28 July 2025
Work, know-how, and justice in the textile supply chain
In its 2024 Social and Sustainability Report, Slow Food Italy has chosen to focus on a fundamental, cross-cutting theme: Work. Work is not just a professional activity, but a network of relationships, shared responsibilities, and opportunities for collective growth. In this vision, work becomes the key to understanding the entire Report, a tool for assessing the value generated and returned to the community.
Within this framework, Slow Fiber also finds space, a network of textile and furniture companies that since 2022, inspired by the principles of Slow Food, has promoted a different way of producing: good, healthy, clean, fair, durable, and beautiful.
"For us in the textile industry, work is first and foremost about the value of know-how. Our supply chain is made up of many phases in which manual labor still plays an irreplaceable role."
The Report highlights how the global race to the bottom has transformed labor into a cost to be reduced, often delocalizing production and generating exploitation on the one hand, and the loss of skills in the local production district of origin on the other. Slow Fiber opposes this trend, instead placing the dignity of work, fair remuneration, and the valorization of human capital at its core.
Today, the network includes 29 Italian companies committed to a collective project: building a textile supply chain as an alternative to overproduction and waste, restoring the centrality of labor throughout all phases of the production process.
"The remuneration of all those involved in the long textile supply chain must be fair."
Slow Fiber's concrete commitment
• Developed KPIs to measure work ethics;
• Established discussions with institutions, universities, and social tailoring networks;
• Worked to create a training and outreach system to make textile manufacturing attractive to younger generations.
Slow Fiber's inclusion in Slow Food Italy's Social and Sustainability Report isn't just a formal recognition: it's evidence of an alliance of values that looks to the future with responsibility. Together, we're building a viable alternative that puts people, local communities, and know-how back at the center.
Discover Slow Food Italy's 2024 Social and Sustainability Report: https://www.slowfood.it/organizzazione/bilancio-di-esercizio/slow-food-italia-bilancio-sociale-2024/
