After 10 years in the make, CETI, the European Centre for Innovative Textiles, was finally inaugurated in October 2012. The aim of the research centre is to give the textile industry a platform to research and prototype innovative textiles that can be used in sectors like: Medical, Sport & Leisure, Hygiene, and Protection sectors representing 25% of technical textile manufacturing industry; building and civil engineering that account for 10% of the production; transport making 26% of the market volume (and 15% of the market value) of technical textiles.
How do you make ‘sustainability' tangible?
The usual answer is – unsurprisingly – a ‘well, it depends’.
Which it evidently does.
Unfortunately, good case studies are extremely rare to come across.
Hence, when I stumbled across such a gem in one of the primary Swiss news papers, I jumped at the opportunity to summarise it for this blog.
Can AI help us to get to (better) grips with supply chain compliance?
Supply chains are based on fairly complex partnership networks where every link ideally must meet strict efficiency and compliance standards.
Supplier audits and legislation aim ultimately to ensure high standard, it is a not the least highly time demanding task to be successful at. AI offers the potential to support practical solutions for risk assessment, process optimization, and partner evaluation. Commercial providers are already jumping on the band wagon by providing ways to build 'digital twins' of real supply chains – hence opening them up for 'offline optimisation' - and of course highly sophisticated data analytics tools drawing from multiple disjoint data sources.
Overconsumption or ‘simply’ consumption?
Fair resource use, or resource depletion?
Fair share, equal share or acquired share of resources?
Those are questions that pop up when the Planetary Boundaries are being discussed.
“Is Europe living within the limits of our planet?: An assessment of Europe's environmental footprints in relation to planetary boundaries”, published in April 2020 does exactly that: it evaluates and calculates the European performance for planetary boundaries by taking a consumption-based (footprint-based) perspective. This is turn is interesting as it relates environmental pressures to final demands for goods and services.
And the results are ... shall we say: a stark call to action.
Authentication and traceability backbone solutions have become a key technology for many a brand to prevent not only product forgery, but also to prove truthfulness of on-and-off product claims.
What few realise: product authentication is just one half of a 2-part system (Figure 1) whereby authentication is applied to the product at its point of origin, and a traceability backbone ensures that the product reaches its destination – for example the end consumer – safely and untampered.
Supply chains, as a discipline of expertise, have come out of the hiding and recognise their role in reducing corporate risk. This is notably and specifically the case in fashion and textiles. At the same time, 'design' - not just in the creation room, but in all facets where it impacts the making, delivery and use of a product or service, is increasingly recognised as relevant.
On November 12 and 13, 2013 the yearly Textile Exchange conference took place in Istanbul, Turkey.
I was invited to run a workshop on Scenario Work as one of the 'Strategy' break out session on the first day. The workshop was fully booked with 25 highly interested and active participants. In 90 challenging minutes they experienced a compressed version of a Scenario Planning workshop.
Is AI advancing sustainability or creating costly trade-offs we’re only beginning to understand? In this post, we dive into the reality behind AI's potential as a force for sustainability. While AI shows promise in enhancing sustainable practices and supporting business processes, it also has a significant CO₂ footprint—mainly from energy-hungry data centres—and its environmental impact will likely grow. Though AI could help achieve Sustainable Development Goals, this depends on our responsible use and governance of the technology. Without stringent oversight, AI risks reinforcing societal biases, as seen in social media algorithms that foster echo chambers. As with all innovations, AI’s promise is matched by its challenges, and only a well-balanced approach can ensure it contributes meaningfully to a sustainable future.
At Shirahime, we have worked quite extensively over the last few months on the development of fashion industry scenarios beyond the 2020 time frame, going as far as 2045.
We mentioned for example Shell as one that used this approach to suit their own goals.
Siemens' 'Future Life' video, as presented the The Crystal in London.
A much more interesting approach, and very insightful in terms of methodology, but also how tangible the results are presented, is Siemens’ work on Future Cities
How can AI help connect the worlds of sustainability/ESG data, and that of company financials?
ESG is typically considered a mere cost - yet: this perception stems chiefly from a lack of integration of mutually beneficial data of these two worlds. With better approaches to cost accounting, to performance analysis, as well as using predictive analysis relate to trends, legislation and asset management, the ability of AI to integrated diverse and complex data sets may precise be the pathway to shift that needle.
Have you heard about open data? And about open source?
The equivalent of open source in sustainability terms would be an ‘open standard’.
But what would that mean?
The most recent event in the 'Perspectives on Future Sustainable Design' series highlighted the progress made in developing sustainable design approaches. Both, from a theoretical as well as from a systemic point of view. A summary.
The RITE Conference's 2012 edition showed that the challenges for the industry are clear, and so are the general directions that need to be taken. But there are some marvellous and challenging mountains to climb, and they cause a notably sensation of paralysis.
Could ESG reporting finally become less repetitive and tedious?
AI has the potential to transform ESG reporting by automating compliance tracking, integrating data from diverse and unstructured sources, and streamlining audit preparation. This opens up opportunities to free data and ESG experts from repetitive, tedious tasks. Yet, while AI offers promise, tight oversight remains essential to address challenges like data quality ('crap in is crap out') and system integration.
Cotton as an attractive alternative in tsunami regions. Leading textile manufacturers promoting the cultivation of organic cotton. New technologies and methods for natural dyeing processes and recycling. And five categories of Green Fashion in Japan.
Cradle to Cradle is a design methodology that puts a 'waste-less' world at its heart. What is the concept all about? What does it mean for the apparel industry? And who practises it among designers and companies?
If there is an area of fashion that is truly pushing the boundaries of what is technically and style-wise possible, then it is Haut Couture.
In January 2013 2 pieces among Iris van Harpenr’s 11-piece collection at Voltage show attracted the interested of fashionistas as much as product techies: The first ever wearable dresses created through a 3D printing process.
In last week’s post I looked at energy companies and their trajectory relative to the Paris Climate Agenda. The insights clearly suggested a mixed picture. A clear point of how important it is to decarbonised the way we fuel our economy and global society.
But that’s unfortunately not all there is to the energy generation picture!
What few people realise: Energy generation requires water. A lot of water.
Not just in the energy generating processes, but also in the extraction of the energy source (coal in particular), and/or the making of the necessary equipment.
Some insights ... illustrated at the example of China.
Japan – for multiple reasons, not the least the still ongoing, if diminishing, cultural influence onto its neighbours – remains an interesting case to look at in terms of sustainable and ethical fashion. And vocabulary and its use and evolution is the start of it all.
Computer Science and Sustainability/ESG: these two areas of expertise combine increasingly well with every passing month and year. In fact, I am tempted to say that the two worlds of sustainability and digitalisation are surprisingly similar to one another. In a number of ways – not in all, of course! – they overlap more than they differ. And mutually benefit each other.
Both areas represent critical skill-sets for boards and senior executives in the current and upcoming decades. This is why I thought I’d take the time to reflect on the overlaps, the synergies, but no doubt also the differences.
The key words: systems thinking, automatisation, fraud prevention and authentication, business model distruption, usability, and the Just Transition.
