British Antarctic Survey is hosting an event at its Aurora Innovation Centre in Cambridge to bring together thought leaders from the performance clothing industry, academia, and the entrepreneurial landscape to discuss Sustainable Innovations in Performance Clothing. The focus will be to share best practice, give an honest account of successes and challenges, and highlight which barriers and knowledge gaps need to be addressed to accelerate progress.
Details
Start: November 14 @ 1:30 pm
End: November 14 @ 6:00 pm
Venue: Aurora Cambridge
Address: High Cross, Madingley Road,Cambridge, CB3 OET
Location: Cambridge, UK
Category: Business event
Co-organised by British Antarctic Survey, UKRI-NERC HQ, Knowledge Transfer Network and Allia, the event will include:
- Keynote presentations on current sustainability issues in the performance clothing industry
- Presentation from academics on the environmental impacts
- Companies setting out their procurement ‘wish lists’
- A solutions showcase of innovative technologies and practices
- Panel discussion: How do we drive the sector forward?
- Networking opportunities
The way we design, make and discard clothes has a substantial environmental impact. Energy and water intensive manufacturing processes, pollution from dyeing of textiles, and low recycling rates of fabrics are just some of the issues that have resulted in the global clothing industry ranking as the fifth most polluting industry on earth. Research has found that fibres from textiles are one of the most abundant types of microplastic found in our oceans. Synthetic clothing, made from fabrics such as polyester and nylon, shed microfibres throughout the entire clothing life-cycle.
Rising public awareness and an increasing focus on legislation means that the global clothing industry and its traditional ‘take-make-waste’ business model now faces multiple challenges and disruptive transformation.
Performance clothing has strengths and weaknesses as far as sustainability is concerned: Items are usually made to last and are not discarded as quickly as fashion clothing. However, the need to maintain and improve functionality especially for safety and protection above all else can make innovating for environmental sustainability particularly challenging.
This workshop aims to bring together researchers with representatives of sectors including sportswear, outdoors and expedition clothing, Personal Protective Equipment in construction, defense and fire & rescue services to understand the challenges, explore solutions and drive forward innovation in the performance clothing industry.
Attendees are welcome from across all sectors, including industry, policy, environmental organisations, academia and the public.
Please register here.
SOURCE: British Antarctic Survey
