Sustainability is a huge area and most times it is hard for an individual establishment to do it all. In these cases, brands to innovate towards sustainability or new uses of fashion, they need to team up with technological partners that will add their expertise to the final product or services. There are different types of collaborations such as cross sector or within sectors with a shared aim to solve a problem and work towards sustainability.
Before engaging in these kinds of collaborations, one must keep in mind the most important point.
Shared motivation for sustainability – Companies that are likely to work together to innovate for sustainability must have a common motivation for doing so.Many firms today utilise sustainability as a mere marketing ploy without giving it the proper execution.This could lead to future brand conflict or strife.Before engaging in any collaborations, the companies must resolve this issue on a personal level.
Let’s now talk about the advantages of these partnerships.
A) Synergy – For many existing established brands, sustainable implementations may be rather difficult. Greater results and outcomes can be achieved by actively collaborating than by each organization working on its own.
B )Resource Sharing – Collaborations can also assist brands in obtaining technological and resource assistance and assist them in developing cutting-edge goods or architectures, which is typically not attainable by a specific organization alone.
C) Overcoming Obstacles – The other organization may be able to help when one runs into problems that hinder it from achieving its goals. Furthermore, networks, coalitions, and alliances are more efficient than standalone organizations.
D) Innovation – Team cooperation in organisations, in particular, offers a variety of perspectives for innovation and issue resolution.
Let’s get into few successful collaborations within the fashion industry:
A) Jacquard, collaboration between Levis and Google.They came together to weave a denim fabric with embedded connectivity thread that could transmit information from the fabric.
B) Ecoalf, created a jacket out of pure waste from the oceans.So they teamed up with many Spanish fisherman
C) When many partners from different sides of fashion industry and NGO’s team up at international level. An example is Better Cotton Initiative. In 2005, a part of a round table initiative led by WWF, different initiative was born all with the goal of finding more sustainable solutions to the farmers.
