LCF students win the World Retail Congress 2024 competition
- Written bySorcha Cheevers
- Published date 10 May 2024
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Four Fashion Business School (FBS) students, Renu Sigar, Aditi Kanthaliya, Aanshi Shah and Ruchita Kar from MA Fashion Design Management, have been crowned the winners of the World Retail Congress 2024 competition – an annual congress that unites leaders from across the global retail industry for innovative strategy and insights. The 2024 congress, hosted in Paris, saw over 800 retail leaders coming together to learn, network, and develop strategies for the year ahead and beyond. The theme, High Performance Retail, focussed on the traits needed to be truly world-class in today’s retail landscape.
The London College of Fashion, UAL students Renu, Aditi, Aanshi and Ruchita were selected to represent the UK in the Future Retail Challenge, where they presented their ideas on how a retailer of their choice could tackle some of the most difficult problems in reducing Scope 3 emissions. 2024 is Future Retail Challenge’s 15th year and it seeks to promote future talent in the retail industry across the world.
LCF students chose Lululemon, focusing on their downstream challenges such as the washing and drying of clothes and disposal of sold products. Renu, Aditi, Aanshi and Ruchita proposed a solution through collaborating with GUPPYFRIEND, an online shop that offers innovative products to stop microplastics; particles from your clothes that ultimately end up in rivers and oceans. For example, the GUPPYFRIEND Washing Bag prevents the release of microfibres during washing, and therefore filters microplastic fibres out before they pollute water.
LCF students competed against universities around the world, including students from: Fashion Institute Technology NYC; EDHEC Business School, France; and University of Amsterdam, Holland. Despite tough competition, FBS, LCF students Renu, Aditi, Aanshi and Ruchita were announced as the winners on the main stage, gaining excellent exposure at the largest retail congress in the world. The students were also given the opportunity to attend the rest of the congress, with three days of talks from industry professionals.
Congratulations on winning the World Retail Congress 2024 competition! How does it feel to have your work acknowledged in this way?
Winning the World Retail Congress 2024 competition is incredibly exciting for us, especially considering the high caliber of proposals submitted this year. It's a testament to our hard work, creativity, and dedication to making a positive impact in the retail industry.
Tell us about the competition – how did it come about and what were you required to do? Tell us about your proposal with retailer Lululemon, and the solution you produced using GUPPYFRIEND?
Hannah Middleton, our knowledge exchange leader at LCF, briefed five courses at LCF. Individually, we were eager to participate, and soon we formed a group. The competition was centered on devising innovative solutions to address sustainability challenges within the retail sector. Our task was to address scope 3 GHG emissions for a retailer of our choice, with potential solutions being either upstream or downstream.
We chose Lululemon due to their commitment to transparency in environmental initiatives, which provided a solid foundation of data and insights for our proposal. Lululemon produces around 37-40% of its clothes from non-biodegradable materials like nylon and polyester, which shed microfibers during laundry cycle. Our initiative was twofold: to educate consumers about the environmental impact of microfiber waste and to target Category 11 of Scope 3 emissions to reduce pollutants in the use phase. While researching, we came across the GuppyFriend laundry bag, which is made of filter monofilaments material, is untreated, undyed, and contains no additives, filtering the microfibers the clothes shed. This meant that while treating the wastewater, less energy would be consumed to clean the water, indirectly reducing carbon emissions. Our proposal to formulate a care package was particularly appreciated for addressing the release of microplastic fibers and for driving traffic to Lululemon's resale platform through the use of vouchers, making the proposal commercially viable.
Were there any aspects of the process that you found challenging? Did you learn anything new?
Developing our proposal during the Easter break for the World Retail Congress 2024 competition posed challenges due to team members being in different time zones. Coordinating meetings across varied schedules required careful planning and flexibility. Despite these hurdles, navigating time zone differences enhanced our collaboration, pushing us to think creatively about sustainability in retail. We focused on understanding microfiber pollution and effective mitigation strategies, including technologies like the GUPPYFRIEND washing bag. This experience underscored the importance of collaboration and innovation in addressing sustainability challenges in the retail industry.
What were the highlights of winning the challenge?
Winning the challenge provided us with recognition from industry leaders, exposure for our idea, and potential opportunities for further collaboration. The World Retail Congress was a fantastic platform to showcase our work and connect with like-minded professionals and other students who had participated. It provided an invaluable networking opportunity that has the potential to shape our future careers in ways we could not have otherwise imagined. The winning team announcement was made during the congress, which added an element of excitement and allowed us to celebrate our achievement among peers and industry giants alike.
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