The Vogue Business 2024 100 Innovators: Sustainability thought leaders
In just the first six months, interest in the programme has been strong, and word is spreading among farmers. Even if the programme doesn’t succeed, however, the concept is so bold that Argento and his Sourcery colleagues deserve credit for trying it out — because when problems seem insurmountable, the solutions that address them must be ambitious.
Abhishek Bansal
Head of sustainability | Arvind
Change doesn’t happen at companies without the individuals who drive it, and Abhishek Bansal is one of those people at Arvind Limited, a major textile manufacturer in India. Since joining the company in 2014, he has established the company’s sustainability strategy and team and launched efforts to boost renewable energy, wastewater recycling and cotton agricultural initiatives — all areas in need of transformation and that brands depend on suppliers to deliver.
A common industry paradox is that many suppliers struggle to implement such initiatives because they don’t have the financial support or incentives from brands. Some take the initiative, though — finding the right resources to tap into and lining up the right expertise — to be able to push things through and become leaders in their own right.
During his tenure, Bansal says Arvind has converted textile production to use only recycled water, launched cotton farming initiatives with more than 95,000 smallholder farmers in India, and helped spearhead Arvind’s collaborative efforts with key customers. For example, the company worked with H&M and Deven Supercriticals to deploy waterless dyeing for cotton and cotton blends and partnered with Gap Inc to launch the Global Water Innovation Centre for Action, a non-profit meant to help the industry move towards water efficiency and recycling, in January 2024. Outside of Arvind, Bansal has made it a priority to bring the supplier voice to venues where it’s often missing.
“Some of the organisations, like ZDHC, used to be comprised of only brand participants as board directors, which we lobbied to change successfully,” he says. He became the first manufacturer to sit on the board of ZDHC; his other roles include sitting on the board of the Social and Labor Convergence programme and on the governance committee of OCA.
Beto Bina
Founder and CEO | Farfarm
Beto Bina grew up in the south of Brazil. After scoring his dream job in advertising in New York, he found himself disillusioned by his firm’s big clients. He quit, spent some time in the Amazon, and the pieces started to fall into place. He could see the danger that deforestation posed and how much potential a practice called agroforestry (planting crops among trees rather than in place of them) could offer as a solution.
From 2019 to 2022, he led Veja’s sourcing team, overseeing its supply chain for wild rubber, agroecological cotton and leather from “native pastures”. Now, he runs his own company, Farfarm, as a “consultancy specialised in supply chain with a mission to regenerate nature, promote social development and share stories”, and says its most notable work is having developed what he calls “textile agroforestry” — growing cotton in integration with trees and other crops. The company supplies cotton and natural rubber to Veja and Brazilian fashion label Renner, among others, while the scale and ambition of its work continues to grow. One of its latest projects was a collaboration with musicians and communities to plant agroforestry in deforested areas and to write songs about it — describing the three stages of planting, managing and harvesting, with music being a traditional method of storytelling and knowledge sharing — as a way to share the practices with other communities and with future generations.
Dr Christina Dean
Founder and chair | Redress and Founder and CEO | The R Collective
Dr Christina Dean’s credentials show she’s not afraid of a challenge. In 2007, she founded Redress, a Hong Kong-headquartered Asia-focused NGO that encourages the transition to a circular fashion system. Back then, sustainability was a niche topic, not only in Greater China but around the world. Yet Dean, named a Global Visionary by UBS, has remained undeterred in her mission to introduce circular fashion to C-suites and consumers alike.
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