Fundamentally changing the norms of any industry can be a daunting task, especially when businesses now face entrenched social problems – like the health of our environment. The business shifts necessary to survive sometimes seem impossible. To solve these problems, we’re seeing ground-breaking collaborations emerge – demonstrating what is possible when an industry joins together for collaborative impact.
Canopy, an organization founded by Ashoka Fellow Nicole Rycroft, works to protect the world's forest, species and climate by collaborating with over 700 businesses to create sustainable supply chains and innovative solutions to environmental challenges. Every year, an estimated 70 to 100 million trees are cut for fabric production globally – a number that is estimated to double in the next twenty years. If not reversed, treasured rainforests and threatened and endangered species around the world will be impacted. Some may vanish forever. And unsuspecting consumers are often not aware that ancient and endangered forests make their way into clothing.
Canopy’s new global initiative, Fashion Loved by Forest, brings together a variety of clothing-industry giants to address the apparel sector’s growing impacts on the world’s forests, biodiversity and climate. Last week, the world’s two largest clothing brands,
Reflecting on the growing support for the Fashion Loved by Forest initiative, social entrepreneur Nicole Rycroft provided four valuable how-to’s for enabling cross-sector partnerships to foster a new industry trend:
1. Providing a Compelling Vision for the Partnership.
Canopy started with an underlying belief that business can be a powerful force for environmental change. While past campaigns or initiatives tended to point fingers at businesses for their failure to address social problems, newer models focus on business as part of the solution and actively encourage more corporate participation in fostering change.
2. Looking at how you can engage across an industry/Identifying the lever points within industry
Identify who are the likely early adopters, gatekeepers (those with largest market shares) and trendsetters (those with a history of bold leadership in sustainability). Mapping this out enabled Canopy to find the most strategic partners and develop influential networks that are positioned to establish new “norms of behaviour” in sustainability for the industry.
3. Listening and enabling honest exchanges of interests
Relationships are foundation to enabling collaborations and as such an environment that facilitates co-creation is integral. “How can we truly work together to create more sustainable supply chain systems?” is a question Rycroft notes is central to Canopy’s work and partnerships. Working closely with the fashion industry, Nicole is eager to understand the needs of business, the mechanics and inner workings of the clothing brands and what it takes for a company to be both economically successful and environmentally sustainable. This has helped her, and Canopy, in being able to co-create solutions suitable for the scale of the ecological problems faced by our societies.
4. Identifying societal shifts affecting your industry
Globally, we are witnessing a rise in social consciousness, with consumers wanting to understand the origins and true impacts of the products they buy. Canopy and Fashion Loved by Forest partner brands are taking bold steps to ensure business can effectively address their customers’ concerns by transforming their supply chain to offer more responsibly-sourced clothing. Identifying and working constructively with progressive companies willing to be ahead of the curve – to embrace change before issues become front-page controversies – is an integral part of Canopy’s success.
These four themes underpin Rycroft and Canopy’s track record of high impact, innovative collaborations. Best known for “greening” the Harry Potter book series by working with JK Rowling and her publishers, the Fashion Loved by Forest initiative is the latest in this social entrepreneur’s endeavour to drive a tipping point of change in the world’s consumption – production systems.
This post was written by Durka Kumarathasan, Manager of Communications & Engagement at Ashoka Canada.
