Supply Chains

Forum for the Future’s Enabling Systemic Circularity in Fashion or ESCF project, running from 2023-24, brought 12 brands/retailers and manufacturers/ suppliers across the fashion industry to examine its limited progress made towards circularity, and identified key insights that are critical for the industry’s transformation.

A UNEP-led integrated programme (IP) has been launched to promote sustainable supply chains in the fashion industry in a bid to address the impact of the sector on biodiversity loss, chemicals and waste, climate change, international waters, and land degradation.

Only five years to 2030 to hold temperature increases to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels as per Paris Agreement. How are signatories at the Scandinavian Textile Initiative for Climate Action (STICA) performing? A report on their Climate Action Transition Plans reveals that though there is relative progress, the pace and scale varies, and is too slow.

The 2024 Retailer Report Card analyses 50 major US and Canadian retailers representing 160 businesses that generate over $4 trillion in annual revenue and hold significant influence over the use of toxic chemicals in their supply chains.

Nonprofit Global Standard has launched a landmark resource—the GOTS Due Diligence Handbook for Auditors—a critical step in promoting sustainable practices, human rights and ethical business conduct across the textile sector and in line with evolving regulatory requirements around the world.

In a multi-stakeholder initiative, Open Supply Hub is adding four more leading members to its platform — Cascale, Ethical Trading Initiative, Ethical Supply Chain Program, and Ethical Tea Partnership — which will result in tens of thousands of suppliers across various sectors being shared on OS Hub's open data platform, which maps supply chain production locations globally.

A report by Transformers Foundation reveals that some of the industry's most influential multi stakeholder initiatives or MSIs often reinforce systemic barriers that limit supplier participation, leading to a cycle of distrust, disengagement, and ineffective sustainability strategies.

A collaborative, multi-stakeholder initiative, Road Map to Zero, has come up with the ZDHC Dissolved Pulp Guidelines V1.0 that aims to drive positive change in the dissolved pulp industry toward sustainable chemical management. It addresses integrated expectations for feedstock sourcing, chemical recovery, discharged wastewater and air quality for manufacturing facilities producing dissolved pulp from wood as a feedstock.

The latest Materials Benchmark Insights and Trends report by Textile Exchange contends that while the industry has made progress, reporting brands are not moving fast enough to meet targets for real climate action. Besides, some companies have also dropped out as signatories of the challenges now that the target year is around the corner.

Australia's 2024 Ethical Fashion Report has found that the average company score sits at only 31 out of 100, leaving significant room for improvement.