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.
The author has shared a YouTube video.
You will need to accept and consent to the use of cookies and similar technologies by our third-party partners (including: YouTube, Instagram or Twitter), in order to view embedded content in this article and others you may visit in future.
To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link.
The role companies are expected to play in society is evolving.
The importance of a brand having a greater purpose beyond selling products has been building for years and was only exacerbated by the pandemic. Now, both investors and consumers are looking for brands and corporations that act on issues from climate change to social justice. This means that sustainable and ethical practises are not just good for the world, but also for the bottom line, according to Dame Vivian Hunt, senior partner at McKinsey & Company. At VOICES 2021, Hunt made the business case for sustainable fashion, discussing how companies can serve stakeholders across the value chain and what role business plays in creating a world worth living in.
Fashion remains one of the world’s biggest polluters and its emissions are rising fast, putting it far out of step with international commitments to limit global warming. It’s also an industry under pressure from supply chain disruptions, rising raw material prices and an uncertain outlook — which, Hunt says, may make it seem like sustainability is something businesses can’t afford.
ADVERTISEMENT
While sustainability won’t come cheap, the fact that consumers are seeking out sustainable fashion provides a clear incentive to invest. The key is to simply start.
“Perfection is not possible; it’s an elusive goal,” said Hunt. But progress is an achievable one.”
In the first session of BoF’s VOICES 2021 gathering, speakers including Vivienne Westwood and Janaya Future Khan addressed the climate crisis, stakeholder capitalism, what activism really means and more.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put financial pressure on businesses, threatening their sustainability agendas. But aligning profit and purpose, and fulfilling responsibilities to the planet and communities of people beyond shareholders may matter more than ever to long-term success.
Brands are talking about sustainability more than ever before, but does their rhetoric stand up to scrutiny? BoF’s new report, The BoF Sustainability Index, benchmarks 15 of the industry’s biggest companies against ambitious environmental and social goals and finds fashion is falling short.
The sector’s planet-warming emissions inched lower in 2022 thanks to revised data, but they’re still on track to grow by more than 40 percent by 2030, according to a new report.
Textile-to-textile recycling technologies could be a climate game changer for fashion’s environmental footprint. But like renewable energy, they need state support for market efforts to scale, argues Nicole Rycroft.
More than a year after the ultra-fast-fashion company said it would tackle issues of unlawful overtime, 75-hour weeks remain common in its supply chain, Swiss watchdog Public Eye found.
A study published this week found traces of cotton from Xinjiang in nearly a fifth of the products it examined, highlighting the challenges brands face in policing their supply chains even as requirements to do so spread to raw materials from diamonds to leather and palm oil.