Water Conscious Fashion

Water is the necessary resource for life.

Human settlements have always been dependent upon access to clean water and its relative scarcity – freshwater makes up only 2.5% of water available on the earth – has awarded it the name ‘blue gold’.

If world population increases as expected, hitting the 9 billions threshold by 2050, will water resources be sufficient?

Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion @ Neonyt, Kraftwerk, Berlin, 16 January 2019

Embassy
Lab
Water
Conscious
Fashion

Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion, bringing together Dutch, German and international experts, business players and creative professionals, takes place in the context of the NEONYT Fashion Fair.
Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion addresses a broad range of aspects connected to water conscious solutions for the fashion and textile industry.

In the last century, technology and development have driven up demand for water, speeding it up more than twice as fast as the population growth rate. More worryingly, water use is predicted to increase by 50 % between 2007 and 2025 in developing countries and 18% in developed ones. Climate change is expected to bring about more extreme weather conditions more frequently, including temperature rises and droughts as well as devastating floods and unpredictability in precipitation patterns. These are likely to hit poorer countries and precarious livelihoods first and harder.

This calls for urgent reprioritization of resources to address water-related challenges caused by climate change, population growth and development. To resolve the tension between the need for water for development and its scarcity, water is central to United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Water use within fashion, the second-largest most water-intensive industry after agriculture, is set to rise by 50% by 2030. Textile production in general has such a large water footprint due to highly “thirsty” crops, such as cotton.

Next to water sources depletion, water pollution with toxic chemicals and textile waste – the environmental impact of the textile and fashion industry on water resources worldwide runs deep. It is estimated that the fashion industry causes 20% of the world’s industrial water pollution, with textile dyeing amongst the most severe causes of freshwater pollution worldwide. Microfiber textiles have non-biodegradable microscopic plastic components that get shed during washing and end up polluting the oceans, endangering marine life first, and then the earth’s entire life-cycle.

The scale of the problem is being underlined by the stewardship and commitment from the fashion world, in a bid to involve players in the industry in sustainability efforts. What is needed is a systemic change in the way clothing is produced and used, moving beyond the praise-worthy textile recycling and up-cycling initiatives, which several brands have launched.

Because of its special communicative abilities and persuasive capacities, the fashion industry is uniquely positioned to shift the current consumption paradigm and establish itself as an influent ambassador for sustainability. What does it take, for producers and consumers, to bring to the fore water-conscious fashion?

Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion addresses these interconnected issues, creating an interdisciplinary framework for crossover exchange between Dutch, German and international experts and creative professionals. The Embassy Lab’s focus on water is especially compelling for the Netherlands, for whose existence water is crucial. Thanks to its expertise in water-related issues, the Netherlands is playing a prominent, groundbreaking role in the transition towards ever more sustainable water use across the industry and is thus uniquely positioned to contribute to these topical debates.

Program

Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion takes place from 4:30pm to 6:15pm on Wednesday, January 16th 2019 in the context of the NEONYT Fashion Fair at Kraftwerk Berlin, Köpenicker Straße 70, 10179 Berlin. The afternoon program is comprised of a series of short lectures and discussions.

Community

Concept & Moderation

Prof. Frans Vogelaar, Hybrid Space Lab

Speakers

Alexis Morgan, Global Water Stewardship Lead at WWF
Prof. Dr. Randolf Rausch, Hydrogeologist, TU Darmstadt and University of Applied Forest Sciences Rottenburg on “Fashion-Water Nexus: The impact of cotton on water”
Natalia Finogenova, Research Associate, Chair of Sustainable Engineering, TU Berlin, on “InoCottonGRoW”, a project which aims at reducing the water footprint of the cotton-textile value chain in Pakistan
Sameer Safaya, CEO of Safaya Consulting, Amsterdam/Hong Kong, Expert at Water Footprint Implementation with a talk informed by the study: “Toward Sustainable Use in the Cotton Supply Chain”
Shane Kleyhorst, Program Manager of the collaborative network organization “Energy & Raw Materials Factory”, fostering a wider societal transition to a circular economy, Dutch Water Authorities
Bert van Son, CEO, MUD Jeans, a sustainable and fair-trade denim brand based in The Netherlands
Laura Luchtman, Designer, Living Colour: biodyeing with bacteria” project, Rotterdam
Tjeerd Veenhoven, Product Designer, Studio Tjeerd Veenhoven and Wishful Doing Foundation, Groningen
Dr. Lucie Huiskens, Co-founder and Program Coordinator of the Dutch innovation network of the fashion sector CLICKNL|NextFashion and Consultant to the Centre of Expertise Future Makers (FM) at ArtEZ University of the Arts

In conversation, among others, with:

Ellen Köhrer, Journalist focused on sustainable fashion and sustainability in the textile industryand author of the book “Fashion Made Fair”, Prestel
Hanieh Sabokbar, Fashion Designer and Lecturer AMD Akademie Mode & Design Berlin and Hamburg, focussing on holistic and sustainable design concepts for the fashion industry, Collaborator UPNOVATION Innovationsforum Upcycling
Heike Selmer, Professor for Conceptual and Artistic Fashion Design, co-Founder of “greenlab – laboratory for sustainable design strategies” and of “local international – international exchange/sustainable fashion design”, Weißensee Art Academy Berlin
Friederike von Wedel-Parlow, Director at Beneficial Design Institute, Berlin

* Can water-conscious fashion be an ambassador for sustainable development?

* How to reduce the water footprint of the fashion industry?

Embassy Lab is a prototype for experimenting with future functions of embassies in the current age of EUization, globalization and digitalization.

Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion is developed by Hybrid Space Lab together with the Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands Embassy in Berlin and Kingdom of The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague.

Workshops, Lectures & Symposia Embassy Lab @ Kingdom of The Netherlands Embassy, Berlin, Germany & Kingdom of The Netherlands Ministery of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, The Netherlands, 2014~2021

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