Google has announced that it has partnered with WWF Sweden to help create an environmental data platform that will enable more sustainability in the fashion industry. This collaboration will bring together projects from each organisation, drawing on the unique strengths of both.

The fashion industry today accounts for 20 percent of wastewater and 2-8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally - potentially rising by as much as 50% by 2030. Much of this impact occurs at the raw materials stage in the production process, where supply chains can be highly fragmented, and gathering and assessing data at scale is a challenge. The partnership aims to address these needs, providing a platform that could be used on a standalone basis or as a complement to existing efforts.

The new data-enriched, decision-making platform aims to help drive responsible sourcing decisions in the fashion industry, by combining Google Cloud’s technical capacity, including big-data analysis and machine learning with WWF’s knowledge of assessing raw materials. Both companies will build from data and results they have accumulated through previous partnerships; Google with Stella McCartney and WWF Sweden with Ikea. 

This new platform will also move beyond cotton and viscose as first announced, to include numerous additional raw materials based on WWF data and knowledge. In addition to Stella McCartney and IKEA, WWF and Google are also in consultation with a large number of other fashion, luxury, denim, and athletic brands and retailers.

"It's our ambition to create a data-enriched decision-making platform that enables analysis of the supply chain in a way that has not been possible before at this scale," said Ian Pattison, Head of Customer Engineering, Retail, Google UK/ IE.