Fashion Revolution is at Climate Week NYC 2024

IT’S TIME FOR FASHION BRANDS TO PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR EMISSIONS ARE

Fashion Revolution, the world’s largest fashion activism movement, is at Climate Week NYC 2024 with a clear message: fashion is fueling the climate crisis, and major fashion brands must urgently put their money where their emissions are.

We’re calling on major fashion brands to invest at least 2% of their revenue in a fair transition away from fossil fuels – like coal – to renewable energy sources – like wind and solar – to power fashion’s supply chain in a clean way.

Fashion is one of the most polluting industries on the planet, with fossil fuels burned at every stage of production. The industry alone is set to overshoot the 1.5°C limit by 50%, doubling emissions rather than halving them as the science is crying out for. Frequent climate catastrophes, like extreme heat, flooding, and droughts are devastating the livelihoods of workers across global garment supply chains, with extreme weather estimated to cost nearly one million jobs by 2030.

Fashion Revolution’s new report, What Fuels Fashion? reviewed 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers and ranked them according to their level of disclosure on climate and energy-related data in their operations and supply chains. The findings revealed that major fashion brands aren’t doing enough to cut fossil fuel use in their supply chains. 86% of major fashion brands lack A PUBLIC coal phase-out target, and only 3% disclose the level of financial support provided to supply chain workers affected by the climate crisis. 

By investing at least 2% of their revenue into clean, renewable energy and upskilling and supporting workers, fashion could simultaneously curb the impacts of the climate crisis and reduce poverty and inequality within their supply chains. Climate breakdown is avoidable because we have the solution – and big fashion can certainly afford it.

WE ARE CALLING ON

• Policymakers to enhance regulation
• Investors to fund and co-fund renewable energy and decarbonisation projects
• Citizens to use their voice- email major brands and retailers and call on them to invest at least 2% of their annual revenues into their decarbonisation and Just Transition efforts
• Civil society, academia, journalists to leverage data and findings to scrutinise and verify the public claims made by brands

Big fashion can no longer mask its lack of decarbonisation progress with vague, insufficient targets and pilot projects that fail to benefit most of the supply chain. The need for system change is undeniable. It’s time for brands to put their money where their emissions are.