A central part of Fashion for Good’s mission is bringing together the entire eco-system through its Innovation Platform. The aim is to find, strengthen and scale breakthrough solutions that can unlock challenges around waste, pollution, carbon footprint, forced labour, poor wages and unsafe working conditions.

On the platform, innovators go through either the Accelerator or Scaling Programme, where they receive mentoring, coaching and connections to a network of potential funders. This work is then underpinned by Fashion for Good’s network of corporate partners. In 2018, Fashion for Good signed up seven brands – increasing its total corporate partners to 15 – to now include adidas, Zalando, PVH Corp, Stella McCartney, Bestseller, Otto Group and Target.

In an industry first, leading brands that are normally competitors are united in creating the conditions to scale innovation, giving a collective signal to the market that there is strong demand for solutions like these. Partners understand that this unique collaboration enables them to both share the risk and collectively reap the sustainability rewards.

This combination is what makes Fashion for Good so powerful. On the one hand, it strengthens each start-up’s offer, while at the same time sending a strong signal to the investment world, sparking an upward spiral of industry demand and finance. This creates better conditions for success in a complex environment. It means Fashion for Good isn’t just plugging a funding gap in the traditional investment landscape, it’s also moving the market along. Attracting the right corporate partners has been crucial in creating this shift.

The proof is that, in 2018, Fashion for Good innovators secured more than EUR €20 million in additional financing from the private sector. This is no small feat, given the complexities of attracting private sector investment into an industry that’s considered risky with relatively low margins.

With its corporate partners, Fashion for Good has also jointly facilitated 15 new pilots. One of these, the Organic Cotton Traceability Pilot, led by Fashion for Good innovator Bext360, brought together a unique mix of organisations. As well as brands already affiliated with Fashion for Good, like Kering, Zalando, PVH Corp and C&A, it drew in technology providers, C&A Foundation, the multi-brand platform Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA) and the manufacturer Pratibha Syntex. This shows that Fashion for Good is not only a platform to strengthen innovators and find solutions for its affiliates, it’s also a catalyst for further collaboration from across the industry.

Now that Fashion for Good has attracted a critical mass of corporate partners, as well as collaboration from across the industry, its power to help scale innovations can only continue to grow.

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