Simone Cipriani founded and manages the Ethical Fashion Initiative, a flagship programme of the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the United Nations and of the World Trade Organization. In addition, he chairs the secretariat of the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion.

Simone Cipriani has made it his mission to build a more responsible and sustainable fashion industry, by transforming it into a vehicle of poverty reduction and of empowerment of women, throughout the developing world. The Ethical Fashion Initiative (EFI) is a large supply chain that enables artisans who live in marginalised conditions, in Africa (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Niger, Mali, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo), the Caribbean (Haiti) and Asia (Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), to become regular suppliers of international fashion and lifestyle brands, thus reducing poverty and empowering large numbers of women artisans.

In parallel, the initiative has evolved into an accelerator to work with emerging African designers to promote their talent at an international level and thus to support more forms of Made in Africa production.

Since its inception, EFI has advocated for accurate reporting on conditions within the supply chain and continued impact assessment. The initiative has now developed an Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) due diligence and corporate reporting framework for use by the wider fashion industry.

Today, through his work at the Ethical Fashion Initiative, Simone Cipriani has become a key spokesperson at the forefront of the growing global movement for ethical supply chains in the fashion industry.