Adidas teams up with fashion innovation accelerator

Fashion for Good is an innovation platform for start-ups, corporates and investors. The platform links incumbent businesses with innovative start-ups to support the scaling-up process of new technologies, methodologies and business models.

Joining the likes of luxury fashion group Kering as a Fashion for Good partner, Adidas will play a big role in setting the programme’s innovation agenda. This includes participation in the selection of new innovators and providing expertise to circular apparel startups.

In turn, Adidas will gain specialising scouting and screening support, as well as preferential access to market-ready innovations through Fashion for Good’s network.

The German sportswear giant will also contribute to the development of the Fashion for Good Experience, a consumer-facing concept space in Amsterdam open to the public.

“We want to be a driver for sustainable innovation, both within the industry and towards consumers,” said Adidas vice president strategy creation James Carnes.

“At Adidas, we have an Open Source approach where we believe in solving problems through collaboration with others. In this line of thinking, our partnership with Fashion for Good reinforces our commitment to sustainability and to building a network that impacts the world of consumers — together.”

Fast fashion

The sheer scale of textile waste caused by the clothing industry was laid bare in a recent report co-launched by Dame Ellen MacArthur and fashion designer Stella McCartney. In a stark warning, the report predicted the fashion industry could use up to a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050 if nothing changes.

To tackle the issue, a number of top brands are starting to adopt circular approaches to clothing production. Indeed, Adidas vowed to produce one million ocean plastic pairs of trainers by the end of 2017.

Last summer, C&A became the first global retailer to launch Gold level Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certified t-shirts, which have been designed to be reused, recycled into new products or safely composted. The 

The C&A Foundation is a founding partner of the Fashion for Good initiative. Its aim is to bring industry players together to “reimagine how fashion is designed, made, used and reused”, and has invited those who want to learn more about the initiative to its newly opened Fashion for Good Centre in Amsterdam.

George Ogleby