Sustainability is today a buzzword in the global apparel industry; Fashion Revolution Week 2019 (22-28 April)

News that more and more global fashion brands and retailers are striving to tackle sustainability continue to emerge as we enter Fashion Revolution Week 2019 (22-28 April) which promotes greater transparency in the fashion supply chain.

London-based eco-footwear brand
Po-Zu  uses sustainable materials.
On Monday 29th April, Po-Zu founder, 
Sven Segal  will be speaking on the 
Nature Of Fashion panel, one of many events 
organised by Know The Origin for their 
Fashion Revolution 2019 pop-up shop. 
Photo by Lucia Carpio.

For one, US-based jeans brand Wrangler, owned by the VF Corp, has launched a new Made-in-USA denim collection that supports five US cotton-growing states – and takes the brand towards 100% sustainable cotton adoption by 2025.

Elsewhere, US retailer Walmart is teaming up with international bank HSBC to roll out a sustainable supply chain finance programme that pegs a supplier's financing rate to its sustainability performance.   Under the new scheme, suppliers that demonstrate progress on Walmart's Gigaton or Sustainability Index Program can apply for improved financing from HSBC based on their sustainability ratings.

Meanwhile German sportswear giant Adidas has launched a 100% recyclable performance running shoe called the Futurecraft.Loop, which is made without glue and from materials that can be broken down and reused to create a brand new running shoe.

And a company that produces sustainable textile fibres made from waste materials has raised EUR3.7m (US$4.2m) in funding from investors, including global fashion retailer H&M, to scale up production at its plant in Finland.

Bloomberg Billionaires Index updated rich list.

For the Christmas just past, and during the whole of 2018, did you buy, or order anything, or receive any pressies bought on Amazon? 

Well you are among the tens of millions of customers who have contributed to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s wealth, as he has been affirmed as the world’s richest man, according to the just updated Bloomberg Billionaires Index. 

The Amazon mogul’s personal worth increased by 24 billion to 123 billion dollars over the past year.
However after gathering the 500 largest fortunes in the world, reported the Belgian newspaper “De Tijd”, 2018 ended with the richest group of people losing a collective 451 billion dollars.  Top guy Mr Bezos lost about 45 billion US dollars in the last three months of 2018.

A year of volatile trading conditions had diminished the bank account of many of the billionaires on the index, such as falling stock markets, weaker consumer’s confidence and a generally challenging trading environment.
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Other top names on the list that made it to the top 30 wealthiest people globally included founders of some of our fashion retailers Inditex (Amancio Ortega), Alibaba (Jack Ma) and Fast Retailing (Tadashi Yanai) the largest clothing retailer in Asia and parent of Uniqlo.

Also further down on the rich list are the Walton family, owners of Walmart; Stefan Persson, chairman and largest shareholder of Hennes & Mauritz, the world's second-biggest retailer of private-label apparel; and Henry Cheng, chairman of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, a Hong Kong-based jeweller.