According to The BoF Sustainability Index 2022 – an annual benchmark of fashion’s progress towards crucial sustainability – efforts to transform the fashion industry are in line with global ambitions to suppress climate change. However, actions to set up more responsible business practices by 2030 have to get more impulses.
Last year, the index examined public announcements from 15 of fashion’s largest players to benchmark the industry’s progress towards environmental and social targets by 2030. The results showed a substantial gap between major brands’ public commitments and meaningful, measurable actions. This year, the index has examined the performance of the industry’s 30 largest publicly traded companies by revenue across three market segments: luxury, sportswear and high street. The research team assessed each company on more than 200 different data points across six impact categories: transparency, emissions, water & chemicals, waste, materials and employee’ rights.
The results show that – with a mere eight years left to reach the targets – although technological innovation, policy cues and standardised reporting frameworks can help to generate action, limited accountability within the sector, poor-quality data and a lack of investment are suppressing real transformative change.
