The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
"E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard" (The New York Times)
"The environmental cost can include the additional cardboard — 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in 2014 in the United States, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing users — and the emissions from increasingly personalized freight services."
"Body Shop Concocts New Formula for Making Money While Protecting the Planet" (Reuters)
"Beauty brand The Body Shop is turning 40 next month and has set an ambitious goal of being 'the world's most ethical and truly sustainable global business.'"
"Report: Asian Workers Making M&S Clothes Paid Far Less than Living Wage" (The Guardian)
"Workers making clothes for Marks & Spencer in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India are still not being paid sufficiently, six years after the retailer promised to support the payment of a living wage in those countries."
"Better Cotton Initiative Reaches 700 Members" (Sourcing Journal Online)
"A fifth straight year of membership growth levels of 50 percent or more helped push the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) to achieve its 2015 target of 700 participants by 2015."
"Fast Fashion: Livia Firth Takes A Stand, Encouraging Eco-Conscious Clothing" (International Business Times)
"At first glance, the fast fashion movement seems like a win for consumers. But the cost of cheap apparel quickly adds up."
The industry needs to ditch its reliance on fossil-fuel-based materials like polyester in order to meet climate targets, according to a new report from Textile Exchange.
Cotton linked to environmental and human rights abuses in Brazil is leaking into the supply chains of major fashion brands, a new investigation has found, prompting Zara-owner Inditex to send a scathing rebuke to the industry’s biggest sustainable cotton certifier.
Over the last few years, the run-up to Earth Day has become a marketing frenzy. But a crackdown on greenwashing may be changing the way brands approach their communications strategies.
This week, Sephora announced plans to double down on ‘green’ and ‘clean’ product labels, leaning into an increasingly risky marketing tactic even as a greenwashing crackdown has prompted other brands to pull back.