Copenhagen Fashion Summit

WELCOME

Welcome to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2016. Below you can relive the Summit including all keynotes, panels and breakouts.

Opening speech
By Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark

Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary is patron of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2016. Her patronage demonstrates continued support for promoting a sustainable and responsible fashion and textile industry. At this year’s fashion summit, the Crown Princess will be giving the opening speech as well as participating in several events. The Crown Princess also attended the summit in 2009, 2012 and 2014.

The Crown Princess is a passionate advocate for health, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. She is committed to creating awareness, respect and acceptance of women and girls´ sexual and reproductive health and rights, including access to family planning and the reduction of maternal and child mortality.

Crown Princess Mary is as a member of the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development and serves as patron of several international organisations and agencies, including the United Nations Population Fund and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, but also the following Danish NGOs: Danish Refugee Council, Maternity Worldwide and LOKK, which is a national association of women’s shelters. The Crown Princess has previously served as patron of the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair.

In 2007 the Crown Princess founded The Mary Foundation with the mission of fighting social isolation. Under her leadership the foundation brings together untraditional partners to develop and manage projects and programmes that work on prevention, create opportunities and empower vulnerable individuals and groups who find themselves socially isolated. The foundation’s focus areas are: domestic violence, bullying and wellbeing and loneliness.

KRISTIAN JENSEN

Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs

ELZBIETA BIENKOWSKA

European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Kristian Jensen is currently Denmark’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs. A spokesperson for Left, or Denmark’s Liberal Party, and a member of the Danish Parliament since 1998, he has also held the position of Minister for Taxation (2004-2010). In addition he has served as a spokesperson for the Left on information technology and sports (1998-2001) and on financial policy, later becoming the vice chairman of the Fiscal Affairs Committee in 2001.

As the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jensen is an advocate of ambitious sustainable practices, such as the World Development Goals, and of reaching a global climate treaty, both of which are intimately tied to global economic growth. He does not believe that these issues are mutually exclusive, but interdependent. For this reason, he has argued for more private sector involvement in climate efforts and for innovative approaches to financing the way forward that combines public and private funding.

Elzbieta Bienkowska has been European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and Small- and Mediumsized Enterprises since 2014. Prior to this, she served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Development in Poland from 2013-2014 and was Minister of Regional Development from 2007-2013.

Bienkowska’s team in the European Commission is responsible for initiatives such as Sustainable Growth and EU Horizon 2020, and Sustainable Growth and Automotive Industries. She heads a unit crucial to private-sector involvement in environmental initiatives in the world’s biggest market.

Bienkowska holds a master’s degree in oriental philology from Jagiellonian University and a post-graduate diploma from the Polish National School of Public Administration.

GOOD FOR BUSINESS & GOOD FOR THE PLANET

By Rick Ridgeway

Rick Ridgeway is the vice president of public engagement at Patagonia, a high-end outerwear label. During his time there, he has developed environmental initiatives such as Freedom to Roam, the Footprint Chronicles, the Responsible Economy Campaign and Worn Wear. Ridgeway was the founding chair of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the world’s largest apparel, footwear and home textile trade organisation. He also created the Higg Index, a suite of standardized tools to measure sustainability and produce industry benchmarks for continual impact reductions.

As one of the world’s foremost mountaineers, Ridgeway has produced and directed many television adventure shows. The author of six books, he has also written for Outside, National Geographic and the Harvard Business Review. In 2008 National Geographic honoured him with its Lifetime Achievement in Adventure award. He serves on the boards of Conservacion Patagonica and the Turtle Conservancy and the advisory boards of World Wildlife Fund, Unilever USA and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

DESIGNING THE FUTURE

By Hannah Jones

Hannah Jones is the chief sustainability officer and vice president, innovation accelerator at NIKE, Inc.

With a goal to decouple growth from constrained resources through sustainable innovation, Jones leads NIKE’s sustainable business and innovation team, which works to rethink materials, methods of production, products and business models to solve complex sustainability challenges. As vice president, innovation accelerator, Jones shepherds a dynamic team intended to move innovation faster through the business.

From 2007-2010, she chaired the Sustainable Consumption Initiative for the Consumer Industries grouping of the World Economic Forum and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in January 2007. In 2013 Jones was awarded the C.K. Prahalad Award for Global Business Sustainability Leadership.

Jones is a board member of the Ecover and Method brands.

CUTTING THROUGH THE NOISE

By Livia Firth

Livia Firth is the founder and creative director of Eco-Age Ltd., a brand consultancy that helps businesses grow by creating, implementing and communicating bespoke sustainability solutions.

Under Firth’s leadership, Eco-Age simplifies sustainability for its clients, offering tailored, measurable solutions that help companies achieve growth, establish sector leadership and enhance the bottom line, creating long-term value for themselves and the societies they work in.

As an Oxfam Global Ambassador, Firth has travelled to Ethiopia, Kenya, Bangladesh and Zambia, connecting with the people at the beginning of the supply chain. She is also a founding member of Annie Lennox’s The Circle, a powerful women’s advocacy group.

Firth is a UN Leader of Change and has also been recognised with the UN Fashion 4 Development Award. In 2014 she was awarded the Rainforest Alliance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sustainability, and the Honorary Award of the National German Sustainability Foundation.

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DENIM

The denim industry has always been a valuable source of innovation in terms of design and finishing. Recently, more innovation capacity has focused on producing denim garments based on the most efficient possible use of resources at each stage of the production process, from fibre to finish.

This is particularly crucial for water conservation, as the manufacturing of denim – a fabric that seemingly never goes out of style – is highly water-intensive, and key players in the industry are making water efficiency a top priority.

This creates a wide array of new opportunities for responsible innovations.

This session will focus on the opportunities arising from new ways of thinking about resources and explore these issues from various perspectives, including marketing, product development, sustainability and design.

The panellists represent various positions and backgrounds including design, product development, marketing and sustainability in order to bring out various perspectives on the mentioned opportunities.

SAMUEL TROTMAN
WGSN

ROIAN ATWOOD
VF Corporation

FRANÇOIS GIRBAUD
Marithé + François Girbaud

MARCO LUCIETTI
ISKO™

PETER FRANK
Nudie Jeans

Making luxury more sustainable
Drivers, challenges and solutions

There is an increasing focus by luxury fashion companies on sustainability. Luxury fashion brands have been slower to adopt more responsible practices than their mainstream peers for a variety of reasons, including differing business models and stakeholder pressures. Yet, over the last several years, luxury fashion brands have begun improving environmental and social practices and speaking more openly about their activities.

This session examines the current state of play, including the challenges and opportunities regarding sustainability and luxury across the value chain, from sourcing to clients. In what areas are companies innovating, and what is driving the change? Why is a focus on luxury fashion’s precious raw materials important, and what are brands doing about it? What are the key barriers to improving practices, and how can we overcome them, as individual brands and collaboratively?