,

The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues of our generation. But as we race to reach net zero, we must ensure that workers aren’t left behind. Too often, brands are abandoning their suppliers and jumping to new factories.

Instead, brands must share responsibility, offer financial stability to their suppliers and invest in a just transition to bring their existing workers with them.

The global fashion industry is built on an imbalance of money and power. Billionaire fashion CEOs are destroying our planet and our future with it. Workers hold many of the solutions to the climate crisis, but do not have the money or power to create systemic change. To solve the big problems, we need to transfer wealth into the hands of workers. 

Big brands are quick to tell us about their sustainable capsule collections and circular shopping solutions. But by focusing on materials and marketing tactics, they are not addressing the problem at its root: we need to drastically reduce emissions to curb the impacts of the climate crisis. The only way to do this is by investing in clean, renewable energy.

The top polluters should be responsible for mitigation (mitigation = cutting emissions). It’s no coincidence that countries in the global north are profiting from climate destruction while communities in the global south are suffering its impact. High emitters must provide climate finance to low-emitting countries for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage.

This year, in place of the Global Fashion Transparency Index 2024, we have published a special edition, single-issue report titled ‘What Fuels Fashion?’. 

‘What Fuels Fashion?’ is new research that Fashion Revolution has developed to spotlight major fashion brands and retailers’ progress on decarbonisation. To drive the changes we urgently need, greater transparency, reliable data and increased advocacy are crucial to push big fashion brands toward more sustainable manufacturing processes.

It is an advocacy tool to drive positive change through wider public awareness-raising and education, lobbying governments, championing small and responsible designers and building a network of activists around the world united by an urgent call to action. 

By focusing on a single-issue, Fashion Revolution is placing significant spotlight and media attention solely on decarbonisation and major fashion brands’ performance on it, thus increasing the pressure on brands and therefore the potential for impact.

‘What Fuels Fashion?’ reviews brands’ public disclosure on climate and energy-related data in their own operations but primarily in their supply chains. 

The research is broken down into five key themes, including: 

• Accountability,
• Decarbonisation,
• Energy Procurement,
• Financing Decarbonisation
• Just Transition and Advocacy

Brands receive points for information that has been publicly disclosed on the brand or parent company website, through self-published annual reports and via third parties where there is a link between the company’s website and the third-party disclosure.

The methodology for the ‘What Fuels Fashion?’ report differs significantly from that of the Global Fashion Transparency Index. As a special-edition report, it places a strong emphasis on climate and energy-related data, focusing on brands’ own operations and, primarily, their supply chains. Unlike previous reports that assessed the transparency of brands’ policies and commitments across various topics, this report zeroes in on assessing big fashion’s transparency and efforts in reducing carbon emissions, sourcing renewable energy, investing in decarbonisation, and supporting and advocating for just, clean and fair energy transitions for workers and communities.

The total score is based on 150 points, derived from 71 indicators, 31 of which are new. These new indicators were developed in consultation with experts, these include Action Speaks Louder, Energy Tag, Stand.Earth, Clean Clothes Campaign, New Climate Institute among others. Other indicators are drawn from the Global Fashion Transparency Index methodology to enable some year-on-year comparisons on certain issues such as: disclosure of brands’ supplier lists, sustainable material targets and progress and production volumes; brands’ climate targets and progress and commitments to freedom of association. 

Here is a breakdown of the weighting of the scores by section:

1. Accountability – 10% 
2. Decarbonisation – 40%
3. Energy Procurement – 15% 
4. Financing Decarbonisation – 15% 
5. Just Transition and Advocacy – 20% 

Transparency is essential for mitigating the worst impacts of the climate crisis; we can only manage what we can measure. Primary data is crucial for assessing the scale of the problem and designing effective plans to address fashion’s impact. While transparency is the bare minimum we should expect, it plays a critical role in holding brands accountable for their human rights and environmental impacts across their supply chains.

We understand that citizens are seeking rankings of the ethics and sustainability of major fashion brands. But this is not the intended purpose of ‘What Fuels Fashion?’.

‘What Fuels Fashion?’ is shining a spotlight on how much information big fashion shares about their climate efforts. Transparency is a necessary first step for holding them to account for their impacts.

Transparency underpins sustainability – without transparency, achieving a sustainable, accountable and fair fashion industry will be impossible.

Being ranked highly in this research means a major brand is comparatively more transparent than other big brands. We are not making any statement about whether a brand is ethical or sustainable.

