Sportswear and Outdoor brands championing transparency

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity launched to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, the apparel industry is one of the culprits in causing our environmental and pollution problems, as globally a mind-boggling 73% of materials used for clothing are being sent to landfill or incinerated every year, with less than 1% being recycled to make new clothing.

Designs by Christopher Raeburn at the Jackets Required London trade show in January 2019.
The designer , a pioneer in recycling and upcycling, set up RÆBURN, a collaborative, creative fashion studio where daily design meets painstaking production, alongside monthly events, discussions and workshops.
Photo by Lucia Carpio.

Thus it is welcomed news that Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index 2019 reveals today that three sportswear and outdoor brands are leading the way on transparency among the world’s 200 largest fashion brands and retailers by disclosing a wide range of human rights policies, commitments and outcomes, as well as who their suppliers are.

Adidas, Reebok and Patagonia each score a total 64% out of 250 possible points, followed by Esprit and H&M in the 61-70%. C&A, ASOS, Puma, Nike, Converse, Jordan, The North Face, Timberland, Wrangler, Vans and Marks & Spencer rank at the top end of the 51-60% range.

This is the first year since the Fashion Transparency Index’s inception that brands will score over 60%, showing that progressive brands are now taking real, tangible steps to disclose more about their social and environmental policies, practices and impacts.

However no brands score above the 70% range showing that there is still a long way to go towards transparency amongst all major fashion brands.

Since 2016, Fashion Revolution has tracked global brands and benchmarked their performance against five key areas: policy and commitments, governance, traceability, supplier assessment and remediation, and spotlight issues, which this year focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Sarah Ditty, Policy Director and report author says: “The progress we are seeing this year, coupled with the feedback Fashion Revolution has received from brands, suggests that inclusion in the Fashion Transparency Index has motivated major fashion brands to be more transparent. We are seeing many brands publishing their supplier lists and improving their scores year on year.”

Amongst the 98 brands reviewed in 2017, 2018 and again in 2019 there has been an 8.9% increase in the average score since they were first included in the Index.

11 brands have increased their scores by over 10% this year, showing significant efforts to be more transparent, and data shows that more brands are embarking on their journey towards greater transparency.

The report shows the following findings:

·         Brands are disclosing very little about their efforts to empower women and girls and achieve gender equality, despite the fact that women make up the majority of the workforce in the fashion industry from factory to shop floor.

·         Some progress has been made on disclosing equal pay policies and the gender pay gap by major fashion brands, but little is published about how brands are addressing gender-based labour violations in garment factories.

·         55% out of the 200 brands are publishing the annual carbon footprint in the company's own sites, although only 19.5% disclose carbon emissions in the supply chain – where over 50% of the industry’s emissions occur.

·         Given that major brands are expecting trust and transparency from suppliers, they too should share more information publicly about their own commitments and efforts to be responsible business partners. Only 9% of brands disclose a formal process for gathering supplier feedback on the company's purchasing practices and just 6.5% of brands publish a policy of paying their suppliers within 60 days. 

The highest scoring brands in the Spotlight Issues section this year are H&M, Adidas and Reebok, Patagonia as well as Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius and Zara (all owned by Inditex), ASOS and C&A, respectively.