In this series we talk to the individuals and companies helping retailers become greener businesses – highlighting the tools, technologies, and options available to support a change in environmental focus.
Not-for-profit organisation Canopy’s annual Hot Button Report for 2024 has been published, and it highlights real progress in the transformation of the the man-made cellulosic fibre (MMCF) industry.
Some 71% of MMCF producers now hold ‘green shirt’ status or higher, which means they are acting to eliminate use of ancient and endangered forest materials in their production and prioritise circular, low-carbon fibres.
According to Canopy, these leaders supply 53% of the global market for viscose, rayon, lyocell, and other MMCF textiles.
Nicole Rycroft, Canopy’s executive director, said brands and retailers “have more options than ever to meet their goals and protect the planet” in terms of using suppliers that are not resourcing from endangered forests. And Green Retail World caught up with Rycroft to discuss more of the organisation’s work.
What is Canopy and who does it work with?
Canopy’s mission is to protect the world’s forests, species, and climate, and – as Rycroft explains – the organisation “recognises supply chains have such an incredible impact on the world we live in”.
It therefore works with corporate customers of paper and packaging and wood-based textiles to transform supply chains that are currently driving deforestation and forest degradation into ones that have a lighter impact on the environment.
Canopy says 3.4 billion trees are cut down each year to make paper packaging and fabrics such as rayon and viscose, with many of these trees coming from the world’s ancient and endangered forests which are the lungs of the Earth. By working with just under 1,000 partners with a combined annual turnover of circa $2 trillion, the aim is to change this situation and help supply chains evolve from a ‘take, make, waste’ model to a circular and more sustainable one.
“Brands that are buying billions of dollars of forest products each year have an incredible ability to help redirect and reshape those supply chains to be fundamentally lighter in terms of their carbon impact and impact on nature,” Rycroft notes.
“That’s at the core of our work.”
She suggest the bigger the company, the more influence they can have with suppliers. And Canopy is working with some of the largest names around, including H&M, Inditex-owned Zara, Stella McCartney, Kering, Louis Vuitton, and Ben and Jerry’s.
Canopy develops multiyear partnerships with brands which entail assessments of their supply chains to understand risks and vulnerabilities. It works with suppliers to help educate on next generation (next gen) materials that do not rely on deforestation or sourcing from ancient and endangered forests, and it helps guide brands towards the better players.
There are no financial relationships between Canopy and its brand partners. Canopy is primarily funded through a combination of philanthropic grants, and high level donors – for example, in April 2023 it received a $60 million investment from The Audacious Project, a philanthropic initiative associated with non-profit organisation TED.
“We don’t want money to be a barrier to a company stepping in to work with us,” Rycroft explains.
“We also want people to know that if Zara, for example, is saying it is doing a good thing then it actually is – it’s not because a $200,000 or $1 million cheque was slid across the table.”
Each partnership starts with the development of a policy, which is a public-facing commitment to not source from the world’s high carbon, high diversity forests. Those working with Canopy also have to lean into help develop lower impact next gen solutions and work with the organisation and the rest of the value chain to help conserve forests around the world – and this is an ongoing process.
“What a cutting edge commitment looked like ten years ago is obviously very different to what it looks like now, so we work with brand partners to assess where they have risks in current supply chain and where there are opportunities with particular producers.”
It’s a virtuous circle. The brands getting involved “bring their market heft”, notes Rycroft, and can play a part in incentivising their conventional suppliers to prioritise research and development in next gen or more circular solutions for packaging and textiles. The term “next gen” also reflects how the innovation in this space is continuously evolving.
Textiles to packaging
Canopy as an organisation in a different guise was founded in 1999, focused on helping publishers source their paper from recycled materials. But by 2013 it had found its way into fashion.
Acknowledging that hundreds of millions of trees were being logged every year to make textiles like viscose and rayon, CanopyStyle was launched with Eileen Fisher, Patagonia, and Quiksilver among the initial signatories showing their commitment to be more sustainable.
One year later, CanopyStyle showcased its influence by adding H&M, Inditex/Zara, and sustainability leader Stella McCartney to its list of partners aiming to address their viscose supply chains and help protect global forests.
Rycroft acknowledges collaboration to support environmental problems can often manifest itself in “a lot of dialogue and not a lot of action”, but she thinks the prevalence of multiple corporate associations aimed at tackling the environmental and biodiversity crisis is positive because it shows “there is a recognition that more needs to be done”.
