Canopy works to protect the world’s forests by collaborating with business leaders, scientists and decision-makers to help create sustainable supply chains and foster innovative solutions to environmental challenges. Canopy creates brand partnerships based on a policy. There is no cost to join the organization, which 105 brands and retailers have done. The movement toward a more sustainable apparel and textile supply chain has evolved in the last decade or so.

This ranges from improving the environmental impact of raw materials and manufacturing to the advent of recycled materials used in fibers and fabrics, and reuse of textiles and apparel. Technology is helping companies better trace their suppliers and manufacturers, and collaborative efforts have emerged to create more transparency and better methods of ensuring a safer route from factory to retail shelf.

Companies are creating systems and programs to achieve the goals of circularity, which brings the added benefit of avoiding compliance risks and costs in the overall product development and production process. Sustainability empowers organizations to protect the well-being of workers, reduce risk, improve productivity, enhance compliance, and drive measurable business improvement.

A growing number of businesses see the risks posed by the linear economy as an opportunity, and are preparing to progress towards a circular economy, where products and the embedded resources within them are used at maximum capacity and then regenerated at the end of their use phase for further life cycles.