Kelly Drennan is a systems thinker, thought leader and disruptor devoted to making change within the fashion industry. In 2007 she founded Fashion Takes Action, out of her desire to create a better, more sustainable future for her then, two young daughters. Her role at FTA is to remove the barriers to sustainability that exist for the entire fashion system – for those who make, sell, buy, wear, care, repair, reuse, collect, rent, resell and recycle clothes.
Kelly is passionate about collaboration and bringing together multiple perspectives in an effort to take action. Her dedication to make fashion circular began in 2016 at the WEAR conference. This led to her convening the Ontario Textile Diversion Collaborative (OTDC) from 2017-2020 which was a multi-stakeholder group (municipalities, charities, collectors, retailers, NGOs, policy makers and academics) committed to textile diversion, reuse and recycling. Since then, Kelly has co-wrote and published Canada’s textile recycling feasibility report; and then led a national stakeholder group through a mechanical recycling pilot, with a consumer-facing end product. Kelly now co-leads the Canadian Circular Textiles Consortium, working on a national level with more than 120 stakeholders. A strategic partner in Circular Economy Leadership Canada (CELC), and collaborating partner of Accelerating Circularity, Kelly was also an advisor to the Textile Lab for Circularity, and member of the City of Toronto’s Circular Economy Working Group. Kelly also participates in the Recycled Polyester Roundtable led by the Textile Exchange, the Global Textiles Policy Forum, led by Global Fashion Agenda, and is a member of the G7 Circular Textiles Agenda planning group.
In 2014, Kelly created the annual World Ethical Apparel Roundtable (WEAR) Conference, hosting hundreds of industry experts in Toronto in an effort to motivate and inspire brands across North America. The last WEAR conference took place in 2023, and in its place Kelly and her team are producing a Textiles & Apparel track within the Canadian Circular Economy Summit. Kelly is a sought-after speaker herself, having given hundreds of presentations to industry, academics and citizens, including a TED talk as part of the Global TEDx Countdown on climate action, and twice a speaker at Elevate.
Kelly oversees FTA’s youth education program My Clothes My World that she developed in 2014 for students in grades 4-12 — delivered to more than 35,000 students in classrooms across Canada – and which is now available both digitally and in-person. Her current role is to expand the program further across Canada as well as internationally. As such she is a member of the UNESCO Greening Education Partnership, where she positions fashion as a means to engage and empower young people on broader climate related issues.
Kelly continues to bring her sustainability expertise to Toronto’s Fashion Industry Advisory Panel, and to various fashion colleges and their curriculum committees. She regularly contributes to government discussions on transparency, human rights, greenwashing and the circular economy.
In 2017, Kelly was the recipient of the prestigious Clean 50 award given to Canada’s climate leaders, where she was recognized for Education & Thought Leadership, and was the first recipient of the award for the fashion industry. In 2022 Kelly won the Sustainability Award given out by the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards (CAFA). She resides in Toronto with her husband and two daughters.
