The Sustainable Fashion and Employability Skills (SFES) team of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) is involved in the drafting of a white paper that aims to identify the key employability skills within the fashion industry and move towards more sustainable parameters. Four other European higher education institutions are working alongside the UPV on the project: Glasgow Caledonian University (United Kingdom), Villanueva University (Madrid), Universidade da Madeira (Portugal) and EDHEC Business School (France).
In a recent meeting held in Nice, the various groups, organizations and businesses produced a first draft of this reference document and whose final version will be presented in Madrid on June 23, 2023. The project is part of KA203, a three-year strategic partnership funded by the European Union to help the both the fashion industry and consumers regain respect for the value of clothing.
Communication and Sustainability
The UPV team is charge of the parts of the project related to communication and sustainability. “We are at a key moment in the transformation of the fashion industry towards a more sustainable model. Communication is one of the key aspects to ensure that consumers and industry go hand in hand,” Esteban Galán pointed out. For her part, Nadia Alonso, a professor at Campus Gandia, foresees that the results of the project “will offer interactive tools that will empower consumers to make sustainable purchasing decisions.”
Measuring Carbon Footprints and More
The first version of the white paper reviews the sustainable activities and strategies implemented by companies in the fashion industry, such as measuring carbon footprints, effective communication to identify and share the value of clothing, or addressing issues caused by robotic engineering in automating production lines and garment quality monitoring.
With the Collaboration of Harris Tweed Hebrides and Tendam
To come up with the conclusions of this first draft, the different teams developed different strategies: they prepared surveys, visited different businesses, conducted research seminars with experts and held interactive workshops. Throughout they were accompanied by two important partners in the fashion industry: Harris Tweed Hebrides, the largest textile producer in Scotland; and the Spanish group Tendam, owner of brands such as Women’s Secret, Springfield or Cortefiel, among others.
Source: Laida Frasquet Pascual, journalist from the Communication Department of the UPV
