Fashion for Good Launches in Partnership with McDonough Innovation

AMSTERDAM, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- McDonough Innovation is helping move forward a global initiative to create more good in the apparel industry, as a founding member and visionary behind the newly-launched Fashion for Good - a joint-industry "open-source" initiative that aims to transform apparel culture toward a Cradle to Cradle¹ inspired circular model.

Fashion for Good is a worldwide laboratory of innovation and practical action based in Amsterdam. Fashion for Good was created with an initial grant from founding partner C&A Foundation, and prior to launch the partners that built the foundation of Fashion for Good include: the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, IDH – The Sustainable Trade Initiative, Impact Hub Amsterdam, McDonough Innovation, The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), Plug and Play, C&A and Kering.

Fashion for Good aims to inspire the apparel industry to "fashion endlessly"– where both people and planet flourish as we produce, use and recycle apparel in biological and technical cycles. It unites key players across all fronts of the fashion industry, including apparel producers, retailers, nonprofit organizations, innovators, and funders who share a common mission of transforming the apparel industry into a force for good. It supports the scale up of technologies, methodologies and business models with the potential to wholly transform the industry.

The apparel industry has struggled to realize holistic improvements in a global supply chain that is difficult to navigate, with materials that have been historically hard to source or verify. Guided by the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Certified™ Product Standard, Fashion for Good espouses and supports five basic "goods," first articulated by architect, designer, thought leader and author William McDonough:   

• Good Materials: Good materials are safe, healthy and designed for reuse and recycling
• Good Economy: A good economy is growing, circular, shared and benefitting everyone
• Good Energy: Good energy is renewable and clean
• Water: Good water is clean and available to all
• Good Lives: Living and working conditions are just, safe and dignified

McDonough was present at the launch event, taking place at Fashion for Good's building at 102 Rokin, in the heart of Amsterdam, a dynamic hotspot combining the spirit of innovation and sustainability.

"Fashion for Good will expedite adoption more broadly in the supply chain, helping to overcome some of the greatest hurdles in aligning sustainability practices in a complex system of international vendors.  Meanwhile, the values of the organization will be able to infuse best practices deeply within the industry," said McDonough.  "The Five Goods represent an aspirational model we can all use to work towards a world in which we will fashion endlessly with grace and dignity."

C&A, one of Europe's leading fashion retailers, announced that they will be the first worldwide retailer to launch Cradle to Cradle Certified™ GOLD apparel as part of their 2017 summer collection. Developed in partnership with Fashion for Good, and with the guidance of MBDC, these affordable, compostable and fashionable garments served as the case study for the open-source Cradle to Cradle Certified™ 'How-To' Guide. Launching at the end of March, the online guide has practical tips, a self-diagnostic tool to show suppliers and manufacturers how to improve their products and production facilities and a step-by-step guide on how to produce Cradle to Cradle Certified™ products

Leslie Johnston, Executive Director of C&A Foundation said: "C&A Foundation is here to transform the fashion industry.  As our largest partner to date, Fashion for Good will both inspire new ways of thinking and provide practical tools for a better global apparel industry.  Open and inclusive, Fashion for Good will help the industry to bring innovations and new business models to scale."

About William McDonough/McDonough Innovation

Winner of the National Design Award, William McDonough, FAIA, Int. FRIBA, is an internationally recognized architect, designer, sustainable growth pioneer, and business strategist. He works at scales from the global to the molecular. Time magazine recognized him in 1999 as "Hero for the Planet," noting that "his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that—in demonstrable and practical ways—is changing the design of the world." For more than four decades, McDonough has defined the principles of the sustainability movement (through McDonough Innovation, William McDonough + Partners, and MBDC). He has created the movement's seminal buildings, products, and writings. He was the inaugural chair of the World Economic Forum's Meta-Council on the Circular Economy and in 2017 received The Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership given by the World Economic Forum. McDonough is co-creator of the Cradle to Cradle^® Design Framework. 

William McDonough Architects published the The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992) and McDonough co-authored, with Michael Braungart, the influential Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance (2013). McDonough received both the inaugural Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (under President Bill Clinton) and the inaugural U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (under President George W. Bush). In 2009, William McDonough led the founding of the nonprofit Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute to donate the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program to the public realm. In 2012, the Stanford University Libraries invited McDonough to be the subject of their inaugural "living archive"; since then, Stanford has been collecting and archiving his work and communications in real time for future historians.

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Cradle to Cradle^® and C2C^® are registered trademarks of MBDC, LLC

Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Certified™ is a trademark licensed by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute

¹ Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart,  (North Point Press: 2002)

SOURCE McDonough Innovation