Sustainable Fashion is referenced by Stockholm+50, and the UNEP report ‘Sustainability and Circularity in the Textile Value Chain – Global Stocktaking’ as having the potential to support a Sustainable Recovery For All by applying the precautionary principle to the sustainable management of the environmental dimensions of its value-chain, including conscientious product design, natural resource and material inputs, workers’ health and wellbeing, treatment of waste, and end-of-life product disposal, in pursuit of circularity and enhancing resilience for intergenerational equity.  Moreover, an integrated approach to environmental and social sustainability turns the drive towards circularity into a significant avenue for a just transition, with more and better jobs, social inclusion and poverty reduction.

Against this background, the UN Environment Management Group, in close collaboration with the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, UN Conference on Trade and Development, UN Environment Programme, UN Economic Commission for Europe, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and International Labour Organization, will organize a Sustainable Recovery through Sustainable Fashion: A Focus on the Environmental Dimensions (7 September 2021) Nexus Dialogue intending to facilitate an exchange of different approaches to address the environmental facets of the Sustainable Fashion Nexus, especially in pursuit of sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 context, and with an emphasis on the UN system’s programmes.

Partners will share knowledge of updated initiatives, challenges, and capacity gaps – the discussion will apply both a micro- and macro-lens.

The Micro-lens will have a peer-to-peer exchange on applying the environmental perspective to Sustainable Fashion, and identifying unexplored opportunities with a particular focus on circularity and decarbonization. The discussion will focus on how to adjust value chains towards environmental sustainability, including lifecycle implications on sustainable materials/inputs, product design, value chain traceability and transparency, sustainable consumption and production, and end-of-life management while applying the decent work agenda.