Advancing Sustainability Amid Market Volatily to Be Discussed at Third Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum

MILAN — As the fashion sector faces the volatility of a dampened economy and declining consumer confidence, the third edition of the Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum is bound to further highlight how the resilience and survival of global supply chains hinge on advances in sustainability.

The summit, which will take place at Venice’s Giorgio Cini Foundation on Oct. 24 and 25, is titled “Leading Re-generation” and is organized by Sistema Moda Italia, Confindustria Veneto Est and consultancy The European House — Ambrosetti.

The two-day event is poised to try to unpack the ongoing eco-journey for the sector, with an agenda that covers hot-button topics in the ESG approach and the latter’s intersection with economic sustainability.

Organizers teased that the forum would unearth the challenges that small- and medium-sized fashion enterprises face in fueling innovation and eco-transformation, as well as what brands can do to support the pipeline and what’s expected from policymakers.

“The third edition shows the forum’s continuity as an institutional gathering,” said Sistema Moda Italia president Sergio Tamborini. “We need to make sustainability a substantial goal again. Over the years, because of greenwashing, sustainability has turned into a bureaucratic affair.”

For the first time since in its three-year history, the forum will welcome representatives from fast-fashion players, with spokespeople from Shein joining the conversation alongside sustainability executives from Prada Group, Tod’s Group, as well as LVMH Métiers d’Art chief executive officer Matteo de Rosa.

“Neglecting fast fashion today would mean intentionally disregarding a portion of the world, one that is very attractive for consumers,” Tamborini said. “I also believe that fast-fashion players will allow the supply chain to govern the sustainability [journey] from a recycling standpoint, whereas the luxury segment will continue to commit to durability and repairability.”

The SMI president also highlighted how jobs along the fashion supply chain are largely created by non-luxury players, especially fast-fashion companies, and although the Italian pipeline has built its reputation on high-end manufacturing, it remains dependent to a certain extent on other segments of the fashion market.

As in previous editions, the event’s agenda — covering topics as varied as the latest regulations, the consumer’s trust in sustainability claims, the circular economy and more — is shaped around the findings of the survey “Just Fashion Transition 2024” conducted by The European House — Ambrosetti.

The latter, also in its third edition, analyzed about 2,900 Italian and European fashion companies from a sustainability perspective, especially 374 supply chain entities, 100 of the biggest European fashion companies and 30 global retailers across 775 data points drawn from law drafts and regulations issued by the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD.

Key findings of the survey will be unveiled on the summit’s first day — followed by keynote speeches and roundtables — but the consultancy’s partner and head of sustainability practices Carlo Cici highlighted how the sector is lagging behind, at least by eight years, in the transition, which can no longer be pushed back.

Again, scale emerged as one of the key hurdles in the green journey, with the substantial margin gap between brands and supply chain companies, as well as between bigger and smaller-sized manufacturing players, affecting the sector’s overhaul.

“We need to rethink and reinvent the sector to break the direct correlation between size, productivity, marginality and sustainability investments,” Cici explained.

“We need more reciprocity between the up- and downstream of the supply chain, between manufacturers and brands,” chimed in Andrea Crespi, vice president of SMI with oversight on sustainability initiatives. “So far we’ve journeyed very fast but very soon we will need to go as far as possible and that entails mutual collaboration.”

Compared to previous versions, the 2024 survey weighs the gathered assessments against historical data to try to understand where the fashion sector stands in its journey toward meeting the European Union-mandated green objectives for 2030.

“I believe that choices made for the sector will heavily depend on the weight our country has in Europe on this sector, especially as Italy’s footprint in fashion is largely related to its manufacturing pipeline,” said Flavio Sciuccati, partner at The European House — Ambrosetti and director of the global fashion unit.

The full roster of speakers at the Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum is to be unveiled closer to the event.