‘What Fuels Fashion?’ is designed as an index to facilitate comparisons of major brands’ and retailers’ public disclosures on their decarbonisation efforts. This format allows brands to easily assess their performance against peers and competitors.

From our experience, ranking brands is a highly effective tool in incentivising transparency and pushes them to progressively improve public disclosure of social and environmental information.

‘What Fuels Fashion?’ draws on the same scope of brands reviewed in the Global Fashion Transparency Index. It reviews and ranks 250 of the world’s largest and most influential fashion brands and retailers. Brands have been selected on the following basis:

• Annual turnover over USD $400 million
• Representing a spread of market segments including high street, luxury, sportswear, accessories, footwear and denim from across Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa.

As the biggest and most powerful consumer brands in the apparel industry, the brands reviewed in this research have the most significant negative human rights and environmental impacts and the greatest responsibility to change. Where brands are privately held, we have made an educated guess regarding their size and turnover. Geographic spread is considered too.

No, brands and retailers don’t pay and cannot choose to be included in ‘What Fuels Fashion?’. 

We decide which major fashion brands and retailers are reviewed based on their annual turnover, aiming to target the world’s largest companies. We review brands whether or not they participate in the process by completing our questionnaire (which you can access here) and they are given points based entirely on information that is publicly available.

We engage major brands and retailers to achieve industry-wide change – however, we do not charge any of them for participating. Fashion Revolution treats all major brands in this research exactly the same.

We review the world’s largest and most profitable brands and retailers because they have the largest negative impacts on people and the planet, and therefore have the moral imperative, as well as resources, to take action.

Fashion Revolution showcases and champions smaller and more responsible brands and designers through our Fashion Revolution Open Studios and Small But Perfect initiatives. These pioneering brands and designers are actively working to find solutions to the key social and environmental challenges facing the industry, from tackling studio waste to responsible production and sourcing, to finding ways to integrate their businesses with social enterprise initiatives for a mindful, more purposeful industry.

No brand in the report scores 100%. In fact, the highest score this year is 75% – and the average score across all brands is just 18%. 

However, in theory, a score of 100% would mean that a brand is publicly disclosing details of every supplier in their supply chain and every policy, procedure, performance and impact reviewed in the Index across a broad range of decarbonisation, energy use, finance, just transition and advocacy issues.

A score of 100% is not the ‘end’, but rather an essential starting point for accountability, addressing impact, mitigating human rights and environmental risks and driving change for the better.

Real transparency, and a score of 100%, would also enable civil society organisations and experts, including the trade unions that represent garment workers, to scrutinise the disclosed information. Where necessary, they could call out shortcomings or malpractice and track to see if these are addressed.

A score of 100% would free civil society organisations from the lengthy process of ‘proving’ responsibility and chains of custody and allow them to focus on driving impact by holding the brand accountable for addressing and mitigating issues and risks.

A commitment to transparency is a commitment to an ongoing process of continuous improvement. It is not a tick-box exercise. Even a brand scoring 100% would not be ‘done’; they would need to maintain up-to-date disclosure on evolving issues. The human rights and environmental risks in fashion are in constant flux – and so to maintain transparency, disclosure would need to be continuously updated too.

We want to be very clear that the ‘What Fuels Fashion?’ report does not measure sustainability or ethics; it measures public disclosure of information that people can use to hold major brands and retailers to account for their claims. 

Fashion Revolution believes that the pursuit of endless growth is in itself unsustainable and the model which big multinational brands and retailers included in this Index rely upon. Greater transparency shines a light on the impacts of this fundamental problem. We are not endorsing any single brand in the Index and it is not intended to be used as a shopping guide by consumers. 

Fashion Revolution remains committed to ensuring all findings of ‘What Fuels Fashion?’, including a brand’s individual score or ranking, are communicated accurately and in context. All brands in the report are issued with prescriptive Communications Guidelines, to ensure that they communicate their results accurately, avoiding confusion and greenwashing.

The research is based entirely on information which is in the public domain that has been published by major fashion brands and retailers.

However, it is beyond the scope of this research to verify information published in the public domain by major brands and retailers. Affected stakeholders and experts on-the-ground in sourcing countries are best placed to scrutinise and verify the claims brands are making. 

We actively encourage publicly disclosed information to be scrutinised by anyone and everyone and used to hold brands to account. And, we will continue pushing big brands to put more information in the public domain.