Calling All Fashion Communicators: UNEP Launches Playbook And It's A Must-Read
Source: Rachel Arthur by Holly Falconer.
By Meg Pirie
When we think of sustainable fashion, we often think of engaging with those on the ground – by that I mean the growers, the makers, the designers and the brands. However, a new Playbook by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) talks directly with fashion’s communicators. Written for marketers, brand managers, imagemakers, storytellers, media, influencers and beyond, ‘The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook’ from UNEP and UN Climate Change, provides a much needed framework when policies around how to communicate environmental claims increasingly come into force.
Fashion is indeed a sector where misinformation and greenwashing are ubiquitous and provide a significant challenge to decipher. As sustainability has grown as a selling point, the Playbook points to the fact that all manner of vague and inflated claims have appeared across advertising, marketing, media, packaging and beyond. Here in the UK, the Changing Markets Authority (CMA) created the Green Claims Code to combat the fact that in 2021 the CMA found that 59% of sustainability claims by European fashion giants were misleading and unsubstantiated.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Fashion is a sector which has the ability to lead the march for a more equitable, just and sustainable future. This is not only due to its ingenuity and creativity, but also its storytelling and culture-shaping abilities. This is power and harnessed in the right way, could shift patterns in unsustainable production, consumption and patterns, towards reimagining a more sustainable fashion future which aligns with its sustainability targets.
What follows is a conversation with Rachel Arthur, the UN Environment Programme’s Sustainable Fashion Advocacy Lead and author of the Playbook, who delves into the aim of the Playbook and the untapped power communicators hold in setting new cultural trends and value shifts for a more equitable and just fashion future.
Q. Why was it important that UNEP created this piece of work targeted at communicators within the fashion sector and what is its overall aim?
UNEP’s work within the textile value chain is focused on accelerating a just transition towards a sustainable and circular textile value chain. Our recent Roadmap report (Sustainability and Circularity in the Textile Value Chain – A Global Roadmap), outlines three priorities for systems change, including shifting consumption patterns, improved practices and infrastructure investment.
What ‘The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook’ (as an output from the Roadmap) is thus acknowledging is that while addressing production impacts is essential, shifting patterns of excess consumption in core markets must also be a priority. This means confronting the dominant linear economic model and its accompanying narrative of newness, immediacy and disposability, which is exactly what the Playbook is aiming to do.
It draws attention to the role of marketers, brand managers, imagemakers, storytellers, media, influencers and beyond, and the role they play in shaping desire, aspiration and levels of consumption. It then shows them how to take action in order to align their efforts to the Sustainable Development Goals through 1) countering misinformation, 2) reducing messages perpetuating overconsumption, 3) redirecting aspiration to more sustainable lifestyles, and 4) empowering consumers to demand greater action from businesses and policymakers. Ultimately it intends to help communicators explore how to assist in decoupling value creation from resource extraction and volume growth, while improving wellbeing.
Q. To complete this playbook you utilised 160 participants of multi-stakeholder consultations and workshops. Can you explain a little more about who was involved and how this shaped the Playbook overall?
The Playbook is the result of a collaboration between UNEP and the UN Climate Change-convened Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action. It was developed following a consultation that included a network of diverse actors from across the fashion sector globally. This included the signatories who are a part of the Fashion Charter, as well as government officials, researchers, NGOs, fashion brands and retailers (including both large organisations and SMEs) and academia. We also ensured we added voices from the wider communication ecosystem, including the media, digital platforms, advocacy groups, influencers, activists and beyond.
This consultation provided the basis of the Playbook’s focus, what information it needed to include and the challenges it should address. The Playbook also underwent a peer review process accordingly.
Q. What advice does this Playbook offer for communicators who are caught between a rock and a hard place – for example, where brands are focused on economic growth over degrowth and therefore pushing them to knowingly greenwash?
The Playbook recognises that a call for communicators to help drive change cannot exist without also confronting the role of the system they exist within. This is one of the key challenges I referred to that came out of the consultation process. Indeed, shifting the narrative of the fashion sector towards sustainability is inherently inhibited by the dominant economic system this is built on and the traditional objective of business – the profit motive – feeding it. The current marker of success for communication teams to drive conversions and increase sales is at odds with the necessary reduction in consumption that will be required to help meet sustainability targets.
Balancing this tension with the sustainability mandate will take a combination of both creativity and critical long-term thinking from leadership. The ultimate goal is to decouple value from volume growth, as identified in UNEP’s Roadmap report.
This is not something that can sit on the shoulders of communication actors alone, but what the Playbook asks is whether there can be a world where communication and marketing are no longer primarily about driving volume growth, but ensuring performance across the SDGs, tying in economic, social and environmental factors? It calls on communicators to help redefine the notion of ‘value’ accordingly. After all, value is something fundamentally connected to aspiration, which the communicator arguably holds the key to. Shifting those desires and setting new cultural trends cannot be underestimated.
Q. Principle 8 of the Playbook suggests the need to support dialogue with leadership and policymakers to enable wider industry sustainability. What policy shifts do you think policymakers and the Government should make to enable this?
UNEP’s aforementioned Roadmap report, which outlines the key actions everyone needs to take to transform the wider textile sector towards circularity, has identified the need for coordination between policymakers and key stakeholders. While UNEP does not comment on specific policy decisions, UNEP encourages policymakers to identify and address synergies and geographical trade-offs from (potential) global and national policy interventions, and forge cooperative trans-national efforts and a global policy response on circular textiles.
The Playbook aims to serve as a framework through which policymakers can hold the fashion industry’s communication activities specifically to account. It looks at those policies underway to address aspects such as product and environmental claims, environmental and social disclosures, and the challenges of greenwashing primarily. It also points to the fact that the role of policymakers to help shift unsustainable consumption patterns and discourage overproduction is crucial.
One of its recommendations is then for communicators to support, encourage and work directly with policymakers to help them understand the challenges, best practices and wider changes that are needed to improve standards across the value chain and introduce measures that drive scalable change.
Q. The Playbook references the need for communicators to share insights on extending the life of garments through responsible care, including reduced washing and drying, repair options and instructions, and managing end of life with ‘take back’ schemes, recycling, upcycling and more. How important do you think policy around Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) could be here?
We can’t comment directly on specific policies, however regulation is on the increase in the sector, which is highly needed. EPR is one of many policy options that can be considered by policymakers, and policies in general must be coordinated in a way that considers impacts a policy may have beyond its borders.
“This is not something that can sit on the shoulders of communication actors alone, but what the Playbook asks is whether there can be a world where communication and marketing are no longer primarily about driving volume growth, but ensuring performance across the SDGs, tying in economic, social and environmental factors? ”
