COP26

What is COP26?

COP, which stands for 'conference of the parties', is this year’s crucial UN Climate Change Conference, which is being hosted by the UK in Glasgow, Scotland, from 31 October until 12 November. The talks are organised under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 in order to tackle global warming and deal with its effects. It came into force in 1994.

 

Why is COP26 important?

COP26 is the first major test of the 2015 Paris Agreement. When countries negotiated this, they agreed to limit the rise in global average temperature to well below 2C and pursue efforts to not exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. To keep themselves on track with meeting the goals of the agreement, including staying within 1.5C, they created a ratchet mechanism to encourage regular increases in national ambition and a focus on taking short-term action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. This is based on the submission of national climate commitments, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), that countries agreed to update and improve on every five years. Those five years were up last December, but countries have been slow to update their NDCs because of the pandemic and the postponement of last year’s talks.
 

What does it mean for ZORA?

To us, it means staying true to our core values and doing what we always have since the inception of ZORA with a made-to-order initiative and retail model. Did you know? Made-to-order production does not only 'zerorise' wastes, it cuts down Carbon footprint by more than 70% as compared to normal production. This, alongside our favorism towards  
natural materials as our main source of inspiration and fabric supply also contributes to our end-goal. (A polyester shirt has more than double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5 kg vs. 2.1 kg, or 12.1 pounds vs 4.6 pounds).

 

What can you do as consumers?

Practice patience with delivery
Next day delivery or express services are made ever more enticing by free delivery deals from fashion brands. But expediting the speed of distribution simply escalates the carbon impact of your new product, not least because the delivery transport may take place by air, rather than sea or road, and deliveries of multiple products are less likely to be consolidated into one package. Find out more about the impact of rushed delivery for online shopping in this handy video.
 
Choose Natural
A polyester shirt has more than double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5 kg vs. 2.1 kg, or 12.1 pounds vs 4.6 pounds). Polyester production for textiles released about 706 billion kg (1.5 trillion pounds) of greenhouse gases in 2015, the equivalent of 185 coal-fired power plants' annual emissions. Our advice - seek to take your first foot into the initiative by cutting down on polyester consumption will always be a good idea! 

 
want to take an immediate, actionable step? Click here to offset you carbon footprints ___