The 2022 CFDA Fashion Awards will highlight a number of honorees spanning design, sustainability, styling and more. And who better than the United Nations to receive the accolade for the CFDA’s Environmental Sustainability Award?
The U.N. follows in the footsteps of apparel eco-pioneer Patagonia, last year’s winner. In accepting the award, the U.N. reflected on its fashion synergies and called attention to the COP27 climate summit that convened Sunday and will run to Nov. 18. Over the years the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, have become a foremost proponent of fashion sustainability strategies. Each goal, be it related to gender, climate or water quality, has helped catalyze and better align the industry, which is known for emitting as much carbon as the U.K., France and Germany combined, per a McKinsey report.
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Platforms like the Conscious Fashion Lifestyle Network have activated greater cross-industry collaboration through its multi-dimensional approach to sustainability advocacy. The network is managed by the Division for Sustainable Development Goals, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the U.N. Office for Partnerships.
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At the time of the network’s launch last year, Annemarie Hou, acting executive director of the U.N. Office for Partnerships, told WWD, “The Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network offers an opportunity to cultivate an innovative and essential community of practice to help deliver sustainable change in the Decade of Action.”
The platform is an evolution of the Conscious Fashion Campaign, founded by Kerry Bannigan, to support advocacy, education and sustainable partnership development in the industry. The Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network’s first annual meeting took place in June convening thought leaders such as Mara Hoffman, Tracy Reese and more (many of whom play active roles in the initiative) to present sustainable solutions.
WWD asked each of CFDA’s fashion honorees what the highlight of their year has been so far. A spokesperson for the U.N. said COP27, in terms of this year’s landmark climate attention-getter, and as for fashion, the strides made through the Conscious Fashion Lifestyle Network.
The U.N.’s CFDA award will be accepted by Amina J. Mohammed, the U.N.’s deputy secretary-general whose leadership was quoted in a U.N. blog post as key to “keeping the SDGs alive,” per secretary-general António Guterres. For decades, Mohammed has championed solutions to developmental challenges facing the planet — particularly in the lenses of gender, climate and education. Before her appointment as U.N. deputy secretary-general and chair of the U.N. Sustainable Development Group, Mohammed served as minister of environment of Nigeria.