Brands Including H&M & Stella McCartney Announce Commitment To Forest-Friendly Supply Chains

A host of high profile brands including H&M, Inditex, Stella McCartney, Ben & Jerry's, HH Global, and Kering have committed to using low-carbon, low-footprint alternative fibres for fashion textiles and paper packaging.

The companies have teamed up with not-for-profit environmental organisation, Canopy, which was set up to protect forests, species and the climate. The new commitment will see the brands buying more than half a million tonnes of the alternative fibres or Next Generation alternatives.

Canopy claims that these alternatives deliver 95 percent to 130 percent less CO2 emissions; 18 percent to 70 percent less fossil energy resource depletion and have an at least five times lower impact on biodiversity and threatened species.

“Every year, over 3.2 billion trees are cut down to produce fibre for packaging and clothing, releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Alternatives to wood - such as agricultural residues and recycled textiles - are readily available and can be scaled in order to prevent the logging of these forests at this untenable rate,” said the collective in a press release from Sharm el Sheikh, which is hosting the COP27 conference.

Canopy Founder and Executive Director, Nicole Rycroft said: "This commitment will allow us to take a historic leap closer to the $64 billion of investments in sustainable alternatives needed to ensure forest conservation for our planet's climate and biodiversity stability."