Google has partnered with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Sweden on environmental data platform that would help fashion designers with sustainable product sourcing.
The platform will allow brands to source sustainable raw materials like cotton and viscose for the manufacturing of garments.
These raw materials are analysed on sustainability factors like water scarcity, pollution, greenhouse gas emission, drawing on Google Earth Engine Data. Earth Engine combines satellite imagery and geospatial data to track the changes and map trends on earth surface.
The brands would be using the data for making more responsible decisions in the selection of raw material for product development.
The collaboration will leverage the use of Google Cloud’s technology including big data, machine learning and analytics with WWF’s vast knowledge of accessing raw material.
“Together we can make supply chain data visible and accessible to decision-makers and drive more responsible and sustainable decisions,” said Ian Pattinson, Head of Customer Engineering for Retail, Google (UK and Ireland’s).
Fashion industry is one of the most polluted industries and, therefore, sustainability is a major concern. As per a data by WRAP, the carbon footprint of a newly bought garment including cleaning and washing is almost equal to driving a car for 6,000 miles.
Also, the average lifecycle of a piece of clothing is around 2.2 years.
