V&V launches free Fashion Footprint Tool

Ahead of London Fashion Week, new consultancy firm, V&V, which offers practical and tailored support to the fashion and jewellery industries, has launched a ‘Fashion Footprint Tool’ to help provide brands, designers and suppliers understand and improve their sustainability.

V&V, the brainchild of fashion supply chain traceability expert Vanessa Brain and Victoria Waugh, formerly the face behind Fairtrade Foundation’s work on cotton and gold, has developed a simple online questionnaire for businesses of all sizes to score their current ways of working. The results then identify steps that they can take to reduce their footprint on people and the planet.

Commenting on the free tool, Brain said in a statement: “The range of sustainability issues that fashion business’ need to be aware of and manage can seem overwhelming, leaving some not knowing where to start. We developed our free ‘Fashion Footprint Tool’ to give the industry a simple way to engage with the key issues and we hope to encourage everyone to get involved.”

The footprint tool comes as scrutiny of the industry is at an all-time high, since the release of the UK Government’s interim report into the environmental and social impact of the Fashion Industry, which states that the current business model is clearly unsustainable, and that the exploitative and environmentally damaging model for fashion must change.

Brain and Waugh are calling on interested parties from established brands to start-ups to sign up to the tool on their website, vvcollective.com, so they can help them navigating the complex world of sustainability to add transparency to their work.