In another example of the way statesmen have wised-up to fashion’s usefulness as an educational and promotional tool, today the United Nation’s Global Compact – the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, launched by the UN in 2000 – is announcing it’s first sector-specific initiative. And it is … wait for it … a joint venture with NICE, aka the Nordic Initiative Clean and Ethical (yes, the acronym works better than what it stands for).

To be specific, it is a new set of business guidelines, “based on the UN Global Compact principles but formatted to a fashion and textile context (adding two to four fashion-specific principles on pressing issues such as chemicals, water, waste, jewellery/diamonds, animal rights/welfare),” according to Jonas Eder-Hansen of the Danish Fashion Institute. He says many small- and medium-sized companies simply don’t know how to make themselves sustainable, and this is conceived to clarify the situation. (Many of the big fashion and luxury groups in the big four fashion capitals of Paris, Milan, New York and London already have any similar rules in place internally; LVMH for one is a signatory to the Global Compact.)