A line-up ranging from a Forest Conservation Project Officer for the IUCN to Model turned Sustainable Strategist Summer Rayne Oakes gathered in Geneva last week for the United Nation's ‘Redefining Sustainability in the International Agenda' seminar, an event organised with the aim of inspiring greater engagement in biodiversity issues in the fashion and luxury industries. No mean feat, but then the UN have been known to like a challenge – let's not forget the Millennium Development Goals that loom only five years away.

For anyone requiring a definition of ‘biodiversity' (a recent survey found most people mistook the term for a brand of detergent), it is the ‘variety of life on earth, including all insects, animals and plants, the places they live and their surrounding environments.' Not a term you'd usually associate with the fashion and luxury industries, granted, but in common with much of big business, the apparel sector has a significant part to play in the rapid decline of the planet's natural resources, and the panel of speakers offered their views on how sustainable strategies can be enforced to tackle the problem.

But the only way to get the big players to initiate any sort of real global change is to alter the mindset of those with the purchasing power, Claire Hamer, Founder of sustainable consultancy EI8HT pointed out. "CEOs and Management teams are of course hugely influential, but it is the Buyers that are the guardians of supplier relationships. They are in control of what they buy and who they buy it from. If we can capture a greater interest and more understanding of supply chains, we will begin to see a real difference." Mo Tomaney, Research Fellow Ethical Fashion at Central St Martins College, argued the same is true of Designers. "The challenge is to engage design students with the subject of sustainability in a way that interests. Once they begin to understand supply chains, they can manipulate them." Alex McIntosh, Business Support Manager at the London College of Fashion's Centre for Sustainable Fashion, agreed, and called for design schools to tackle the issue head on. "Sustainability can't be taught as an add-on, but needs to be an intrinsic part of education."

This marriage of sustainability and design needs to be a balanced one, though – as Alex admitted, "Sustainability is often used as a cover up for poor design. It has to sit behind it and support it." Claire's own experiences as a buyer for Topshop before setting up EI8HT reinforce this view: "On my trips to small co-ops in various parts of Africa, while I was overwhelmed by the traditional skills of the local artisans, I longed for a designer to be with me to be to make the product relevant for the UK market. We've managed to achieve this with ASOS Africa, which is part of The Green Room, a new section on ASOS.com showcasing sustainable fashion. ASOS Africa is a collaboration between ASOS's UK designers and Kenyan tailors, creating gorgeous pieces from traditional kanga fabrics that are perfect for the more directional tastes of the UK."

While education may be the key, for other panellists, such gentle hand-holding needs to sit alongside robust legislation. Sarah Ratty, Founder of sustainable brand Ciel, and Kate Dillon, Model and M.P.A. International Development used the event to present a rough draft of Plan A, a green code of conduct for the fashion industry that they hope to make enforceable by law (not to be confused with Marks & Spencers' five-year initiative to become carbon neutral which shares the same name). In Kate's words, "If a company were fined each time they acted unethically, we would soon see change."

And change certainly appears to be wanted amongst the buying public, if recent studies are anything to go by. Tamsin LeJeune of the Ethical Fashion Forum revealed that 61% of women think it's important for a company to think ethically. An even more compelling statistic is the rise from 59% to 72% of people who think ethical clothing is important. This is great news to those companies who are making real measures to clean up their operations, however, as Kate Dillon noted, a problem such companies increasingly face is finding a way to communicate their endeavours to customers clearly. "Accreditation is so confusing that the value it provides is lost on the consumer. The market gets distracted, fractionised and then falls apart. What we need is to take the best model out there, replicate and standardise it". Deciding which model to settle upon will certainly be the subject of much future debate, but for now the industry does at least appear to be moving in the right direction.

Janine is a Sourcing Consultant for EI8HT, an organisation that works with retailers and manufacturers to make their supply chains more sustainable.