Product Stewardship Summit: blueprint or scramble for textiles in Aotearoa? (online only)

According to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand an orderly transition to a low-emission, low waste, climate-resilient circular economy will reduce risks to the stability of our financial system, but more importantly to our social system and the wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

In contrast, climate and circularity action that is deferred will mean a much more abrupt and disruptive transition for our people and economy.

This is where the theme of this conference Blueprint or Scramble comes in. First coined by the energy industry, it looked at different pathways or scenarios to the circular future that we want to reach.

Recognising the current trajectory and linear model for clothing and textiles is unsustainable, we can coordinate the need to restructure the way clothing is brought to market and sold to protect the climate, or we can wait until the scramble for survival is upon us.

The end result – a future with lower emissions and organisations operating within planetary boundaries – will be the same but if we default to a scramble it will result in a lot more damage to the economy and society along the way.

This online summit brings industry and government together and asks the question – For the clothing and textiles industry, government and citizens, what does the blueprint for a thriving, low emissions future for New Zealand’s clothing and textile industry look like? And how do we get there?

Programme

9am: Karakia and welcome from our sponsor EcoCentral

9.05am: The Hon Rachel Brooking

9.30am: Mark Hilton, Eunomia

10am: L’Rey Karaitiana, Auckland University – Te Ao Māori perspective on product stewardship – kaitiakitanga

10.30am: Break

10.40am: A voice from the textile industry

11.10am: Claire Kneller, WRAP Asia-Pacific – “Seamless” : The Australian National Clothing Product Stewardship Scheme (NCPSS)

11.40am: Bernadette Casey, The Textile Reuse Programme – The current state of textiles in NZ followed by a quick introduction to the workshop topic which builds on the White Paper recommendations to the government.

12.00pm: Breakout rooms to workshop White Paper recommendations and what a product stewardship scheme for textiles could look like

1pm: Wrap up and what’s next

1.15pm: Karakia to close

We are gathering stakeholder insights through a Textile Product Stewardship survey to inform the industry Recommendations to Government, to be delivered to the Ministry for the Environment, on establishing Textile Product Stewardship in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

You are invited to complete the survey here by Monday 22 August 2022.

To support completion of the survey, we have developed Background Information in support of the Survey and recommend that you read this background information, and have it on hand to refer to when completing the survey.

We recognise different roles have different perspectives and value your input, if you know someone else within your organisation or wider community who has valuable insights, please ensure they know about this opportunity to participate.

For those of you who wish to dive deeper read on…

This work draws upon the Textile Product Stewardship Project Phase 1, recently published work from the Tyrewise Project (particularly Phase 2), Auto Stewardship NZ, and a recently published Global Scan Report by the Australian Fashion Council.

We have also created a brief Case Study for the recently defined Tyrewise Scheme to give you an indication of an Industry Product Stewardship Scheme in New Zealand.