COP27, leading companies including – H&M, Inditex, Ben & Jerry’s, Stella McCartney, HH Global, and Kering – announced a collective commitment to purchase over half a million tonnes of low-carbon, low-footprint alternative fibers for fashion textiles and paper packaging. It is a move that will support the protection of the world’s vital forests and ecosystems and lower forest degradation pressures from the fashion and packaging supply chains.
Spearheaded by environmental nonprofit Canopy, this commitment towards more sustainable, lower-carbon alternatives – known as Next Generation Solutions – reflects a building urgency across industries to accelerate the transition to nature-positive business models. This market pull is essential to attract the investment necessary to scale these game-changing Next Generation alternatives on ecologically meaningful timelines.
Also Read: Bollinger Motors Announces Our Next Energy as Battery Supplier for Electric Commercial Trucks
At last year’s UN Climate Change Conference, protecting nature was at the center of commitments to deliver on global climate targets. Today one-third of the world’s most influential companies have yet to make forest conservation commitments1, despite the scientific community’s warnings that at least 50% of the world’s forests need to be conserved or restored by 2030 to ensure global temperature rises stay below 1.5 °C.
Every year, over 3.2 billion trees are cut down to produce fibre for packaging and clothing, releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Alternatives to wood – such as agricultural residues and recycled textiles – are readily available and can be scaled in order to prevent the logging of these forests at this untenable rate. Moving to Next Generation Solutions could help avoid almost 1Gt of CO2 emissions between now and 2030.
“We are thrilled to advance this commitment with forward-looking partners who are willing to challenge the status quo and in doing so provide a breakthrough for these game-changing technologies,” said Canopy Founder and Executive Director, Nicole Rycroft. “This commitment will allow us to take a historic leap closer to the $64 billion of investments in sustainable alternatives needed to ensure forest conservation for our planet’s climate and biodiversity stability.”