Italy’s SDA Bocconi School of Management has partnered with technology solutions firm Enel X to launch a project that will provide a picture of the maturity status of the circular economy in the Italian Fashion Industry.
The ‘Monitor for Circular Fashion’ project will engage a representative cross-section of the Italian fashion industry across the whole supply chain, in collaboration with the sustainability consultancy Eco-Age.
Already, the initiative has been joined by some of the industry’s key players that shared significant inputs, including Candiani Denim, Dedagroup Stealth, Intesa (Gruppo IBM), Manteco, RadiciGroup, Save the Duck, Vibram, Vitale Barberis Canonico, Vivienne Westwood, and YKK.
The companies, chosen for their sustainability and circularity credentials in the Italian fashion industry, are specifically focusing on applying best practices to identify and develop new applicable and measurable circular solutions.
One of the main points concerns the key role of transparency and traceability in supply chains, seen as the way to substantiate the sustainability and circularity claims before all the stakeholders, including consumers.
As a key output of the initiative, based on an innovative circularity assessment methodology developed by Enel X and the know-how of SDA Bocconi School of Management Sustainability Lab’s research team for the identification of industry-specific KPIs, a seminal report will be launched in September 2021, revealing the sector’s macrotrends, measuring how Italian fashion companies apply circular economy principles along the value chain, highlighting best practices, gaps, and ultimately proposing an ambitious plan of how to integrate circularity into one of Italy’s biggest export industries.
A circular approach allows the take-make-waste paradigm to be radically changed thanks to the application of five circular business models (sustainable input, life extension, end of life, product as a service, sharing platform) ensuring products and materials are kept in use for as long as possible, redesigning the manufacturing, logistic, distribution processes and the customer journeys with the objective of making more efficient the use of resources. The move to a circular system will continue to speed up the global economy’s journey toward a sustainable future.
The Monitor for Circular Fashion also takes part and commits to spreading the Call to Action of the UNECE project “Enhancing Transparency and Traceability of Sustainable Value Chains in Garment and Footwear sector” and the European “Circular Economy Action Plan”.
“The scientific approach is essential to enhance and grow the numerous pilot projects in circular fashion,” says Francesca Romana Rinaldi, coordinator of the Monitor for Circular Fashion at SDA Bocconi School of Management…
Read More: New project aims to monitor circularity of Italian fashion | Apparel