DNFI Steering Committee Meeting 2018

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The annual meeting of the DNFI Steering Committee in Frankfurt on January 10 was highly productive. A full report including attachments is available for Members on the DNFI web site.

Highlights of the Meeting:

  • World production of natural fibres rose by an estimated 8% to approximately 33 million tons during 2017, led by increases in abaca, coir, cotton, jute and wool.
  • The Annual DNFI Innovation in Natural Fibres Award will be issued again in 2018. A formal announcement will be sent in May.
  • Dr. Terry Townsend accepted the election as chairman of the DNFI for two more years.
  • Members of DNFI agreed to continue exchanging information on initiatives detrimental to natural fibre industries, and to keep each other appraised of efforts to correct factual errors. Two examples:
    • The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles in Germany has decided that 10% of the total volume of cotton sourced by members of the Partnership will be organic, and at least 25% of the total volume will be other “sustainable” cottons by 2020.
    • “Pulse of the Fashion Industry 2017” was a report published by the Global Fashion Agenda and the Boston Consulting Group, presented at Copenhagen Fashion Week 2017. The report explicitly called for increased use of polyester at the expense of natural fibres.
  • The DNFI.org web site receives more than 150 individual visits per day and over 300 page views. Since March 2017, DNFI.org has had over 322,000 page views. Search engines like Baidu (China), Bing (US), Google (US), Yahoo (US), and Yandex (Russia) check the page every day for new posts and articles.
  • The role of DNFI is to facilitate collaboration and exchange of information. That function can be enhanced through increasing the number of meetings per year. The Steering Committee agreed that within-year meetings of DNFI should be organized on the margins of ongoing natural fibre industry conferences. Accordingly, DNFI accepted an invitation from the Bremen Cotton Exchange to meet in Bremen during Cotton Week on Thursday, March 22.
  • The next Annual Steering Committee Meeting of DNFI will be held on Wednesday 9 January 2019 in Frankfurt beginning at 3:00 PM (CET) in the office of IVGT. 

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