COVID-19 has shed light on the challenges faced in the textile and fashion industry. As a panelist, one of our founding member was speaking about the possibilities of blockchain technology to counter those challenges.
The global pandemic has once again proved the substantial role co-creation and multistakeholder collaborative patterns play in designing and implementing holistic and innovative solutions. This was an opportunity to discuss how the fashion and textile industry, with evolving technology as a key factor, can serve as a platform for social development, transparency, and inclusion towards the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The rise of counterfeit trade, child and informal labour, environmental degradation, gender discrimination, women empowerment, and social inequality demonstrated the urgency of improving transparency towards more resilient, anti-fragile, and fair supply chains. The event was a continuation of the global dialogue started at the Hecho por Nosotros’ event at the 2020 United Nations High Level Political Forum on ‘MSMEs: Strengthening local value chains throughout transparency and traceability to ignite circular fashion. In 2021, the event encouraged the dialogue among global leaders from different areas of the fashion world about how the garment industry can serve as a platform to emerge sustainably from the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the role of technology and digital tools in the hands of traditional workers, mainly women, & MSMEs. The conversation was led explicitly around Sustainable Development Goals 1, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, and 17.