"Circularity in fashion is still very immature."
The consulting firm Vinces and ISEM organized a conference on Circular Economy with representatives of the Spanish Government and the European Commission.
Photo /The 2nd round table was moderated by Lourdes Huerta, Senior Consultant at Vinces Consulting.
19 | 04 | 2021
Vinces Consulting and ISEM Fashion Business School organized the conference "The Challenges of the Textile Sector in the Circular Economy" in which, in addition to representatives of the Government of Spain and the European Commission, also participated Ignacio Sierra, corporate general manager of Tendam; Jordi Blasco, general manager of T2T Solutions; Celia Ojeda, responsible for consumption and cities of Greenpeace; and Silvia Pérez Bou, professor at ISEM. All of them debated, in front of more than 50 attendees, about the textile sector and sustainability.
From the point of view of the company, Ignacio Sierra, who pointed out that "circularity in fashion is still very immature", listed the four major challenges facing the sector: "the reconceptualization of the product, the digitization of traceability, the management of global production capacity and circularity". On all these points he agreed with Jordi Blasco, who completed the message by adding that "in production the current challenge is to be close to 0 stock: we cannot produce volume to have price, but volume to produce better".
Civil society and academia
The issue was also analyzed from the point of view of civil society with Celia Ojeda of Greenpeace as representative. Ojeda pointed out that "there is a change in mentality and more and more people want to buy sustainable products", but she also recalled that "one of the great challenges of the sector is the large volume of consumption of garments. There is no point in using sustainable products or recycling if we do not stop to change the model towards one that is more focused on repairing or making garments last. We must ensure that what is really fashionable is that something lasts over time.
Finally, as a representative of the academic world, Professor Silvia Pérez Bou intervened and highlighted the two challenges faced by the University to help companies in this search for sustainability: "On the one hand, to provide adequate training for the new profiles that are being created in this field; and on the other hand, research to land all the ideas and be able to put them into action".
In addition to this debate, the day also featured another round table where the testimony of María Rincón, Policy Officer- Circular Economy Action Plan of the European Commission, and Margarita Ruíz Saiz-Aja, Deputy Director General of Circular Economy of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, could be heard.