Alliance for Responsible Denim (ARD) is taking steps to make the denim industry more sustainable and better prepared for the future. ARD fosters collaboration and conversations between suppliers and brands with the goal of improving denim production’s ecological and sustainability impact. It is underscoring the importance of collaboration by highlighting how its members are advancing post-consumer recycled denim, minimizing their water, energy and chemical consumption, and designing for circularity.

ARD was founded in 2016 as an initiative from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Centre for Applied Research in Economics and Management, House of Denim, Circle Economy and Made-By.

By working with global platforms and showcasing a united front, ARD hopes to connect with the right policymakers and other global do-gooders to help scale its projects. Through highlighting the achievements of its members and giving insights into the inner workings of a multi-stakeholder collaboration, ARD hopes to align with other organizations who can aid in ARD’s mission.

Even veterans of the industry concede that sustainability is too big a challenge for any one company to tackle by itself, and that it will take a joint effort by the industry as a whole to focus on the biggest challenges. To be able to enact real change in this complex system, all stakeholders need to rally around the cause.