At a meeting in New York City, Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles and Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt, presented the newly released Texpertise SDG Report to Kerry Bannigan, Executive Director, Fashion Impact Fund & Co-Founder, United Nations Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and Lucie Brigham, Chief of Office, United Nations Office for Partnerships and Co-Founder United Nations Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network. "I am very pleased to be able to personally hand over our SDG Report to Kerry and Lucie. It makes me proud that we have already been able to implement, initiate and achieve so much together," emphasizes Olaf Schmidt. „Through the Messe Frankfurt Texpertise Network, we are working to speed up innovation and transformation in the textile and fashion industry. To boost this decade of action for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, we are briefing and mobilising players across the whole of the textile value-added chain and their partners in industry, with the focus on realising solutions for social, economic and ecological transformation.“

The Messe Frankfurt Texpertise Network unites current topics, trends, events around the textile business and connects more than 500,000 people from all over the world. With more than 50 international textile trade fairs in 11 countries, Messe Frankfurt is the global market leader for textile trade fairs. Texpertise covers the entire textile value chain.

Messe Frankfurt has been strategically integrating sustainability into its textile events worldwide for around 15 years now, using topic-specific formats and content, and is thus a pioneer of its kind. Together with the United Nations Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, a joint initiative between the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the Fashion Impact Fund, Messe Frankfurt's Texpertise Network has also been promoting the visualization of the Sustainable Development Goals at its events since 2019. „Collaboration is key to fostering transformative sectoral engagement and accelerating the implementation of the SDGs“, Lucie Brigham confirms. „Mobilizing expertise, innovation, technology and resources can only be achieved through strong partnerships. Messe Frankfurt‘s Texpertise Network was one of the f rst members and valuable partners of the Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network. We are proud to have been involved in the extensive SDG activities from the beginning and look forward to developing these activities together in the future.“

Global reach

With its SDG actions in eight countries, the Texpertise Network has already reached more than 21,000 exhibitors, around 508,000 trade visitors, around 6,250 accredited media representatives and more than 945,000 followers on social media worldwide by 2023. The SDG actions included panel talks and press conferences with UN representatives, podcasts, SDG information booths and photo walls, social media campaigns and also a hackathon.