Informed in New York on textile sustainability activities

Through its textile events, Messe Frankfurt has been globally engaged in raising the visibility of sustainable development goals for more than 15 years. In doing so, it collaborates with the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network and the UN Office for Partnerships, which met at the United Nations headquarters on June 2 for their first annual meeting. To draw attention to the issue of sustainability, it publishes special trade show guides, initiates talk shows, offers guided tours of exhibiting companies with relevant portfolios, creates material galleries of sustainable textile innovations and organizes its own events, such as “Neonyt,” exclusively on sustainable fashion.

In a joint panel discussion, Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt, Sara Kozlowski, Vice President Education and Sustainability Initiatives at the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Sergio Fernández de Córdova, Chairman of the PVBLIC Foundation, and Roberta Marcenaro, CEO of strategy consultancy IMARK and strategist at Polimoda, spoke about the importance of partnerships and collaboration in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The discussion was moderated by Lucie Brigham, Chief of Office at the United Nations Office for Partnerships and co-founder of the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network.

“The textile industry is an industry of stark contrasts. You find both traditional craftsmanship and high-tech with fully digitized and automated manufacturing processes. At the same time, supply chains are more complex and globally networked than in almost any other industry. Sustainability can only be achieved through the close interaction of the right partners,” said Olaf Schmidt during the discussion. “As a trade fair organizer, it is true that we ourselves do not directly make the textile industry more sustainable. However, our central tasks in Messe Frankfurt’s Texpertise Network are different: We offer platforms for networking and bring the right partners:together at around 60 textile events worldwide. We create visibility by offering the industry a stage to spotlight its commitment to sustainability. We offer education and knowledge transfer at numerous conference and talk formats on the topic of sustainability. And we lead by example. With our global campaigns on the SDGs, we estimate that we have reached around 9,200 exhibitors and 195,500 visitors so far – even in times of pandemic.”

The next opportunities to obtain comprehensive information on the textile value chain, including innovative textile materials, manufacturing processes as well as furnishing and contract textiles and sustainable fashion, will be offered by the leading international trade fairs “Techtextil,” “Texprocess” and the “Heimtextil Summer Special” from June 21 to 24, 2022, as well as the first edition of “Neonyt,” the “Neonyt Lab,” from June 24 to 26 in Frankfurt.