Fashinnovation Teams Up With Miami-Dade County to Launch Its First Sustainable Fund

Lisa Lockwood
·2 min read

Fashinnovation has teamed with Miami-Dade County to launch its first sustainable fashion fund.

A public-private partnership, The Fashion Forward Fund aims to leverage emerging sustainable fashion businesses in Miami and to achieve a carbon-neutral fashion industry based on equality, social justice, living wages and ecological integrity.

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The fund will serve as a vehicle to support innovative fashion companies that make the clothing and textile business increasingly more sustainable while also supporting sustainable education. Miami-Dade County will make a financial commitment, along with other individuals in the area.

Jordana Guimaraes, cofounder of Fashinnovation, said, “Our idea is to leverage companies and entrepreneurs that have strong ecological values, helping to scale up these companies and contributing to the construction of a truly greener industry that brings positive impacts to the environment and society.”

Among The Fashion Forward Fund’s capital activities are investment strategy loans, which make equity investments in companies. (The investments are no more than 10 percent, and if the company grows, the investment can be liquidated and proceeds will go back into the fund to support the next business.) Another initiative is making loans to small businesses for investments in green, sustainable and circular technologies. One third of the fund will focus on grants for environmental sustainability education, nonprofits and other sustainability activities.

In addition, the fund will support fair labor and wages not only for local Miami-Dade businesses and industry, but also globally.

Miami-Dade County’s Mayor Daniella Levine Cava will officially reveal the partnership live on the First Miami Talks on July 13. Among the confirmed speakers are Marci Zaroff, founder and chief executive officer of Eco Fashion Corp.; Patrick Duffy, founder of Global Fashion Exchange; Karla Martinez de Salas, head of editorial content of Vogue Mexico; Nigel Barker, CEO and founder of Nigel Barker LLC and Studio N Inc; Stefano Galassi, luxury open innovation adviser and investor; Steven Tristan Young, chief marketing officer of Poshmark, and Billie Whitehouse, CEO, designer and director of Wearable X.

The event will also hold a clothing swap by Global Fashion Exchange to promote a circular economy.

 

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