Blue Cast: Kerry Bannigan on Breaking Down Sustainability Silos
Social entrepreneur Kerry Bannigan has had a front-row seat to the fashion industry’s shifting attitudes toward sustainability.
Earlier in her career, Kerry worked in events, including producing fashion shows. Taking these beyond just design showcases, she would work with governments to highlight aspects such as textile manufacturing solutions. But 15 years ago, the audience was less receptive to sustainable topics. “People just couldn’t get their head around it at fashion week, and they really did turn their back on sustainability as a whole; it wasn’t seen as the cool thing,” Kerry said.
More recently, sustainability has gathered mass attention. In 2018, Kerry launched the Conscious Fashion Campaign, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships, which supports the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the industry. Since they were introduced in 2015, the SDGs have provided a roadmap of targets to help guide ecological and social efforts. In the most recent episode of our Blue Cast podcast, Kerry explained that she sees fashion as a crucial piece in delivering on these goals.
“[The Conscious Fashion Campaign] was really to bridge the gap between the fashion industry and sustainability, because people were starting to pay attention,” said Kerry.
Prior to the pandemic, the Conscious Fashion Campaign’s work included hosting booths, talks and workshops at live events, with a focus on education and advocacy. As with many things since Covid-19, the initiative’s work has shifted to digital formats.
According to Kerry, in recent years there has been a greater level of information sharing between fashion firms, but there is still room for more collaboration on a global basis. Additionally, while there is a need to investigate claims, she sees the rise of cancel culture as dissuading brands from talking about the progress they have made.
As a founder, Kerry is looking to help other women who are making a difference in fashion access funds and grants. Conscious Fashion Campaign’s recently established Fashion Impact Fund will help women who are leading the responsible fashion cause through media, finance and business partnerships. Noting the need for this, Kerry pointed to the statistic that only 2.3 percent of venture capital dollars went to women-founded companies in 2020.
In general, there is a demand to allocate and attract more funds to power and scale sustainable solutions, Kerry pointed out. And like Elvis sang, what the industry needs is “A little less conversation, a little more action.”
“The talking needs to stop, the commitments need to stop if it’s only just going to be about that,” said Kerry. “What we now need to see is the action happening, whether that’s through collaborations, extended research, but we definitely need to see people being able to align their work with the Sustainable Development Goals. We see it as this unified language that can connect the sector.”
Click here to listen to the episode.