CLIMATE ACTION WEEK: The Laudes Foundation explains its approach for ensuring a Just Transition.

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The Laudes Foundation is one of the few philanthropic organizations that funds sustainability initiatives that specifically impact the apparel industry. The Foundation is also actively promoting the need for a Just Transition. That is why Michael Schragger invited Amol Mehra, human rights lawyer and Director of Industry Programmes at the Laudes Foundation, to explain the Foundation’s definition, vision and strategy for enabling a Just Transition in the apparel industry. Michael and Amol discuss the problems with brand driven climate action and why suppliers and workers need to be in the center of the climate transition, why Amol thinks that global warming poses serious business risks for the industry and how embedding sustainability into the core of business is the only way to survive and thrive as a company, and what specific initiatives that Laudes is supporting, such as the Just Transition Center soon to be launched in Bangladesh during 2025.

“If you're doing decarbonisation right, there can be beneficial outcomes for workers and communities — but they need to be at the center of the process.”

“The success or failure of a fashion transformation doesn’t start with brands. The missing middle of the supply chain is where most of the action will live or die.”

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/