Autumn 2023: What is ancient-forest-friendly viscose?
Our Autumn 2023 collection is both a return to our roots and an homage to nature – our forever inspiration. This feeling is embodied in our forest-friendly viscose, a versatile fabric that has become a Stella McCartney signature. This season, it has been developed into a modern library of exclusive weaves and finishes.
Our ancient forest-friendly viscose is made using traceable FSC-certified wood pulp from responsibly managed forests in the United States and Europe. Mother Earth’s trees and forests provide us with essential ecosystem services, and we are committed to responsibly sourcing our forest-friendly viscose in order to treasure and protect the natural environments we depend on. Our Stella vision is to never source from ancient or endangered forests.
What is ancient forest-friendly viscose?
Viscose is a manmade cellulosic fibre, primarily crafted from the dissolved pulp of trees. It is versatile, lightweight and comfortable, able to be transformed into suiting, knitwear and even the backing of some of our animal leather alternatives.
More than 300 million trees are cut down to make fashion fabrics like viscose or rayon every year. Many of those come from the world’s most climate critical and biodiversity rich forests — what we call Ancient and Endangered Forests. Green Shirt viscose means that the viscose producer is assessed as having low risk of sourcing from these vital forest ecosystems in Canopy’s annual Hot Button report, which assesses global viscose producers’ environmental performance across 28 criteria. Many ‘green shirt’ producers also use FSC certified wood and, increasingly, are beginning to use Next Gen alternatives derived from recycled fabrics, microbial cellulose or agricultural residues.
We define our viscose as ‘ancient-forest-friendly viscose’ because it is always sourced from FSC-certified wood pulp and audited and approved suppliers. Together with Canopy, we ensure that all our viscose is fully traceable back to its country of origin – this is a level of transparency that we are incredibly proud of and that we will continually build upon.
To do this, we leverage Canopy’s Hot Button annual report to ensure that our viscose suppliers are always improving their practices.
Discover more about our ancient forest-friendly viscose.
What is the problem with conventional viscose?
A report by Canopy shows that the fashion industry cuts down 300 million trees annually to create cellulose-based fibres. An estimated 30% of this is made from wood pulp sourced from ancient or endangered forests.
Our ancient and endangered forests are incredibly precious: acting as the lungs for our planet, the trees in these forests provide us with clear air, fresh water and vital carbon capture in a way that is completely irreplaceable. The most common causes of deforestation are illegal logging and unsustainable forest management – often for industries like fashion or for packaging.
What do Canopy do?
Canopy is an environmental not-for-profit organisation, developing solutions to protect the world’s ancient and endangered forests. They work collaboratively with businesses and partners to transform unsustainable supply chains, catalyse innovative solutions and keep the world’s vital forests protected and thriving.
Their work helps to protect Mother Earth’s biodiversity, addressing the climate emergency by transforming unsustainable supply chains to lower impact, circular Next Gen alternatives.
Next Gen Solutions are low-carbon, circular alternatives to conventional forest-based paper, packaging, and viscose textiles. Instead of requiring forests to be logged, Next Gen uses waste streams such as agricultural residues (often burned), recycled textiles and even food waste. Using these materials alleviates pressure on landfills, requires less energy, water, and chemicals to process, and ultimately keeps climate-critical forests standing.
What is sustainable forestry?
Managing forests sustainably means using them in a way that maintains their natural productivity, biodiversity and regenerative capacity, as well as ensuring that they can meet society’s needs now and tomorrow.
‘Good’ sustainable forestry practices mimic nature’s patterns of disturbance and regeneration, balancing the needs of the environment, wildlife, local communities and supporting livelihoods, while conserving our trees for future generations.
Canopy's mission is to conserve the world's irreplaceable forests, species, and climate by halting the use of Ancient and Endangered Forests in the paper, packaging, and textile supply chains, all of which are currently significant drivers of forest degradation and deforestation. Forests are our most effective nature-based solution for stabilizing the climate and halting biodiversity loss. Canopy works with brands and companies to transform unsustainable supply chains - by eliminating the use of climate-critical forests in products such as viscose and packaging, and scaling the production of low-carbon and circular Next Gen Solutions. Canopy then works with local NGO partners to translate that reprieve in pressure to secure formal protection of forests and advance the development of community-led conservation-based economies.
We have joined forces with Canopy to call upon decision makers to enact policies that accelerate the scale up of Next Gen solutions and to commit to the ‘Nature Needs Half’ initiative to conserve 50% of Mother Earth’s land and water by 2030.
