Sustainable Fashion Industry's 2022 Targets
Sustainable Fashion Industry Targets for 2022
The Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, a pioneer in sustainability among Turkish export unions, concluded 2021 with an export performance of USD 1 billion 489 million, representing a 14% increase. EHKİB is targeting USD 1.6 billion in exports for 2022.
Burak Sertbaş, Chairman of the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, Seray Seyfeli, Vice-Chairman of the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, and Toygar Narbay, Vice-Chairman of the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, reviewed the four-year process and announced the 2022 agenda and targets for the upcoming period at a press conference.
Burak Sertbaş, Chairman of the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, stated that Turkey's overall ready-made apparel exports reached USD 20.2 billion in 2021, representing an 18% increase compared to 2020 and a 14% increase compared to the same period in 2019.
"The top 5 countries leading in sectoral exports in Turkey are Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France. EHKİB exports reached USD 1 billion 489 million. Our exports increased by 14% compared to 2020 and by 13% compared to 2019. The top 5 countries where we have achieved the most exports are Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the USA. Our investment in design played a significant role in achieving our export targets. We are among Turkey's highest value-added exporting sectors. In 2021, Turkey's overall export unit price was USD 13.3, while the 2021 EHKİB export unit price was USD 16.9. Our sector's unit prices are well above the Turkish average," he said.
2022 Agenda: Sustainability Consulting Services for All Members, UR-GE Project
Sertbaş stated that they will continue their efforts to strengthen the sustainable infrastructure of member companies in 2022. "Our environmental engineer employed at the Association will provide one-on-one consulting services to all our members. In this direction, our companies will continue to work on calculating carbon footprints, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste management. As EHKİB, we will continue the activities of our UR-GE sustainability project. In 2022, as one of Turkey's highest value-added exporting sectors leading the transformation, we will focus on sustainability and create a national innovation agenda," he said.
EİB Fashion Design Competition
Referring to the EİB Fashion Design Competition which they organize annually with the aim of opening doors for young designers and bringing them to the industry, Burak Sertbaş said, "We held the 14th edition of the EİB Fashion Design Competition with the theme 'The Message'. We set the theme of the 15th Fashion Design Competition, which we held within the framework of Sustainability and Digitalization topics, as 'Tech-tility'. Although we held the final in a digital environment due to pandemic conditions, we kept our promise to our finalists with a runway show with the support of İZFAŞ. We have completed the sewing process for the 16th competition and are continuing final preparations. We have set the theme of the 16th competition as Contact-less. The pandemic experience of contactlessness influenced our choice of this theme," he said.
Sertbaş mentioned that they have launched the UR-GE project titled "Developing Sustainable Competition in the Ready-Made Apparel Sector" and explained that they aim to make companies more technically capable on sustainability issues.
"Another completed UR-GE project of ours is the 'Project for Developing Export Potential in the Technical Textile Sector'. In this project, the focus was on enabling participating companies to transition from conventional production to higher value-added technical textile production, increasing export and production potential and diversity of participating companies, and enhancing their sustainable competitiveness. Following needs analysis and trainings, consulting activities were conducted for participating companies on 'Protective and Medical Technical Textile Product Development' taking into account their infrastructure and experience," he said.
Circular Ideas Project Brings Academia and Industry Together
Mentioning the Circular Ideas project through which they aim to support students in creating creative projects on sustainability in the ready-made apparel and textile sector under the guidance of important figures from the business world, Sertbaş said, "Within the scope of the project, we organized trainings for our students on Circular Economy, Circularity in Textiles, Personal Image Building, Sustainable Textile Raw Materials, Sustainable Business Models in Textiles and Communication Skills, and brought our students together with sector representatives. Our project is ongoing," he said.
