Blue Cast: Bluesign’s Daniel Rufenacht on Fashion’s Legislative ‘Tsunami’
Blue Cast is a podcast series from the TENCEL™ Denim team. Each episode features a conversation with a special guest from within the industry or the fringes of the denim community. The following is a recap of Episode 507.
In 2001, long before sustainability had become a must, Swiss brand Switcher released the “cleanest T-shirt in the world” that also boasted a traceable supply chain. Yet clean claims and advertising didn’t move the needle for consumer purchases. In the end, the company silently altered its T-shirt production to match this traceable tee and consumers bought them without knowing the sustainability behind it.
This experience at Switcher more than two decades ago shaped Daniel Rufenacht’s position that the consumer is not the answer to accelerating sustainability. “The change has to come from companies,” he told Lenzing’s Tuncay Kilickan during the latest episode of our Blue Cast podcast. “If the companies take this responsibility to do it, then it will change.”
One of Daniel’s earliest jobs was working with chemicals in a battery factory, and today his job also revolves around chemistry as the CEO of Bluesign. In between, he held roles at SGS and in the Swiss government identifying sustainable trade opportunities.
As he noted, Tier 2 of the supply chain holds a significant portion of the industry’s impact due to dyeing. Twenty percent of industrial waste globally comes from textiles, and the textile industry is responsible for one-fourth of the chemicals used globally. Chemicals are also tied up with human rights, both of workers and of communities.
Bluesign works with companies to supply them with chemicals that are safer or that have a smaller footprint. The standard is now moving into new sectors and markets of the industry. “Our job is to help them for transformation to help the whole value chain—the chemical industry, the garment manufacturers and the brands—to have better chemicals in their value chain,” said Daniel. “Because it’s easy to say ‘Use better chemicals.’ But it’s another game to give them better chemicals, to work together with the chemical industry to convince them to bring better products into the market and to convince them there is a market for it.”
Since consumers are not the main motivating force for sustainable action, the impetus must come elsewhere. Daniel pointed to 2017 as a turning point when investors started dissecting companies’ ESG (environmental, social and governance).
A more recent driving force is the “tsunami of legislation” coming for fashion companies—including the EU Green Deal and Extended Producer Responsibility. Due to the timelines of law implementation, Daniel expects that there will be a significant change in the industry by 2030. Still, the industry is not on target to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals due by 2030 or its 2050 goals, requiring more movement in the right direction.
“There is no other option than regulation because on a voluntary basis, nothing happens,” he said. “These SDGs…we’re not going to make it, so we need a regulator coming in.”
Listen to the episode here.