Even as a very small handful of leading brands and retailers begin to meaningfully reduce the environmental footprint of their business, the overall impacts of the apparel industry, which are shockingly large, are still accruing faster than the improvements.
This was noted by the authors of the Changing Markets report in its 2018 report on the ‘False Promise of Certification’, which was backed up further last year by academic experts at the University of California in a critique of the limitations of the Higg FEM on apparel factory practices and performance.
Essentially, notwithstanding steady pressure from NGOs, billions of dollars, a bewildering array of sustainability initiatives and certifications, and many attempts to set voluntary environmental standards, codes, and monitoring programs – including recent highly promoted, ambitious pledges for science-based carbon reductions – there’s been no significant improvement in the environmental performance of the global textile and fashion industries over the past decade.
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