The American Apparel Producers’ Network (AAPN) will host its annual meeting May 2-4, 2010 at the Loews Miami Beach. The theme is SUSTAINABILTY: Let’s Get It Right!
“Walmart has been the retailer to highlight the sustainability movement,” says AAPN Managing Director Mike Todaro. “and now it has caught on across the industry. But even Walmart found that 92% of what has to be done falls outside their enterprise, in the respective supply chains of their vendors. When we learned that, we knew that as the industry’s only end-to-end supply chain network, we could accelerate this campaign”.
To start with, sustainability itself is a moving definition. Its many things – environment, social responsibility, risk assessment, balanced sourcing, economic considerations, compliance, testing, certification and a widening range of scores to be kept. So we have to agree on what parts of sustainability our network can actually impact.
That’s why our speakers at the meeting include Kohl’s, Patagonia, Nike, Anvil Knits and Under Armour as well as factories, yarn spinners, mills, trim, shipping, labs, finance, government and designers. The agenda spans the supply chain from end to end, with the primary focus being those who go face-to-face with increasingly demanding consumers – brands and retailers.
Sustainability takes a top down commitment from the corner office; an understanding of who in the supply chain does what; and the strategic practice of balancing sourcing with new requirements and mandates coming out of the sustainability movement. That’s why AAPN is going to focus on actual supply chains working today in the US, Mexico, the Caribbean as well as Central and South America.
“We’re going to take supply chains working in this hemisphere right now – cotton farming, spinning, weaving, trim, cut/sew, finishing, logistics, distribution and brand/retail – and hold them up to the light and see for ourselves what is working. We believe in theme and variations. Get it right once, recognize its variations forever”, says Todaro.
Leveraging the over 150 companies and over 600 individuals in the AAPNetwork, the meeting will involve work groups and projects with these five goals:
· Create a cumulative shared vision of the direction of sustainability in apparel/textiles;
· Document, publish and maintain the principles and mandates for change centrally;
· Set standards, share scorecards to guide actions across the chain, openly, transparently;
· Build upon existing AAPN relationships to incorporate new stakeholders committed to sustainability;
· Hit the road, speak, make corrections, communicate them to the industry.
Organized in 1981, AAPN is a unique industry network of over 600 professionals in the apparel supply chain. Member companies include every link from cotton farming to national retail chains, stretching from ‘the dirt to the shirt’. AAPN remains the best place to get facts and clarity, read breaking news, find answers, see factories, reach leaders, build relationships, interact at meetings and get results. AAPN has proven and specialized expertise in the apparel supply chain of the Western Hemisphere.
Learn more about the meeting on http://www.aapnetwork.net/about/2010-Annual-Meeting.cfm
