The Design of Prosperity -09

CONFERENCE
November 2, 2009

YVON CHOUINARD, founder and owner of PATAGONIA, Inc. keynote speaker at THE DESIGN OF PROSPERITY 09 CONFERENCE of The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås. The Swedish School of Textiles and The University of Borås and REALISE strategic consultants are honored to present environmentalist legend Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia sports clothing and equipment company.

An inspirational adventurer known around the globe as one of the first business-minded champions of environmental and social responsibility, Chouinard will discuss—on his first occasion in Sweden—his visionary commitment to “the sustainability thing” and its integration into PATAGONIA’s unsurpassed design solutions, product quality, and managerial
philosophy.

He will speak about how he transferred his love for nature, his environmental activism such as 1% for the Planet (onepercentfortheplanet.org), and his philosophy of life into a successful business idea, values-driven leadership, a unique management practice and a long-selling and very highly respected brand.

The Swedish School of Textiles’ Professor of Design Management and Humanistic Marketing Simonetta Carbonaro will add to the picture the consumers’ perspective and talk about new consumer demand for authenticity, transparency and responsibility. Based on her research in the area of consumer ethos and behavior and forecasting the directions
consumer culture is moving, she will contribute to the conference-day by giving an overview of those promising signals of social innovation and newly emerging sustainable lifestyles that are based on people’s demand for better, safer, fairer and more (aesth)ethically designed products.

In the afternoon, Jill Dumain, Director of Environmental Analysis, Patagonia, Inc., and current chair of the Organic Exchange, will further the first part of the conference-day’s insights with a discussion of the challenges and rewards of openly communicating best and evolving practices for reducing environmental pressures throughout the value chain. Jill will bring to the conference her expertise in fabric development, her ground-breaking work on the Common Threads Garment Recycling Program and The Footprint Chronicles and her experience creating the two dimensions of business transparency: the deep operational details of the supply chain, and the powerful brand communication environment in which companies can harness the professionalism of consumers.

Peter Waeber, CEO and inventor of blueSign® technologies, will present one of the most holistic, reliable, one-label environmental, health, and safety compliance tools at the disposal of the entire textile production and retail network. Peter will bring exceptional expertise about the proactive, reliable and scientific tools that are now at the disposal of the entire textile industry for assessing and controlling the quality and safety of the end products on the basis of the accurate analysis of every detailed step of the entire value chain–from the production and use of raw materials, yarns, dyes, additives, finishes, textile and end-product manufacturing, through to brand companies’, retailers’, and consumers’ impact and beyond.

The whole conference-day and the two panel discussions between the speakers and distinguished panelists like Josephine Rydberger-Dumont, former CEO of IKEA of Sweden, Tamara Albu, Director of Fashion Studies at Parsons, The New School for Design and representatives of The Design of Prosperity Team of The Centre of Excellence at the University of Borås Centre, will be moderated by Christian Votava, renown strategist, partner of REALISE (www.realise.de), who will wrap-up the conference-day’s insights and present the model of prosperity developed during his cooperation with the University of Borås.

The conference is FREE OF CHARGE but registration is required and space is limited.