“There was a strong focus on conversations centered around growers, ranchers and producers,” said Theory’s vice president of sustainability Gonzalo Pertile. “Any transition in our industry will depend on bringing the people closest to the land and the product into the conversation, and ensuring they are part of the solutions we are trying to scale. That’s what sets Textile Exchange apart — the chance to connect with practitioners from across the value chain who are actively doing the work every day.”
But, as we heard throughout the week, bridging producers and brands is far from straightforward. In conference rooms and attempts at collective action alike, these two opposite ends of the supply chain often have different agendas and different ideas of success, and many speak different languages — literally and figuratively.
“Working directly with cotton farmers, we experience firsthand how challenging it can be to translate sustainability goals into agricultural practices, particularly when dealing with climate variability, economic pressures, and the complexities of transitioning to regenerative agriculture,” Mariela Calderon Ariz of Peruvian regenerative cotton production company Bergman Rivera said. “At Tier 4, implementation is not a future ambition; it is our everyday reality. The real opportunity is to turn these connections and conversations [at the conference] into meaningful action, ensuring that the people working at the very beginning of the supply chain are part of shaping the industry’s future.”
As the conference drew to a close, a handful of key themes emerged: the need to address the investment gap between pilots and commercial scale; the call for closer ties between brands and land managers; and the economic reality of scaling preferred production systems as the existing models collapse. But as the conference dug deeper into highly technical subjects, it was a simple provocation from day one that stuck in people’s minds.
This year’s conference took place in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Chief Janice George, master weaver and co-founder of L’hen Awtxw Weaving House, and a hereditary chief of the Squamish Nation, was invited to open proceedings. She spoke about the seventh generation principle, a time-honored Indigenous approach to sustainability. “Mother Earth knows how to take care of herself. It’s humans that need to learn how to work with Mother Earth,” she reminded attendees. “How do we use our resources in an intelligent way that takes care of the next generations?”
