Fashion and agriculture are among the industries with the highest climate footprint – through over consumption of finite resources, aggregated CO2 emissions, widespread ecosystem pollution and resulting extensive biodiversity loss. This design-led R&D partnership between researchers from Centre for Sustainable Fashion and South East England and South West England Fibreshed supports Fibreshed’s mission to revalue UK wool and create short, transparent bio-regional fibre and fashion supply networks with potential for replication. Wool is still produced in the UK in abundance, but it is chronically undervalued, underutilised and often destroyed through lack of markets. The project addresses one of the key barriers for advancement of bio-regional fibre and textiles ecosystems and economies - the lack of links, common language and mutual understanding of requirements and production cycles between farmers, designers and processors. Two branches of the Fibreshed UK organisation are partners in the Future Fashion Landscapes project: South East England Fibreshed (SEEF) and South West England Fibreshed (SWEF) represented by their respective Directors Deborah Barker and Emma Hague. Fibreshed is a global grassroots organisation developing regional fibre systems that builds both ecosystem and community health. It brings together farmers, manufacturers, practitioners and designers to reignite localised textile industries through regenerative practices and processes.

The aim of this project is to explore SME finance markets in four high-risk environmental impact sectors: agrifood, infrastructure, sustainable fashion and advanced manufacturing technology. The project builds on previous research, which identified constraints and opportunities for SMEs and their financiers to account for climate and biodiversity in a cohesive and meaningful way; laying the ground for more sector specific work now.

The British Council has commissioned this scoping research to shape and inform its longer-term Culture Responds to Global Challenges programme responding to climate action and sustainability in the arts. In addition, it supports the British Council’s active role as a knowledgeable contributor creating opportunities for international cultural relations around the climate crisis, one of the most urgent issues we face globally. This report, developed by researchers at the University of the Arts London (UAL), seeks to map out what’s happening in this space across the British arts and cultural sectors. Thematically structured, it includes suggestions of best practice and links to practical resources for cultural organisations and activists across the world. A key resource for us at the British Council as we consolidate and expand our arts and climate portfolio, we also hope the report will be more widely useful in igniting conversations, questioning paradigms, and pointing to new ways of working.

A design exchange partnership supporting the B-Corp certified social enterprise Elvis & Kresse in its ambition to become Net Regenerative by 2030. Elvis & Kresse create high quality fashion accessories from rescued waste materials, operating with the highest social and environmental standards. This project documents and supports the company’s climate ambition to become Net Regenerative by 2030, diversifying their products through regenerative agriculture and regenerative fashion practices within a rural ecosystem.

This project extends and builds upon research developed as part of the FSP project, which contributed a unique evidence-led guide to the sustainable practices of fashion MSMEs as drivers of innovation towards social, environmental, cultural, and economic prosperity. The project will develop and translate these research findings to: 1. inform policymakers of the needs of this economically important segment of the creative sector 2. identify ways to economically invigorate the sector 3. support industry net zero goals in the face of the 3-fold challenge outlined above The FSP project worked with 48 (mainly London-based) fashion MSMEs and 15 UK support organisations for 30 months, to inform the comprehensive guide – Fashion as Sustainability in Action. The guide is targeted at business support organisations that mentor, showcase and invest in fashion MSMEs and/or new enterprises in the creative industries, to extend their knowledge for supporting sustainability ambitions and practices. This next phase of research will apply this innovative resource in three regions outside London and the Southeast, with new and different support organisations, MSMEs, and stakeholders from three identified areas of the UK: Scotland, Midlands and the Northwest. Fashion MSMEs within the creative industries are the most economically vulnerable actors experiencing increased risks through the combined impacts of Covid-19 and Brexit, though at the same time, MSMEs tend to be more agile and mobile when dealing with seismic shifts. Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many companies to rely on new local partners to overcome the upheaval brought by severe supply chain disruptions. On the other hand, Brexit has forced many companies to rely on foreign partners as they were forced to relocate some of their supply chain operations in mainland Europe. By implementing a UK-wide regional survey of fashion MSMEs, the team seeks to provide targeted and improved understanding of how Covid-19 and Brexit have transformed the key drivers, opportunities and challenges associated with supply chain relocation strategies.

Life in Clothes is a design-led exploration of fashion and farming systems across different scales, geographic regions and socio-cultural boundaries. Life in Clothes examines the interconnections and parallels between fashion making and farming practices. The research considers all facets of fashion’s impacts, from local and global contexts of raw material production, sourcing, processing, finishing, design, manufacturing, distribution, use, care, re-use, re-cycling to the end of life of clothing. The core focus is on how the values we place at every stage of fashion’s (life) cycle affects human and environmental health and well-being. This research embeds the concept of fashion making that responds to the dynamics of place, to create and pilot new possibilities for fashion practice within rural ecosystems. Life in Clothes will propose how fashion and farming systems attuned to the rhythms and cycles of nature can contribute to better lives, and how better lives can in turn be reflected in a fashion system that operates within planetary boundaries.

As identified in the COP 2015 Paris Agreement there is an urgent imperative for global efforts to tackle climate change and environmental damage from major industrial activities. This report supports this process in the European textiles, fashion and footwear sector, a major industry providing employment for nearly 1.7million people across the EU in approximately 176,000 businesses. These are mainly small businesses with less than 50 employees, representing 90% of the overall workforce. Small and micro businesses (with less than 10 employees) are recognized as key players in change-making for the industry, due to their agility and overall control of their operations. Here we focus on the potential for SMEs to adopt more sustainable business models and embrace the circular economy, and the key enabling factors. This report maps many current initiatives and key organisations operating in sustainable fashion and textiles across Europe and provides an overview of the opportunities for and challenges hindering the adoption of environmentally and economically sustainable business models in the fashion sector. It also identifies key enablers that will assist in the transformation towards a circular economy.