Updates

The African cotton sector has received a shot in the arm as some key global players have joined hands to galvanise financing to promote cooperation in developing programmes that support private sector engagement and investment in the Cotton-4 countries and other cotton-producing countries in West and Central Africa.

An uncertain economic climate dampening the investment and retail landscape notwithstanding, there are strong drivers in place making a transition to NextGen innovations all but certain, says a new report.

A total of 97 enterprises across 27 countries submitted 105 Sustainability Pledges to the UNECE Secretariat with SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production with the highest level of involvement in the Pledges, followed by SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals, and SDG 13 - Climate Action.

Workers across the fashion supply chain are being shortchanged by an absence of proper structures for collective bargaining, allowing perpetuation of a business model that relies on tight margins for suppliers and low worker wages, claims a new report.

Australia’s much-touted ‘Seamless’ programme—that recognises that the brands who place clothes on the market are responsible for the entire life of that garment, from design through to re-use and recycling—marks the beginning of a sustainable future for the country’s clothing industry beginning 1 July.

In a bid to integrate West African cotton-growing countries more closely in the global value chain for football clothing, Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) will now be a part of the joint initiative of the WTO and FIFA that aims to open up new markets to African cotton farmers and producers, for example in the area of sportswear.

Researchers in the US have created a new wearable fabric that can help urban residents survive the worst impacts of massive heat caused by global climate change, with applications in clothing, building and car design, and food storage.

A new study from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology that examined the driving forces behind laundering behaviours, provides new tools for how people's environmental impact can be reduced.

As the search for an alternative recyclable leather continues, scientists in Germany have developed a synthetic leather in which both the fibre material and the coating polymer are bio-based and recyclable.

Fifteen industry associations representing the apparel, footwear and packaging sectors have called on EU legislators for improvement of market surveillance to ensure that imported products enter the EU market only if they are fully compliant with chemical legislation.