Ep 2: Cash for Climate Solutions - figuring out fashion’s CO2 emissions

In the second episode of this podcast series, produced in partnership with the Apparel Impact Institute about its Climate Solutions Portfolio (CSP), we take a look at the tool it's built to help decide who should get the funding, and what a winning application looks like. 

As a quick re-cap, the CSP aims to find, feature and fund any initiative, project or piece of tech with the potential to reduce energy use and/or greenhouse gas emissions at scale in the industry.

And it has up to 250,000 dollars per year to award to projects that have the data to show they have the potential to make an impact.

In this episode, Ecotextile News correspondent Phil Patterson and environmental scientist Linda Greer explain how they developed a tool they call the 'Ready Reckoner' – to objectively compare the overall CO2 savings of different innovations and solutions across all parts of the textile manufacturing process.

Phil Patterson told host Phil Berman that he's come up with a punchier, and more colloquial nickname for the tool.

“Apologies for my language, but it's a bit of an ‘eco bullsh*t detector’ because there's lots of innovation out there but there are lots of people overclaiming the benefits that their solutions can deliver."

“What we’ve created is what we call a gas map of the entire supply chain, which is essentially looking at where greenhouse gases emissions occur, allocating a percentage of those emissions to individual processes within the supply chain.

Patterson and Greer talk in detail about how the tool can be used, and how it can be improved in the future as better data becomes available.

And most importantly they both drop some big hints on what they are looking for in applications, with lots of do's and don'ts.

Applications are open from 1 to 31 March, 2024.

To find out more about the Portolio, do check out its dedicated site where you can also contact their team if you need help with your application.