FROM the cat-walk to the consumer, the world’s leading fashion designers and retail giants could play a major role in saving the planet.

Whether it are the famous designer brands or retail outlets, a growing number of professionals in the fashion and retail business are responding to a latent public demand for ethical and green products.

In support of these efforts, the United Nations Environment Programme is working on a new initiative, “shopping for a better world” which aims to influence the seven trillion dollar global retail industry. At the same time new partnerships with people from the fashion world, hope to bring environmental messages to a new and increasingly influential audience.

Consumers, especially the young, are often confronted with the seemingly contradictory choice of wanting to help the planet and the desire to buy the latest ‘must-have’ brands.

“What can be more modern and more fashionable, than caring about our planet. By working with the retail and fashion industry, we can help change attitudes towards consumption, and ultimately people’s actions,” says UNEP’s Executive Director.

Earlier this year, to encourage more people to embrace so-called sustainable consumerism, UNEP launched a new project that puts an emphasis on marketing “attractive” or “desirable” lifestyles as a key way to sell environmentally friendly products.

One of the first, fast emerging partners in the fashion industry, in order to show how sustainable life-styles can be fashionable and ‘cool’, is the award-winning web-based fashion magazine, Lucire.

According to Lucire’s Founding Publisher, “Fashion magazines should not only communicate the labels and their offerings, they should also give the industry insight into what’s hot and what’s not, and be able to send a signal back to the fashion industry that this is what today’s society desires.”

In recent years a few companies in the retail sector have not only started to green their own operations but have also become important players in global efforts to make consumption and production patterns more sustainable. They are, developing logistical strategies for transport, making life-cycle assessments of packaging, marketing green products, drawing up codes of conduct for suppliers, and demanding innovation in building design and energy systems.— Samina Iqbal