Through the looking glass: why transparency is needed in the fashion industry?

Sustainability and transparency go hand in hand and are crucial for fashion industry and social change.

Transparency breeds accountability within companies as the more consumers know, the more informed their purchase decisions can be, helping build trust and community as customers can feel that their values are represented. Increased transparency from brands can also provide a distinction between true and fake sustainability as reports would highlight sustainable efforts taken by brands/companies and reduce the amount of greenwashing used in advertising.

Transparency is providing information and data about a company’s actions, decisions, and communications

Fashion Revolution have developed the Fashion Transparency Index which reviews and ranks 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers according to the amount of information they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts in their operations and supply chain. They describe transparency as the “first step” that is foundational for systemic change. If you would like to see the full list of companies within the index, please refer to page 29 of the document.

So, let’s look at the numbers:

The average transparency score across all the brands is just 24% with 17 major brands scoring 0%, including Fashion Nova, Max Mara, and Tom Ford who disclose nothing about their supply chains or procedures. This is harmful as it’s easier for businesses to get away with unethical practices and face a lack of consequences.

96% of brands don’t publish the number of workers in their supply chain being paid a living wage and 85% don’t disclose annual product volumes that would provide evidence of overproduction.

81/250 brands scored 0-10% on the index and even high-scoring brands still heavily lack information on living wages, purchasing practices, waste volumes, and chemical use, as they primarily disclose their procedures.

Even though 48% are now disclosing their first tier suppliers, over half of all the companies still disclose nothing about theirs. Also, only 17 of these places are actively managing and keeping up to date with this data.

Only 3% of brands publish their ethnicity age gap information in their own operations and barely mention any gender discrimination within their recruitment.

Overall, a majority of brands sit in the 11-20% bracket where they are likely to publish policies, some procedures, and supplier assessment information, however, they are unlikely to publish supplier lists.

To combat this, Fashion Revolution collaborated with Transparency Pledge and other activist organisations on a range of projects such as the #WhoMadeMyClothes Campaign and the “Good Clothes, Fair Pay” scheme.

As we push brands to be more serious and authentic about their sustainability and transparency, the Index includes a check list and webpage that includes big and small ways to make an impact:

https://www.fashionrevolution.org/about/get-involved/[RS2(1]

Thank you for your time!

Tio A <3