The fund was launched in September with about US$13 million in funding but has amitious plans to grow this up to saround US$60 million within two years.
She explained that it was designed to fill a gap by providing funding for the technological developments and innovations needed to make the industry more sustainable in countries such as India, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Traditional local banks were unable to meet this need because they lacked the knowledge to understand the need for investment and the ability to provide funding in US dollars.
Karambelkar said: “There is a high need for it (the Good Fashion Fund) to raise this industry to where it needs to be in order to be sustainable. To my knowledge, there is nothing else out there that focuses only on this issue and on the textile industry.”
Bansal, meanwhile, described the challenge of implementing radically new technologies in practice and spoke about the challenges manufacturers faced in funding radical innovations in production.
Traditionally, the industry had progressed incrementally but something much more radical was now being demanded by brands, retailers and customers, he explained.
“Now the challenge that we have at hand cannot be solved by incremental technology, so we’re looking more at a radical transformation of the industry. It involves going to completely new technologies and new ways of production,” he said.
Listen to the full podcast here, to hear more from these two experts as they break down the complexities of these issues, share their views on larger industry trends and highlight what needs to happen to transform the industry in the short and longer terms.
