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.
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Patagonia has long been the standard bearer for responsible capitalism: the jackets and fleece maker has donated 1 percent of all sales — which top $1 billion a year according to The New York Times — to environmental groups since the ‘80s, and was one of the first companies to qualify for B-Corp sustainability certification. In its latest bid to live out its mission statement, “founder Yvon Chouinard gave most of Patagonia’s shares over to a non-profit which will be tasked with reinvesting its profits (projected at some $100 million a year) in fighting the climate crisis. “Earth is our shareholder now,” Chouinard wrote in an open letter on the company’s site
“This is pretty unprecedented. Individuals don’t do this, and it almost broke the bounds of what people had imagined business should look like, " said BoF chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent.
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.