Report: New Brands Good at Sustainability, Old Brands Bad

According to a new report by the Global Fashion Agenda, the fashion industry’s consistently lackluster sustainability efforts are still moving at a dangerously slow pace.

As detailed by Business of Fashion, the report found that the “fashion industry’s efforts to clean up its act aren’t happening fast enough to offset the negative social and environmental impact of its rapid growth.”

And though the industry’s “environmental and social performance has improved in the last year, it’s still far from sustainable, and the speed of progress has decreased by around a third.”

What improvement has been made – “the industry’s pulse score rose to 42 out of 100, compared to 38 last year and 32 in 2017.” — is thanks largely to “rapid progress among brands that are just getting started,” and “laying the groundwork to operate better by defining a strategy, putting in place better governance and setting targets.”

Offsetting the good being done by those new brands, however, is the slowing progress of “larger companies” that “now need to figure out how to build more systemic changes into the way they operate.”

“The slackened pace is alarming,” the report said. “This could have a dire effect on the long-term environmental, social and financial prosperity of the industry and planet.”

You can read more abut it at Business of Fashion.

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