On June 19th and 20th, Materahub joined project partners and teams in Antwerp for the Pilot Workshop of our own Horizon Europe Just Fashion project to experiment and implement sustainable business models across six pioneering fashion companies.
These two intense days were a pivotal step in the development of the project: a 36-month initiative (December 2024 – November 2027) that seeks to accelerate the climate transition in the fashion industry by equipping businesses across Europe with a shared framework and practical tools.
The project, which brings together a consortium of 20 partners from 8 countries (Belgium, United Kingdom, Lithuania, Italy, Spain, Germany, North Macedonia, and Portugal) under the coordination of the University of Antwerp (UANTWERPEN), aims at supporting a shift in production processes, internal operations, and product development toward low-carbon, circular, and socially inclusive models.
The Workshop
The workshop marked a critical moment of alignment, between visions and methodologies, between pilot cases and coordinators, and between the urgency of climate transition and the practical frameworks needed to act. Over the course of two days, we engaged in a dense sequence of working sessions, peer exchanges and structured reflections. What emerged was a strong sense of community around the challenge of transforming the fashion industry from within.
What we found most valuable was the project’s insistence on building a shared language around concepts like climate risk, value chain vulnerability and business model innovation, without reducing them to abstract categories. Through the presentations, but especially during the breakout sessions and peer-to-peer dialogues, it became clear that the strategic repositioning of fashion businesses requires tools that are both systemic and deeply situated in real organisational cultures.
One of the highlights was the session led by Prof. Annick Schramme on business model innovation. Her insight reminded us that a business model is more than structure, it’s a story. A story that links values to decisions, sustainability to competitiveness. For our work with Staff Jersey, this translates into designing virtual workflows that minimize environmental impact while enhancing creative expression, and leveraging the DPP not only as a regulatory tool, but as a platform for transparency, traceability, and authentic value communication.
As we move toward designing the Climate Transition Plan and entering the implementation phase of our pilot, we carry forward more than just a roadmap, we carry a renewed commitment to responsibility, collaboration, and impact. At Materahub, we see our role as ensuring that innovation is not only visionary but also rooted in real-world dialogue with our pilot partner, fellow case teams, and the wider network of communities and supply chain actors who are central to this transition.
Grounding Innovation in Responsibility
As we move toward the design of the Climate Transition Plan and prepare for the implementation phase of our pilot, we are aware that this next step is not only about applying tools or following a timeline.
It’s about making real, measurable changes within a sector that urgently needs transformation.
For Materahub, this means supporting our pilot partner not just technically, but also strategically and culturally, ensuring that the transition to more sustainable models is both effective and aligned with the identity and values of the organisation. We also recognise the importance of staying connected to the broader ecosystem: other pilot teams, local and international stakeholders, and the supply chain actors whose work and livelihoods will be directly impacted by these shifts.
In our view, innovation cannot happen in isolation, yet it must be rooted in active listening, open exchange, and a sense of shared responsibility. That’s why we don’t see this pilot as a standalone experiment, but as a meaningful contribution to a broader, collective effort to redefine how fashion is imagined, produced, and valued.
