Sustainable Fashion

We often meet people who love fashion! We also meet people who say they couldn't care less about fashion. Or people who find one pair of pants that they really like and then buy 10 pairs to make sure they have pants to wear for a few years. The fascinating thing about fashion is that everybody uses clothes every day. No matter where you live or how much money you have. It is something we all share. Therefore clothing is also an incredibly interesting starting point for a discussion about sustainability. It is something we can all relate to in one way or another. And as clothing is something we all wear, imagine the impact it could have if the fashion industry was to become more sustainable. In the last several years consumers have become increasingly aware of the unsustainable social and environmental practices of the fashion industry. To respond to this increase in critical consumers and survive as a business - also in the long term - fashion companies need to find more sustainable ways of doing business. In this module, you will meet representatives from the industry who will briefly introduce you to some of the fundamental challenges and opportunities for practicing sustainability. Moreover, you will meet us, Ana and Kirsti, who have the extreme pleasure of guiding you throughout this course.

In this module, you will be introduced to 3 key concepts: The fashion industry, sustainability and business models. With these 3 concepts, you will be able to decode the past, present and future of sustainable fashion.

This module introduces you to a few inspirational brands and companies that work hard to create more sustainable business models. It will also provide a broad theoretical framework for sustainable business models and the differences between these models and traditional business models. At the end of it, you will hear the opinion of Elena Salcedo, a sustainable business model expert working for one of the biggest fashion brands in the world.

In this module, you will be introduced to the basic concepts that define the circular economy in general, and circular fashion in particular. You will be presented with the challenges that the fashion industry faces when trying to go circular. Following this introduction you will hear from our colleague Dr Kerli Kant Hvass, an expert on circular fashion. Finally Kirsti will introduce you to some pretty fascinating examples of circular companies in the fashion industry and you will meet MUD Jeans who is making a business of leasing and recycling jeans. We hope you will have fun!