pass legislation to halt exploitive practices and pollution in fashion so that the true environmental and social costs can’t be ignored. 
• Use activists and whistleblowers to hold brands accountable to their pledges.
• Ensure garment and supply chain workers are integral to industry dialogue so that their needs are prioritised.

Past initiatives have failed to reduce the environmental footprint of the fashion industry. We see a need for further summits and pledges but targets set must be much more ambitious and there must be mechanisms to hold companies to account.

We will accelerate a transformation of fashion culture.

Through yearly summits, Fashion Act Now will drive an urgent transformation of fashion from an industry and culture that consumes and exploits our planet's resources to one that replenishes the natural world and supports the world’s most vulnerable people.

We will build a global coalition to hold fashion to account.

As a group of industry insiders and seasoned activists, which has emerged from and is supported by Extinction Rebellion, we have an existing global network. 

We're already supported by a powerful catalyst team that includes:

• Kate Fletcher and Mathilde Tham, founders of Earth Logic 
• Safia Minney, founder of REAL Sustainability and former CEO of People Tree
• Lucy Siegle, Environmental Journalist
• Clare Press, author and presenter of WARDROBE CRISIS & The Ethical Fashion Podcast
• Centre for Sustainable Fashion, a University of the Arts Research Centre
• Fashion Revolution
• Remake
• The Sustainable Angle

We have a track record in changing the way people think about fashion.

As part of Extinction Rebellion, we have placed climate at the top of fashion’s agenda, through our Cancel Fashion Week and Boycott Fashion campaigns. 

Clare Farrell, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion: “The Fashion Act Now team has made a huge impact on one of the most exploitative and destructive industries on Earth. Because fashion businesses rely on cultural relevance, this work to disrupt culture and business as usual has made space. The conversations are moving in the right direction but now we need to see real change.” 

Lucy Siegle, Journalist, Guardian: “London Fashion Week’s day of reckoning is both logical and overdue and we should heed Extinction Rebellion’s call to mothball it. Don’t be scared: embrace the change.”

Marco Bizzarri, CEO of GUCCI (after our London Fashion Week actions): “To me, the final aim of all this should be activists and companies working together to find common ground.” 

Safia Minney MBE, Founder of People Tree and REAL Sustainability: “No other group is so aware of the climate emergency, so unfettered by shareholder demands and so eager to get the work done. I’m proud to join them on this project.”

Join us in holding fashion accountable and protecting a future for us all.

Thank You!

This project successfully funded on 28th February 2021