We are pleased to share with you our Impact Report for 2020-2022 according to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. As an agency dedicated to supporting sustainable fashion brands, our mission is to achieve transformative impactand to encourage fundamental changes by helping fashion creators and entrepreneurs adopt and improve upon eco-responsible and ethical practices and gain market shares.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the fashion industry, it also shows that there is a window of opportunity to re-imagine the designing, developing, producing, selling, and consuming of fashion goods. The pandemic has revealed that major change is possible and is, in fact, exactly what we need to confront the climate crisis and to ensure our resilient recovery.
Our impact according to the UNSDG 12, Responsible consumption and production:
- We accompanied 17 eco-responsible and ethical fashion brands and creators in their development
- During the pandemic, we enabled the national and international market implementation and expansion of 13 emerging Swiss sustainable fashion brands
- We generated more than CHF 150’000.00 turnover for emerging Swiss ethical and eco- responsible brands
Our Impact according to the UNSDG 5, Gender equality and women’s empowerment:
- 80% of the fashion brands (16) we supported are founded by women
- We enabled the market implementation and expansion of 12 women-founded fashion brands
- 100% of the women-founded brands we supported and implemented on the market develop and produce ethical and eco-responsible fashion goods
- We generated more than CHF 100’000.00 turnovers for women-founded and women-led fashion brands
For context, the share of global startups with at least one female founding member doubled between 2009 and 2019. Although, female-led startups are becoming more commonplace, reaching 20% today. A major hurdle for women entrepreneurs is access to capital. Globally, only 2% of investment sums flow into women-led startups. In Switzerland, women are still underrepresented in the category of sole proprietors or as employees of their own company. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2022, the startup rate for women is 7.2%. But why is female entrepreneurship so important? Various studies show (e.g.: Hirschfeld et al., 2020) that men and women differ in their startup motives. Women are more motivated than men to achieve a p for example through a clear social or ecological orientation of the company. Greater participation of women founders could therefore play an important role in the transformation of the economy towards greater sustainability. There are good reasons to make even more use of women's skills and ideas and to strive for a higher rate of women-founded companies. This could contribute to a positive social and economical development.
Our impact according to the UNSDG 4, uality education:
- 21 fashion startups mentored
- 7 high-potential fashion projects mentored to develop their idea and the first foundations of their entrepreneurial project at PULSE Incubator HES
- 4 workshops
- 3 talks => Increased relevant skills for more than 100 fashion entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs
Our key mission is to substantially increase the knowledge and skills of fashion entrepreneurs (Target 4.4.) and thus encourage the formation and growth of micro and small-sized businesses. Since 2020, we have had the honour to act as experts in mentoring innovative and high-potential fashion startupsOver the past two years, we had the chance to hold workshops, participate in talks and juries, and advise on a project with the MAS students of the IFAParis. This gave us the opportunity to share our knowledge and expertise with several current entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs. It has never been easy to launch a fashion brand and make it a success. The fashion market is increasingly complex as it requires not only exceptional creative talent, but also a wide range of knowledge, various skills and expertise, and significant cash flow. Fashion, being a very competitive creative industry, requires a solid understanding of its market and its businesses. This is key knowledge that fashion entrepreneurs often lack (especially in brand development, and business strategy) therefore becomes an obstacle on a brand’s path to success and profitability. According to the platform FashionInnovation 9% of fashion brands ever bring in over 1 M in revenue and the vast majority never really hit profitability82% fail because of weak leadership and management coupled with cash flow problemsentored businesses are 12% more likely to remain in business after one year30% of business owners who had just one interaction with a mentor reported business growthEntrepreneurs who had five or more interactions with a mentor report growth peaks of 43%There are therefore good reasons to continue to make our knowledge and expertise available to students and entrepreneurs - current and future.
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