Last Tuesday, the 3.0 CFDA + Lexus Fashion* Initiative talents got a crash course on sustainability in a workshop led by UN Global Compact’s Sue Allchurch, Claire Kells, and Lilian Liu.

Designers Araks Yeramyan of Araks, Jonathan Cohen, Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow of Public School, Tracy Reese, and Abdul Abasi and Greg Rosborough of Abasi Rosborough were on hand to absorb the Global Compact’s Ten Principles and 17 Sustainable Development Goals and apply these to their own fashion philosophy.

The workshop started with an introduction to the Global Compact organization and its work. Allchurch, Kells, and Liu presented the business case for using the Global Compact’s Ten Principles and 17 Sustainable Development Goals and how designers can utilize them to create impact within their fashion businesses.

The designers broke out into groups and mapped SDGs against the fashion value chain which included: raw materials, suppliers, inbound logistics, company operations, distribution, product use, and product end life. Through this exercise, designers were able to envision Sustainable Development Goals to prioritize and commit to against their own value chain as they analyzed each pillar and addressed which SDGs could they use

The brands discussed how they can minimize negative impact on the environment and people in their operations and maximize the positive, though they found that often these impacts can be inter-related. Some efforts to maximize positive impact in one area may have a negative impact in another. This is an ongoing challenge that designers face, but the important thing the brands took away from this workshop was to make sure that they are prioritizing the right sustainability issues, and aligning to key impact areas within the SDGs.