Threading the needle — Key highlights Threading the needle — Key highlights
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer companies a natural framework to drive business value while aiming to achieve a transformative set of sustainability, economic and social targets. KPMG and Textile Exchange have co-produced a report — titled ‘Threading the needle: Weaving the Sustainable Development Goals into the textile, retail and apparel industry’ — to offer practical guidance for companies seeking to realise the SDGs in the textile, retail and apparel industry.
Sustainable fashion receives growing support from the vast majority of consumers in Hong Kong and mainland China. This provides a real opportunity for companies across the textile, retail and apparel value chain to explore this area. More expertise on how to contribute to the SDGs implementation can help companies rethink the way they design, produce and distribute their products.
Pat-Nie Woo
Partner, Business Reporting and Sustainability
KPMG China
Key takeaways
- The SDGs may offer companies both a business opportunity and a framework to manage operational risks. Companies in the industry have the potential to tap into this unprecedented opportunity by adopting an SDG engagement framework that leverages the industry’s key strengths.
- Opportunities to engage with the SDGs range from purely commercial to shared value approaches. Suppliers, brands and retailers have unique opportunities as well as common social and environmental cross-cutting issues to integrate the SDGs into their business planning and operations.
- The SDGs build on a rich history of sustainability efforts by the industry. Sustainability is not a new issue for the industry, which has in many ways been at the forefront of corporate sustainability.
- Collaborating with the right partners can lead to transformative results. Leveraging existing initiatives for collaborative action may be useful for companies grappling with the SDGs.
- The SDGs can help companies engage with governments as they seek to design and implement interventions related to the SDGs. With governments increasingly adopting the SDGs, the capacity gaps that countries are facing with SDG implementation provide collaborative opportunities for companies.
How to integrate SDGs into your business?
SDG engagement framework
The textile, retail and apparel industry are strategically positioned to impact a few key goals. Based on research and interviews conducted, KPMG identified an ‘SDG engagement framework’ to demonstrate how companies (i.e. suppliers, brands and retailers) in this industry can integrate SDGs into their core business.
The framework comprises three impact opportunity clusters across eight SDGs where the industry can have the most direct impact. Climate action is a cross-cutting issue across these clusters.
Download our four-page summary which offers a quick overview and takeaways, and contact us to know more about how we can help your company integrate SDGs into your business.
To read the full report, please visit this website.
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