The fashion and textiles sector is the fourth largest industry in the world. Therefore, the industry is also one of the most influential when it comes to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda, which aims to create a better world by ending poverty, fighting inequality, combating climate change and more. To catalyze meaningful impact, transformative change and innovative thinking are required throughout the entire global supply chain. The objectives of the new Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit are to initiate multi-stakeholder collaboration, to share sustainability-related insights and to advance sustainable action in the fashion sector on an international level.

• The digital event on 7 July 2021 is not only one of the main conferences of Frankfurt Fashion Week, convening leading stakeholders and representatives from the industry, the United Nations, research and public life. As a vanguard for bringing the SDGs to the forefront of public discourse, this Summit is the first of its kind to be held during an international Fashion Week.

Annemarie Hou, Acting Executive Director, UN Office for Partnerships:

“The Frankfurt Fashion Week and related SDG Summit offer an important platform to amplify solutions that are accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to harness creativity of leaders in the fashion and textile industries to design solutions that advance lives of dignity and equality for all on a healthy planet.”

Detlef Braun, Member of the Executive Board of Messe Frankfurt:

“The Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit is the first SDG Summit in the context of an international Fashion Week. Its aim is to send a signal from Germany to the international textile and fashion world that raises awareness of the SDGs and calls for concrete action to achieve them. And to do this, leading stakeholders from the industry will be coming together with representatives from the United Nations, politics, research and public life in Frankfurt am Main once a year from now on.”

• Acting in a way that makes good business sense, harmonizes with nature and is responsible towards people in a globalised world will help pave the way for a new fashion era.

The topics addressed by the Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit are based on the priorities that were announced by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for 2021 in order to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Keynotes, interviews, panel discussions and performances will be taking a closer look at topics such as Sustainability by Design, Policy for the People, Climate, Oceans, Creatives for the Future and the Global Status of Fashion & Design.

• On the panel of the first digital edition of the Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit are leading international representatives from the politics, research, the fashion and textiles sector and NGOs, as well as designers, artists and UN advocates.

The list includes

• Nazma Akter (Founder and Executive Director of Awaj Foundation), Christiane Arp (President of Fashion Council Germany), Abrima Erwiah (cofounder and President of Studio One Eighty Nine), Steven Kolb (CEO of the Council Fashion Designers of America), Clara Mayer (Climate Activist Fridays for Future), Claudia Rinke (screenwriter of documentary film “NOW”), Caroline Rush (Chief Executive, British Fashion Council), Esther Sloane (Head of Partnerships, Policy and Communications at the UN Capital Development Fund), Nadja Swarovski (Member of the Swarovski Executive Board and Chair of the Swarovski Foundation) as well as Lindita Xhaferi-Salihu (Sectors Engagement Lead, UN Climate Change).

The Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit is one of the core elements of Frankfurt Fashion Week that is actively driving forward and shaping the transformation of a future-oriented, more sustainable fashion and textile industry and shaping this transformation. The SDGs will also be highlighted in other parts of Frankfurt Fashion Week: raising awareness, drawing attention and bringing about change. Against this backdrop, Frankfurt Fashion Week is requiring all exhibitors of the fashion fairs Premium, Seek and Neonyt, to align with the SDGs by 2023. Aimed at the entire audience of Frankfurt Fashion Week, the digital edition of the Frankfurt Fashion SDG Summit will help to make the UN’s SDG‘s visible and accessible for an international fashion and lifestyle audience with the power to create real change.

The conference will be streamed live via the Frankfurt Fashion Week channels and in the FFW Studio.

Further details about registering and the full line-up will be online shortly.