Lululemon Athletica Inc and H&M Group are supporting a $250 million fund to accelerate efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the fashion industry's supply chain, as per a report by the non-profit organization Apparel Impact Institute.

Titled Fashion Climate Fund, the initiative brings together clothing brands, philanthropic donors and other industry stakeholders. It hopes to generate $2 billion in funds once effective solutions have been found and scaled up.

Other supporters of the fund include the H&M Foundation and the Schmidt Family Foundation. More are expected to be announced in the coming months, with the fund hoping to raise $10 million from each.

The fund will support new programs and solutions with a structured pipeline for getting from pilot to scale. It will provide a powerful mechanism to overcome the challenges of getting new solutions implemented by the industry, and thereby accelerate the progress on climate action.

The fund will help finance a range of initiatives including expanding the use of renewable energy, developing next-generation materials, ditching the use of coal in manufacturing and improving energy efficiency.

It hopes that the use of philanthropic capital to help fund early stage projects and the forging of partnerships with retailers to scale up successful initiatives will encourage other industry participants to help meet future funding needs.