Eight brands, including Mint Velvet and Victoria’s Secret, have joined not-for-profit organisation Canopy’s initiatives to keep deforestation out of fashion and packaging.
Marc O’Polo, Akyn, OUTnABOUT, D Ô E N, and Icicle have also joined Canopy’s Pack4Good and CanopyStyle initiatives, showing intent to build greater supply chain resiliency and protect the world’s climate-critical forests and biodiversity. Clothing retailer Spell, which has been a CanopyStyle partner since 2018, is now also a Pack4Good member.
By joining these programmes, the retailers have committed to working towards eliminating the use of ancient and endangered forests in their paper packaging and MMCF-based textile – such as rayon and viscose – supply chains.
The fashion brands are accompanied by materials innovators – known as “next gen” fibre companies – Red Leaf, Zylotex, and Chempolis on Canopy’s mission to clean up supply chains.
With the new additions, CanopyStyle now includes 590 brands representing more than $2 trillion in combined annual revenue. The Pack4Good initiative has reached 480 brand partners, with collective revenues of over $403 billion.
This all comes as global demand for paper-based packaging continues to grow – with Canopy executive director, Nicole Rycroft, telling Green Retail World last year the shift away from plastic to paper packaging has caused “unintended consequences” of putting pressure on forest ecosystems.
Reflecting on the eight new arrivals to the Canopy programmes, Rycroft added: “These brands from the US, UK, Germany, China, and Australia reflect the growing global momentum to make circularity and forest protection a core part of business in the fashion and lifestyle sectors.
“Implementing their commitments will help keep the world’s forests standing, accelerate the scaling of next gen solutions, and demonstrate that style and sustainability go hand in hand.”
Susanne Schwenger, chief product officer at Marc O’Polo SE, added: “Our mission is to become the most sustainable version of ourselves – a journey rooted in our heritage of using natural materials and creating timeless design with lasting quality.
“Joining CanopyStyle and Pack4Good is an important step in advancing that mission. By working to eliminate ancient and endangered forests from our packaging and textile supply chains and accelerating the shift to next gen fibres, we can help safeguard climate-critical forests while building a more resilient, responsible future for fashion.”
[image credit: Canopy]
