New partners and a focus on eco-design and sustainability claims for SDA Bocconi’s Monitor for Circular Fashion

No to greenwashing. That is the theme as the second year of activity of the Monitor for Circular Fashion begins. The Monitor is an integral part of SDA Bocconi’s Sustainability Lab and is powered by Enel X. It will publish its 2022 research report focusing on eco-design and sustainability claims in order to prevent greenwashing, i.e. fake sustainability practices that are used purely for marketing purposes. Work on these issues has become even more urgent after the release of the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. Company visits and pilot projects will also add to the activities launched in 2021.

The Monitor for Circular Fashion rallies 16 ingredient brands, retailers and service providers throughout the whole supply chain of the Italian fashion industry, upstream to downstream, as well as a KPIs Committee made up of consultants expert in measuring circularity.

In 2022, this community of companies, that have been chosen because they are front-runners of sustainability and circularity in the Italian fashion supply chain, will continue their virtuous journey examining and exchanging on the opportunities and challenges of circularity with a view to identifying and developing new practical and measurable solutions.

Experiential plenary meetings and pilot projects for implementing and testing KPIs integrate the activities started in 2021. At the end of the first year, partner companies visited Vibram and Bip; the first company visits in 2022 took place at Vitale Barberis Canonico and PwC (with a plenary meeting at the PwC Tower in CityLife, Milan). These itinerant meetings will continue throughout the year and will actively involve the companies in the community in explaining their traceability, transparency, sustainability and circularity projects already underway or in a start-up phase. The next meetings will be hosted by Oscalito in Piedmont and by Temera, Manteco and HModa in Tuscany.

Kering and UL are among the protagonists who will join the Monitor in 2022, with the aim of accelerating circularity in the entire sector, starting with Europe but with a global perspective. The Monitor will then select companies that can cover the missing phases in the supply chain: weaving, physical and online distribution.

The 2022 Monitor for Circular Fashion Report will be presented next fall, containing the results of the work done together with companies to identify eco-design principles, completing the industry-specific measurement KPIs already identified in 2021. Pilot projects are based on the principle of supply chain partnership: the companies in the Monitor work with each other and with young designers and Italian entities of excellence to generate shared value through circularity.

The pilot projects will also test the principles of the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) sustainability claims.

SDA Bocconi School of Management