Fashion Positive launches Innovators Hub

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute’s Fashion Positive Initiative has launched the Innovators Hub, a resource centre for the growing circular fashion movement. Created with the funding from H&M Foundation, the Innovators Hub provides one-stop access to critical resources for material innovators working to drive circular materials development.

Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute is a California-based non-profit association whose goal is to educate companies across industries about how to transform their products to become positive forces in society and in the environment. Among its many initiatives is the Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard, which provides designers and manufacturers with criteria and requirements for continually improving what products are made of and how they are made.

The institute's Fashion Positive aims to transform fashion one material at a time. Together with a community of pioneering brands, designers, and suppliers, it identifies, optimises and certifies the building blocks of the industry— yarns, dyes, fabrics, zippers, trims, finishing, and more—creating a growing collective of 'positive' materials with which to design from the beginning. 

"At a time when resource scarcity and growing global population make positive change ever more urgent, the rapid innovation of safer, healthier materials offers one of the fastest routes to achieving a circular economy. The Fashion Positive Innovation Hub aims to accelerate this process for the fashion industry," said Lewis Perkins, president of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

"Until now, creating safe, healthy circular materials that also meet designers’ requirements for performance, quality and aesthetics has been a notoriously challenging process," said Annie Gullingsrud, director – textiles and apparel sector for the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. "The Fashion Positive Innovators Hub has been designed to simplify the material innovation process by addressing the three biggest challenges currently faced by material innovators in fashion: education and know-how, technical assistance, and funding opportunities."

"The momentum for a better future for fashion is growing quickly. Finding ways to improve the health, safety and recyclability of materials already in production, as well as innovate new materials made for the circular economy, will transform the fashion industry from the designer´s drawing board to the supply chain and consumer. This ultimately benefits the global environment, people and communities,” said Erik Bang, innovation lead at H&M Foundation.

“We are excited to support the Fashion Positive Innovators Hub to help material innovators understand and use Cradle to Cradle methodology to create and scale circular fashion for a growing world population," Bang said.