Swedish electric car brand Polestar is the lead partner of the Global Fashion Summit 2022 (Copenhagen, June 7-8, 2022), the fashion industry's leading international sustainability forum. The Summit brings together the fashion industry, policy makers and stakeholders from a range of sectors. Recognizing the urgency for cross-industry collaboration, this year's keynote theme is "Alliances for a new era."
Polestar is the only automotive brand participating in the event, with the aim of finding new partners for the Polestar 0 project. With this project, the Swedish premium electric vehicle manufacturer is striving to develop a truly carbon-neutral car by 2030, without relying on compensation measures. One of the keys to achieving this is innovation in textiles - an area where Polestar believes the fashion industry is leading the way. Following the public call for collaboration on the Polestar 0 project earlier this year, the Swedish car brand is now looking for potential new partners in the textile industry through panels and strategic networks at the summit.
"The biggest obstacle to sustainable innovation is our own lack of imagination. We need to rethink everything to bring about real change. This starts with collaboration within our industry and beyond," said Fredrika Klarén, Head of Sustainability at Polestar. "Textiles and soft interior materials in particular remain a major challenge in our quest for carbon neutrality."
The fashion industry and the transportation sector together are responsible for a large share of global emissions. The potential for reduction is immense, and even greater if supported by collaboration.1, 2
Fredrika Klarén adds, "The fashion and automotive sectors are two major contributors to CO2e emissions. Both industries face many complex sustainability challenges related to resource use, human rights and transparency. We are now in the 'climate decade' and acting independently from each other will not get us anywhere."
Federica Marchionni, CEO of the Global Fashion Agenda explains, "Bringing Polestar on as a key partner for the Summit is the quintessence of what we wanted to achieve with our new and expanded cross-sector approach. Polestar is leading the automotive industry with its bold, near-term sustainability goals. Polestar's approach of prioritizing radical change over incremental improvement, in particular, is also an inspiration for the fashion industry. For those working with sustainable materials and textiles, offering a collaboration is a great opportunity and a good business case to explore and apply innovation in a new area."
