Sustainability
How fashion can do better for people and the planet.
Highlights

On Labour Rights, You Get What You Pay For

With purchasing practices that undercut the cost of production, big brands are shortchanging workers and undermining their own commitments to operate more responsibly, according to a new study.

Case Studies & Reports

Analysis

Widespread Inaction on Sustainability Eclipses Progress at Fashion’s Biggest Companies

Case Study

Case Study: How to Talk to Customers About Fashion’s Dirty Secrets

Case Study

Fashion’s Race for New Materials — Download the Case Study

Latest News & Analysis

At the Home of Zara, Fast and Slow Fashion Collide

A Coruna, Spain is the unlikely headquarters of the world’s biggest fast-fashion retailer, but also where a host of small boutiques pitch themselves as the antidote to constant growth and newness.

Garment Workers Demanding Unpaid Wages From Nike Take Their Fight to the World Stage

A group of 20 garment-worker unions and two labour-rights groups have filed a complaint alleging the sportswear giant’s treatment of workers and unpaid wages violate OECD guidelines for responsible business conduct.

Shoes Collected by Dow for Recycling Are Being Resold

A Reuters investigation found some shoes meant for recycling in Singapore ended up in shops in Indonesia, where it is illegal to import second-hand clothing.

Is Sustainable Fashion Elitist?

Calling out the industry’s environmental footprint and the true cost of making clothes has touched off a complex and heated debate about the accessibility and affordability of lower-impact fashion.

How Can Fashion Rethink the End-of-Life of Products?

Lenzing’s VP of global textiles business, Florian Heubrandner, and Future Fabrics Expo founder, Nina Marenzi, share insights into the moral and financial imperatives of addressing fashion’s waste problem.

Amy Powney’s Quest to Build a Sustainable Fashion Label

The Mother of Pearl designer talks about how she quit the fashion system to build a sustainable luxury label, the subject of a documentary that premieres at the start of London Fashion Week on Thursday.

How Lab-Grown Diamonds Went Mainstream

Synthetic stones now make up 10 percent of the diamond market, highlighting the ways in which new materials are rewriting the rules of what is considered luxury.

Should Fashion Pay for Its ‘Waste Colonialism’?

Every year, millions of tons of old clothes are shipped around the world as part of the global secondhand clothing trade. Nonprofit The Or Foundation and Vestiaire Collective are lobbying for regulation that benefits the countries where they end up.

Is Luxury Set for Resale-Ready Products?

Chloé is set to become the first major luxury fashion brand to road-test digital product IDs that contain detailed information about the authenticity and eco-credentials of individual items and allow for easy resale via Vestiaire Collective.

Fashion’s Microplastics Problem Is a Design Challenge

Material choices, garment construction and manufacturing processes can make a big difference to reducing much of the polluting particles clothes shed.

Op-Ed | When Sustainable Fashion Does More Harm Than Good

From products made of recycled plastic to take-back programmes, some of fashion’s favourite sustainability solutions are problematic, argues Beth Esponnette.

How Can the Fashion Industry Accelerate Systems Change?

Partnering with Copenhagen Fashion Week, BoF invited market leaders including Pascal Morand, Julie Gilhart, Ganni co-founder Nicolaj Reffstrup, EU Parliamentary Committee chair Dr Christian Ehler, journalist Clare Press, executives from Renewcell and Lenzing, and others from across the value chain, to work together towards actionable solutions capable of urgently altering the industry’s ecological impact.

THE NEWS IN BRIEF

Textile-to-Textile Recycling Company Circ Closes $25 Million Investment

Virginia-based Circ, which has developed a heat and chemical process for recycling clothes made from polyester-cotton blends, said it would use the funding to accelerate building its facilities for industrial scale, with a view to bringing its first consumer products to market.

EU’s Used Textile Exports Tripled Over the Last Two Decades

Nearly 1.7 million tonnes of used fabric were exported to other countries — primarily in Asia and Africa — in 2019, but whether they are destined for recycling, re-use or landfill is “highly uncertain,” according to a report published Monday by the European Environment Agency.

H&M and Remondis Form Textiles Recycling Venture

The fast-fashion industry to which H&M belongs is looking for ways to curb its carbon footprint in response to growing demands from investors to take more responsibility for the environment.

US Senators Ask Shein About Forced Labour Concerns for Cotton

In a letter dated Thursday, Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democrats Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sought details about the company’s procurement process and its links to Xinjiang, a region of China whose products are banned for import into the US by federal law.