The Watch & Jewelry Initiative 2030 (WJI 2030) has formed an alliance with the Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) to tackle shared social and environmental challenges, the organizations said in a joint statement.
The fashion, jewelry and watch industries draw their materials from complex value chains with potential impacts on the environment, workers’ rights and the availability of resources, the groups said last week.
GFA is a fashion-industry nonprofit that aims to foster industry collaboration on sustainability. WJI 2030, which Cartier and luxury group Kering founded, has a similar objective in the jewelry and watch industries and is driven by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It is led by Iris Van der Veken, who is executive director and secretary general.
The groups promise to provide more details about the alliance when they meet at the Global Fashion Summit: Copenhagen Edition 2023, which will take place on June 27 and 28. This year’s summit, presented by GFA, will include perspectives and learnings from the watch and jewelry industries. The theme is “Ambition to Action.”
The partnership will continue at other sustainability events in the coming year, including the international edition of the Global Fashion Summit in September and at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) in December, the organizations added.
They will provide platforms to convene fashion, watch and jewelry executives around the world to “stimulate precompetitive knowledge exchange, stringent commitments and impactful programs,” the statement reads.
“Wherever our members are on their sustainability journey, partnerships like these will help them connect, learn, lead, communicate, moving them faster and farther in demonstrating progress on sustainability” Van der Veken said. “Whatever we learn, over time we will share with the wide industry.”
