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.

Fashion Revolution urges global brands to do more on transparency in new research

Levi Strauss & Co, H&M, Inditex (the mother company of Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, etc.), Adidas and Primark are the most transparent global fashion companies, according to a survey that produces an index on the level of transparency practised by fashion companies.

At the other end of the spectrum, Chanel, followed by Forever 21, Claire’s Accessories, Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Prada are among the least transparent.  

The UK-based Fashion Revolution, a charity committed to raising awareness of the true cost of fashion, launched its first edition of the Fashion Transparency Index today to mark the start of Fashion Revolution Week (18 April – 24 April), and global fashion brands are urged to do more on transparency, meaning they have to reveal who makes their clothes – from who stitches them right through to who dyed the fabric and who farmed the cotton.

Three years ago on 24th April, 1,134 people were killed in the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh. The factories operating in that building made clothes for over a dozen well-known international fashion brands. It took weeks for some companies to determine whether they had relationships with those factories, despite their clothing labels being found in the rubble.

More transparency equals greater consumer and regulatory accountability in the supply chain. As a result, to track the fashion industry’s problem in this area and progress over time, Fashion Revolution and Ethical Consumer have partnered to publish the first edition of their Fashion Transparency Index which includes 40 of the biggest global fashion brands and ranks companies according to the level of transparency in their supply chain.

The average score for the 40 brands surveyed is 42% out of 100, with Levi Strauss & Co coming top of the class with 77%. Chanel meanwhile came bottom with just 10%, closely followed by Forever 21, Claire’s Accessories, Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Prada, sending a strong signal that luxury brands in particular have much more work to do.

Carry Somers, Co-Founder of Fashion Revolution said: “Lack of transparency costs lives. It is impossible for companies to make sure human rights are respected and that environmental practices are sound without knowing where their products are made, who is making them and under what conditions. When companies are working in a transparent way, this also implies openness, communication and accountability across the supply chain and with the public”.

The research reveals that: ·         Most companies have publicly available policies on environmental and labour standards but there is a notable absence of long-term thinking in their sustainability strategies, or at least that they are sharing publicly;·         40% of companies do not appear to have a system in place to monitor compliance with labour standards, and to continually improve standards, with responsibility at the executive board level;·         Only 5 of the companies (Adidas, H&M, Levi Strauss & Co and Nike, which includes Converse) publish a list of all or the vast majority of their Cut-Make-Trim suppliers;·         60% of companies surveyed appear to be tracking their first-tier CMT suppliers but are not publishing this information publicly;·         Only two companies (Adidas and H&M) publish details of their second-tier suppliers (fabric and yarn mills and/or subcontractors);·         28% of companies do not communicate about monitoring difficult issues in the supply chain (eg. improving conditions for homeworkers, eliminating forced labour, or eradicating Sumangali practices, a form of child labour)·         Only 11 companies show evidence of working with trade unions, civil society or NGOs on the ground in supplier countries to improve working conditions, and H&M, Inditex, Levi Strauss & Co, Primark and PVH appear to be involved in the most multi-stakeholder initiatives;·         Half of the companies surveyed appear to have nothing in place to monitor where raw materials come from, or at least do no share this information publicly;·         20% of companies do not disclose how they work with non-compliant factories in order to improve conditions – Levi Strauss publishes the most information about their corrective action plans.

A team of researchers selected the fashion brands based on annual turnover.  Brands were assessed both via a questionnaire and by information they made publicly available.

Bryony Moore, lead researcher and Ethical Consumer Research Associate said: “The results show that while some companies are making reasonable efforts to make their supply chains more transparent, there are a large number of companies who fall far short and are still seemingly operating with little knowledge and control of their supply chain. Some companies have nothing more than a Code of Conduct.”

While the first edition of the Fashion Transparency Index only contains 40 companies, Fashion Revolution will be asking that members of the public contact their favourite brands to encourage them to opt in to the Index. They aim to include 100 brands in 2017. This invitation is open to all fashion brands and retailers worldwide with at least £36 million annual turnover, who will be encouraged to publish more about their policies, practices, products and the people making their clothes – answering the question #whomademyclothes.