CEO of the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA) and co-creator of leading textile recycling technology, Edwin Keh ’79, has been featured in an article on Just-Style, an international online magazine that publishes news and analysis on the apparel sourcing and textile industry.
In the article, Keh discusses the disruption to the apparel industry during the COVID-19 crisis.
In this time of global uncertainty, Keh says that industry leaders must work cooperatively with every level of the supply chain to rebuild foundational trust and partnership.
“The challenge is to think like an ecosystem,” said Keh in the article. “In an ecosystem, everybody has to work together and everybody has to look out for each other.”
According to Keh, the pandemic could even provide businesses with an opportunity to rethink their core operations and values, and push them to become more conscious of the health and well-being of both employees and consumers. Ideally, he hopes that industry leaders might use this challenge to shift toward more sustainable and socially-responsible sourcing practices in the long-term.
Keh himself is already a champion of ecologically and socially aware apparel sourcing. He was a leading developer of the revolutionary Garment-to-Garment system, which uses completely waterless upcycling methods to produce yarn from discarded clothing material and distribute sustainable textiles to environmentally friendly fashion brands like H&M Conscious.
Keh graduated with a B.A. in political science, sociology, and urban design. He currently serves on the Whittier College Board of Trustees.
