Here is a view from inside Scandinavian MIND’s editorial desk. When we started working on this project four years ago, we wanted to focus on the brands and people who wanted to make our core industries more innovative, technology-driven, and sustainable.
Regarding fashion, we saw an increased number of stories that focused on brands’ sustainability efforts. There were talks of new material innovations, reduced plastic waste in packaging, and increased focus on recycling. We wanted to be a positive platform and highlight all the projects that made significant steps forward while at the same time ignoring the obvious PR outbursts of greenwashing projects.
If you’re not familiar with how information comes our way, I can inform you that a lot of it comes in the form of press releases sent to us by a brand’s internal PR department or external agency. Now, it’s not the only way we source our stories—the best ones are almost always from our own research and personal connections—but it is a useful tool for a slimmed-down journalistic operation like ours.
And last year something dramatic happened.
The stories stopped coming.
We reflected on this at a recent editorial meeting after launching our newly designed website (a repeated shout-out to our creative director Erik!). While surveying our inboxes, we realised that the fashion industry has gone completely green-hushing on itself. There is almost no external communication on sustainability efforts coming from the Nordic fashion brands.
Naturally, this comes in the wake of the European Commission announcing their new law on “Green Claims, which consists of “new criteria to stop companies from making misleading claims about environmental merits of their products and services.” On February 20 of this year, the EU Council of Ministers approved the said law.
Now, this is fundamentally a good thing. It cracks down on the worst iterations of vague and idiotic claims of “responsible,” “green,” and “eco” in their collection, not seldom coming to form the big fast fashion behemoths. But it’s obvious to us covering the sector that it has also silenced the brands that are making actual progress and good initiatives.
Because, why risk it?
When we talk to brands in the Nordics, it’s obvious that there is a lot of confusion and hesitations regarding anything regarding the new EU regulations for textiles and fashion. And perhaps we will see a correction, once some precedent starts taking hold. But it’s evident that stories of progress in the fashion industry’s transformation are not coming out. We know, because when we talk to brands, they always reveal projects and initiatives they have been working on, sometimes for years without communicating them externally.
That’s why, starting this week, we are launching our new series Transformation Leaders. A new format where we reach out to brand owners, CEOs, and sustainability executives at the Nordic fashion brands and ask them questions about their efforts to transform the industry. Because the will to change is there, it just takes a different form depending on the company.
First out is Riika Wikberg, Chief Business Development Officer at Marimekko, interviewed by my colleague Johan Magnusson. More interviews are in the works, both in written form for our podcast and for our upcoming Transformation Conference, which we are currently planning for Helsinki, Stockholm, and Copenhagen.
Do you know anyone who deserves to be named a Transformation Leader in the fashion industry? Reach out, and we’ll take a closer look. Do you know a company or organisation that wants to collaborate on any of our upcoming conferences? Do reach out, as we still have free slots for presenting partners in the schedule and adjacent communications.
It’s going to be an exciting year!
