UNEP and UN Climate Change release Sustainable Fashion Communications Playbook
©UNEP
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Climate-Change-convened Fashion Charter released the first Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook to offer a practical guide for fashion marketers on how they can contribute to sustainable change.
Launched at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, the playbook shows consumer-facing communicators, including marketers, brand managers, image-makers, storytellers, media, and influencers how to communicate to take action to align efforts to sustainability targets, incorporating both environmental and social factors.
The guide highlights the importance of shifting fashion communication to enable a sustainable and circular fashion sector by countering misinformation, reducing messages perpetuating overconsumption, redirecting aspiration to more sustainable lifestyles, and empowering consumers to demand greater action from businesses and policymakers.
©Francois Le Nguyen & Markus Spiske
The playbook offers practical guidance, including lists of “do’s” and “don’ts” and case studies as examples of best practices. It also suggests that brands should lead with science, as showing scientific evidence and transparency is “fundamental to communication change,” while also ensuring a change in behaviors and practices by explaining why eradicating messages of overconsumption is crucial by pointing consumers towards lower impact and circular solutions instead, such as repair and reuse, “to normalize sustainable behaviors”.
In addition, it recommends a focus on reimagining values by empowering role models "to help portray alternative models of status and success, decoupling identity from newness and recalibrating what has deemed aspirational" to social proof a sustainable future, while also driving advocacy to encourage citizens to demand greater action from businesses and policymakers alike, holding stakeholders throughout the sector to account.
