Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. Collaborates with Intellecap to Anchor ‘Circular Apparel Innovation Factory’ as Part of its Sustainability Strategy
This move will help create significant socio-economic impact
Mumbai: Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL) is joining a unique and pioneering industry-led platform, ‘Circular Apparel Innovation Factory’ (CAIF) in collaboration with Intellecap. CAIF is India’s first industry-led platform, aiming to build a circular apparel and textile industry in India. Its mission is to search, seed, support, and scale circular textile and apparel innovations in India by building an enabling ecosystem of brands, manufacturers, enterprises, and innovators across the value chain.
Through the association, ABFRL will be demonstrating its commitment to shift the industry from its current ‘take-make-dispose’ approach, to one that encourages the use of sustainable material, maximize utilization of clothing & textile and thereby promote recycling. These initiatives will help ABFRL retain its focus on creating significant social impact.
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Ashish Dikshit, Managing Director – Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited
Ashish Dikshit, Managing Director, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. said, “We are pleased to partner with Intellecap to accelerate sustainable fashion concept through CAIF to build industry level platform for circular textile eco-system. We intend to bring forth ideas and innovation to add more strength to our pioneering work around sustainability. The association with Intellecap will help us create, collaborate and mainstream the conversation around circular economy and sustainable fashion.”
In 2013, ABFRL began its sustainability journey titled ‘ReEarth’, a unique Sustainability Program. ReEarth addresses the most significant economic, environmental and social impact that humanity faces and the progress ABFRL has made so far in our sustainability journey. Driving ReEarth, is a core commitment, that as an organization we should give back to the planet what we have taken over the years.
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Vikas Bali, CEO, Intellecap
Commented Vikas Bali, CEO, Intellecap, “ABFRL is a marquee name in Fashion and Lifestyle, and its partnership with CAIF would help foster an ecosystem wherein not only ABFRL, but the larger industry could potentially be recognized as the global innovators in circular fashion.” He further added on the initiative “Intellecap through CAIF is here to Co-create innovative solutions and business models that will help brands create solutions for a more circular apparel economy through prototyping and testing.”
As a part of the partnership, ABFRL will support a number of CAIF initiatives such as industry convenings to discuss opportunities for circularity, as well as undertake specific pilots on identified initiatives, and launch brands specific challenges to identify and adopt innovations.
Dr. Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. said, “Sustainability will be at the centre of innovation in the fashion industry in the coming decade and while tools and technologies will change, it will be the intellectual capital that will hold ABFRL in good stead. In continuation with our philosophy, we are partnering with Intellecap to build a positive impact for our businesses.”
According to Stefanie Bauer-Vemuri, Director, Circular Apparel Innovation Factory said, “With ABFRL as our first corporate anchor partner, we are laying the foundation of making CAIF India's first industry-led collaboration and innovation platform to create pathways for a more circular and sustainable textile and apparel industry. We are happy to see India's apparel and textile ecosystem joining forces under the umbrella of CAIF to identify opportunities for innovation and collaboration, drive implementation on the ground, together work on removing scaling barriers, and drive collective action.”
Intellecap, supported by the DOEN Foundation launched the Circular Apparel Innovation Factory (CAIF) in 2018, as a neutral industry platform that drives the circular fashion agenda.
CAIF’s role in transforming the industry is centered on four key pillars:
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The first, to act as innovation engine for brands and value chain stakeholders, helping them to identify opportunities, test new solutions, and broker high impact partnerships
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The second, building on CAIF’s role as an innovation engine, is to facilitate action by driving experimentation and action on the ground
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Further, through its market building role, CAIF aims to remove existing scaling barriers and catalyze the creation of an enabling environment that enables circular innovations to scale
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And lastly, as industry convener, CAIF accelerates the speed of innovation, creates opportunities for collaboration and shapes the conversation around circular apparel and textiles
ABFRL, CAIF and its network of innovators and other value chain stakeholders will hugely benefit from these practices.
