Chinese Fashion Brands Herald the Year of the Wood Dragon by Committing to Protect Forests

February 22, 2024 – To celebrate the Lunar New Year, three leading Chinese fashion companies, representing eight brands, have partnered with Canopy to keep climate- and biodiversity-critical forests out of their viscose and paper packaging supply chains. They are also now prioritizing circular, lower-impact NextGen alternatives. The announcement, which comes on the heels of the Lunar New Year, marks the first cluster of China-head-quartered brands to join CanopyStyle and Pack4Good, the fast-moving supply chain transformation initiatives of solutions-driven environmental nonprofit Canopy.

The brands pledging to protect Ancient and Endangered Forests today are multi-brand fashion company, Ellassay Group, sports apparel brand, Engine Bird, and sock company, Happywool. They join over 500 global fashion brands, including Stella McCartney, Uniqlo, LVMH, and Ralph Lauren, that are collaborating on the CanopyStyle and Pack4Good initiatives

The sourcing of Man-Made Cellulosic Fibre (MMCF)-based fabrics and paper packaging is responsible for over 3.4 billion trees being logged every year, many from the world’s most important ecosystems. As one of the largest global clothing retail markets and the country where most of the world’s clothing is manufactured, these brands’ commitment to forest protection sends a strong signal to the global supply chain that forest degradation is not in style.

“We are so pleased to welcome these forward-thinking Chinese fashion companies to the CanopyStyle family in this Lunar Year of the Wood Dragon,” said Nicole Rycroft, Founder and Executive Director of Canopy. “The Wood Dragon represents vitality and creativity, success, energy and drive – all key attributes needed to help save forests, species, and our climate. We applaud their leadership as we welcome in the new year.”

“We are thrilled to be among the first Chinese fashion brands to partner with Canopy and its initiatives CanopyStyle and Pack4Good to collaboratively address our MMCF fabrics and paper consumer packaging to accelerate our sustainability transformation and particularly keep the world’s endangered forests flourishing. This new collaboration is perfectly aligned with one of our pillars of protecting biodiversity and generally reducing our impact of nature. We recognized that there is still a long way to go and aim to continue to be a precursor among leading fashion groups in China with regards to their sustainability journey,” said Alan Xia, Founder & Chairman of ELLASSAY Group.

Today’s signatories are not only united in the effort to ensure their textiles like viscose/rayon/lyocell and paper packaging do not come from the world’s Ancient and Endangered Forests, but are also working with Canopy to scale NextGen packaging and textiles made from recycled clothing, agricultural residues, and other innovative alternatives rather than climate-critical forests. Made from materials that would otherwise be burned or go to waste – such as recycled textiles or agricultural residue – NextGen materials keep forests standing, in addition to a host of other benefits, including lower water use and the creation of green jobs.  

China is poised to lead the global shift to NextGen viscose and packaging production. Government priorities are already mobilizing the MMCF supply chain and fashion industry to accelerate the adoption of circular feedstocks for viscose textile production with strong regulatory, supply, and market access incentives already in China.

The addition of these companies brings the CanopyStyle initiative to 555 brand partners representing 1.05 trillion USD in annual collective revenue, and Pack4Good to 427 brands with collective annual revenue of over 236 billion USD.

Read information about and quotes from the companies in today’s announcement here.
Read this media release in Mandarin.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Laura Repas
Communications Marketing Specialist, Canopy
+1 416-729-7484
communications@canopyplanet.org

About Canopy 
Canopy is a solutions-driven not-for-profit environmental organization dedicated to protecting forests, species, and climate. Canopy has collaborated with more than 900 companies to develop cutting-edge environmental policies that transform unsustainable supply chains, spark innovative solutions, and protect our world’s remaining Ancient and Endangered Forests. www.canopyplanet.org