“Governments have been very slow to act and show meaningful action on the climate and biodiversity crisis, so business leaders are feeling compelled and called to step in – the plethora of initiatives is indicative of that desire and recognition that more needs to be done,” she argues.
“There can be a propensity for collaboration for collaboration’s sake but it is deeply embedded in our model – we create pre-competitive spaces geared towards collective action.
The newer component of the Canopy strategy is its Pack4Good initiative. Whereas the CanopyStyle work is focused on viscose supply chain and goes back ten years of deep work with fashion brands to ensure viscose textiles don’t drive deforestation, Pack4Good is centred on packaging.
“Packaging as a commodity has a massive footprint – three million trees are cut down every year to make paper packaging and that’s growing significantly with e-commerce,” Rycroft claims.
“The shift away from plastic has created the unintended consequence of putting more pressure on forest ecosystems. It’s that unintended consequence of trading in one environmental disaster for another.”
Through Pack4Good, Rycroft and Canopy are creating “door number three”, which she describes as “a more holistic solution for packaging”. Be it smarter design to bring efficiencies or be it helping producers – and therefore brands – diversify the fibre basket used to make packaging, there are multiple ways to reduce the eco footprint of this sector.
“Rather than mowing down a huge raft of forest you can use straw – wheat and flax – after the harvest, or you can use industrial food waste,” Rycroft suggests as examples.
“We’re working with a growing number of brands (currently circa 450) in the fashion space and we’re working with food and beverage and personal care – Sephora and Ben and Jerry’s for example – and we’re in dialogue with big conglomerates in those spaces.”
Patagonia and Zara are among the businesses that have extended their partnership with Canopy – covering, at first, CanopyStyle and now Pack4Good.
Canopy is helping its partners understand what smarter design means and how it can aid them in reducing the need for wood fibre. It is also raising the profile of how next gen fibre can replace virgin wood fibre altogether in packaging.
Recognising the difficulties in this movement, Rycroft again talks up the need for groups like Canopy.
“We’re all just learning. We try to help our brand partners discern because it is a challenging space – it’s difficult to work out if things are a solution or a trojan horse.”
Hot Button and hope
Rycroft is hopeful that, although businesses and brands are part of the environmental problem, they also hold a lot of the answers in solving the eco challenges the world faces.
“Business leaders and brands are recognising the ‘take, make, waste’ production system where a forest is logged, the trees go to mills to make packaging, and the packaging ends up in recycling and landfill after one or two uses is a relic of the last century,” she says.
“This century, with the climate crisis disrupting supply chains, there’s a heightened need to accelerate the transition to these more circular feedstocks.”
And Canopy will continue to monitor the innovators and the best practitioners, in order to guide retailers and brands on their journeys. The Hot Button report, which provides a benchmark of what the MMCF industry is doing to progress and move away from using ancient and endangered forests, continues to highlight the best players and those with plenty of work still to do.
Aditya Birla, Lenzing, and Tangshan Sanyou were all tied for the top spot, for the first time in 2024. The Hot Button report issued them all with high ‘button counts’ and ‘dark green’ shirts which indicate their market-leading work in this space. You can read the full Hot Button list here.
This annual rating of the producers is based on around 32 different criteria. Producers are rated with green shirts or a combination of colours – but if there is red in their scoring it is a flag for brands that this company is “high risk” in terms of sourcing from ancient or endangered forests.
At start of the Covid crisis in 2020, there were 15 people working at Canopy. But now that figure sits at just under 60 – and part of that growth has been necessary as more partners jumped on board to work with the organisation.
The Audacious Project funding is being used to catalyse the commercial production of low-carbon and circular solutions across the globe, so the expectation is for Canopy to continue to play a bigger part in helping corporates navigate their way forward.
“The were 18 million hectares of forest in Canada that burnt last year, and that’s not counting the forest fires elsewhere in places such as Chile, Australia, and the US – this is literally a supply chain going up in smoke,” Rycroft remarks.
“Keeping forests standing is critical for biodiversity and us hitting our climate targets, so we’re finding that brands are really motivated to work out how to accelerate the production of next gen solutions to help reduce reliance on forest fibre. We see this as something business leaders are prioritising and that is very encouraging.”
At Green Retail World we are giving greener retail champions, like Nicole and Canopy, a chance to explain how they are helping retailers become greener businesses. Please contact editor, Ben Sillitoe, if you’d like to put yourself forward for an interview on this key subject. Sharing good practice can help the wider sector move in a positive direction.
[Image credit: Canopy]
