The biggest shift for our whole sector—including the denim universe—is the huge increase in consciousness. Everyone has realised what raw materials are really worth. There is more education around those contexts and a growing interest in details such as social issues or efficiency. We are aware of this demand, which is why we had an extensive series of seminars, lectures and talks at MFS this year, most of which have been centred around circularity, recycling, new materials, traceability and innovations. And we take this matter seriously.

What began as a search for phulkari artisans has evolved into a multi-team startup of designers, artisans, tailors, a tech team, and marketers. Today, we are a strong team shaping Aab Label's growth and success.

Current traceability systems rely largely on paper-based trails. More recently blockchains have been introduced as the solution to record product data in a way that cannot be corrupted. What such systems have in common is that the product information is detached from the real life products. This makes available chain of custody systems prone to frauds.

Besides merino wool, we had to use several materials for the double knit blankets. We also wanted to experiment with this technique. Unfortunately, there aren’t biobased materials available yet at the producer for the filling yarns. The blankets have been developed locally at TextielLab in Tilburg and are produced on demand.

The industry is struggling to recruit as there is a severe labour shortage. There are also labour shortages in the rest of the world but the situation in the UK has been exacerbated by a poorly thought-out post-Brexit migration policy that equates qualifications to skills.

This is the right time to collaborate/create platforms and educate the Western world on the true ways of sustainability and circularity as it has always been our way of life. There is similarity in African and Indian fashion—both coming from rich cultures and traditions, be it in using natural dyes on products or living, working sustainably. It’s past due to owning our designs and creativity directly and creating a sustainable value chain globally.

There is an educational aspect to what we are doing. . There is also a huge amount of green washing and just plain lies on the environmental benefits of products. All scientists know that plant based biodegradable materials are THE only true sustainable solution, the planet has been doing that for over a billion years, this will become clear to people as they learn more about our products.

People fall in love with brands for the good they do in the world, whatever form that might take. Combining these two ideas is powerful, we call it the green bundle. Our unique contribution is next generation bio-based and biodegradable material technologies that are high quality and durable. The materials Steve and his team invented allowed us to create the world’s first biodegradable and durable sneakers with Blueview.

Upon researching, understanding the challenges and current products within outdoor wear and sportswear, we realised that our material could help reduce and solve some of the key environmental issues, like PFCs, PTFE and laminated mixed material. It became a very exciting opportunity.

Our equivalency mapping service allows a company’s Transparency Dashboard to reflect all their conformance and compliance, as long as it is third party audited and credible. Of course, the summary section of each organisation’s individual Dashboard also shows non-auditable good practice to give a full overview of how a company considers its responsibility – this can include awards, social responsibility programmes, additional due diligence work, etc.

Today there is a limited choice of testing methods and those available were developed long before bio-fabrication in industrial quantities existed. We are defining new test methods, which fully measure the properties of our novel products in detail and certify their sustainability.

We are overwhelmed with the number of retailers who have joined us in our short stint of the first quarter. The team is excited to reach the milestone of 10,000 retailers before the end of this financial year.

Learning and unlearning the individual needs of the retailers who are spread into the different tiers and geo-locations is a consistent challenge which needs a dedicated team to handle.

During the pandemic, even as many Indian states and also other countries remained under lockdown, there were still some nations which were open. We felt that we should diversify; this was the right time to go into the Western markets.

A digitised marketplace needs digitised production capabilities. Screens have their place—but digital is a complementary solution that enables self-expression (unlimited designs, colours, etc.), creates new opportunities, optimises production floor operations (eliminating inefficiencies and wasteful overproduction), and better aligns with e-commerce to answer the explosion of creativity taking place worldwide.

Serving as an education model on recycling is one of the aims of doing this project, as said before; we want people to appreciate the value of clothes, think before they buy. There are still many potential applications of G2G. For example, it can be a workstation for designers to produce custom-made fashion items. The designers make clothes when they receive customers’ orders; they don’t need to keep stock.

An unprecedented pandemic coupled with large-scale devastation due to climate change has put the spotlight on various brands to reflect on their business practices and bring in necessary changes to help undo the damage already done to nature. These include reducing green-house-gas emissions, use of better raw materials, to production process, waste treatment and more.

Our brand is based on an innovative, patent-pending method for producing cork rugs, using traditional weaving techniques and a unique cork fabric. A cork rug manufactured using a hand loom is quite an innovation and this kind of rug cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Affirming itself as a leading international company in the research, development and production of cork composite solutions, Amorim Cork Composites (one of Amorim's business units) develops ground-breaking concepts and has launched innovative products, applications and solutions in the market.

If a brand has specific designs that are required to reduce the costs they incur through an EPR scheme, they will go to those manufacturers that can meet their requirements. If a manufacturer will not design products in a way that reduces the cost burden on a brand, the brand suffers. This provides an incentive for brands to only work with those suppliers that support them in designing for circularity.