Fashion is driving the loss of a forest ecosystems around the world and many of them are ancient and endangered forests - high carbon value, high biodiversity value forest ecosystems. Be it in the Amazon or Indonesia or the world's boreal forests. These are the landscapes that are being impacted by fashion currently. we see that with the loss of those forest ecosystems that's contributing significantly to climate change, forests are huge carbon sinks for the world, and also forests are habitat and habitat is home for many of the species that we share this planet with. we've seen a precipitous decline in biodiversity over the last, in the last four decades, there's been a report that shows that since the 1970s we've lost 60 % of the animals on the planet. And many biologists are sounding the alarm bell that we are entering into the sixth great extinction.
viscose is a beautiful soft silky fabric that we feel next to our skin and that designers love because it drapes nicely. And it's not intuitive that it comes from a tree that can give you a splinter. It's a very intense chemical process - a tree is logged, often in an ancient and endangered forest ecosystem. It's then sent to a dissolving pulp mill and it's put in a giant blender with a whole bunch of nasty chemicals and out of that process comes the pure cellulose. viscose production is an inefficient production process for every tree that's fed in at the front end, you only end up with depending on the mill 22 to 40 percent of the fiber coming out the other end to then eventually be made into viscose.
six years ago at Canopy they became aware of this link between the world's forest ecosystems and the fashion industry. And so started to reach out to brands and viscose producers to engage them around charting a different path for this sector. We've had incredible support from brands and designers and retailers. There are currently 160 brands and progressive designers who have developed formal Canopy style commitments. they have policies that commit to eliminating the use of fabrics that originate from ancient and endangered forests to help catalyze the production of next generation solutions, and to really advocate for conservation on the ground in these high carbon and high biodiversity value forests.because brands have engaged so consistently with their suppliers the viscose producers, they have similar commitments from viscose producers that represent about 80 percent of global production and that supply chain is now in the process of actually unpacking where they sourced from and we're helping them analyze where they have high risk and ways to actually shift away from that risk.
Collectively brands have stepped in to try and shift the viscose supply chain to be more sustainable. They've recognized that it's at an inflection point that it's going to double within the next decade and so now is the time to actually redirect it down a more sustainable pathway. one of the big priorities is working with brands to have them lean in and help support the commercial scale production of these next generation solutions, draw them through into their lines and their clothing, as well as to really step forward and help secure large scale conservation of the world's remaining intact and ancient and endangered forests.
31% of the viscose supply chain is now audited and verified at low risk of sourcing from ancient and endangered forests and 60% of viscose production globally is in that auditing process. Canopy Style five was publicly launched 5 years ago, seeing a transformation in the global supply chain. The absolute minimum that they're aiming for is to ensure that ancient and endangered forests don't continue to disappear into viscose fabrics and so FSC certified, sustainably certified, second growth wood fibre, is is the option that we advocate for. A key to alleviating the pressure on ancient and endangered forest ecosystems globally is actually diversifying the fibre basket so not relying on forest ecosystems to provide the fibre for packaging and paper and for fabrics and so kickstarting commercial scale production of next generation solutions is a is a big priority for canopy as well as their brand partners that are in the canopy style initiative and so alternatives like making the next generation of fabric from recycled fabrics rather than ending up in landfill using straw that's left over after the food grain harvest and would otherwise be burnt by farmers as well as the cool crazy science of growing microbial cellulose - growing fabrics in a test tube.
Canopy currently works with about 16 ventures different disruptive technology entrepreneurs to help bring their technologies, break them out of the laboratory, and bring them into the marketplace at scale. these next generation solutions not only help advance SDGs like forest ecosystem health, but they also have an incredible benefit for our climate, for freshwater systems and they're generally less energy intensive and chemical intensive and then obviously when you keep forest ecosystem standing, you help advance the rights of traditional communities that are often impacted by these resource extractive companies and industries. Transparency is always a useful thing. It's in the shadows that bad practices can happen and so the viscose supply chain is a convoluted and obtuse supply chain as is the apparel sector broadly, there are many different stages involved, but the work that canopy style, brands and producers are really trying to do is understand exactly which forest ecosystems are being impacted by the production of viscosee, which ones are high carbon and high biodiversity value , which communities are having their rights impacted by that and by bringing greater transparency to that level on the ground, Canopy has been able to shift the practices of the mills that are actually directly operating on the ground. They've put in place zero deforestation commitments. They have started to assess the high conservation value in high carbon value forest that they have within their concessions and stop expanding their operations, their plantation base, into those areas, they've started to repatriate lands to traditional communities.
that's where you see the power of the marketplace actually really translating through right back through that supply chain to change on the ground, but unless you actually know where that's happening then it's never going to happen. global citizens sometimes these issues they feel so big right , climate change, precipitous decline in species health. And yet as individuals we have incredible power. We have purchasing influence over the designers and the brands that we buy our clothes with and then we also are obviously very important from a political perspective.
be proud and be vocal and be curious ask your brands and your designers where your clothes are actually coming from both the human impact as well as the environmental qualities that they have, prioritise supporting brands and designers that are taking leadership around sustainability. as individuals we all have the ability to hold interesting and be at film nights or design nights or soirees.
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