I am struck by the claims of “sustainability” from apparel and home furnishings brands that proliferate fashion media and marketing. A decade ago “sustainability” carried different meaning than it does today, but the term has been used loosely and without clear definition for long enough. Brands need to be called to task for using the term as a scheme to promote healthy environmental practices when, in fact, they either fail to adhere to healthy practices, or they fail to learn the veracity of their own claims in order to have an authentic message.
What does “sustainability” in the retail / product industry mean in this time of evidenced environmental degradation? What does “sustainability” mean when communities are suffering from unbreathable air, undrinkable water, toxified soil, and suffocating waste? What does “sustainability” mean when women demonstrably earn less than their male counterparts - irrespective of country - but dominate in the ‘making’ of product? What does sustainability mean? One dictionary definition is: “the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance”.
What exactly is sustainable about brands that knowingly and intentionally purchase goods from countries and suppliers who put toxins into the earth, the water, and into the lives of the people who make product? What exactly is sustainable about brands that source from regions where there is little regulatory protection over the earth, air, and water? What is sustainable about brands that neither take responsibility for output of and waste from the sourcing and making of the product they purchase, nor do they consider the product’s end of life and its impact (again) on water, soil, air, or people?
I’ve spent 30 years on the front line of ‘the making’ - in the fields, the factories, and the mills - I have breathed the air, drunk the water, and walked the land where apparel, accessories, and home furnishings are made. I have worked with the people who started and who run manufacturing facilities around the world, as well as those who do the actual making.
Over the past 20 years, an entire industry of “sustainability” and “corporate responsibility” has been generated: in-house brand teams and 3rd party service providers charged with ‘engaging’ various nonprofits, NGO’s, and reporting organizations to assess, evaluate, measure, and grade suppliers on THEIR ability to meet varied standards. Never has their been an end-to-end measure of a brand’s ability or failure to deliver on those same standards and requirements. Myriad assessing and reporting tools have been generated, fueling the perception that data exists, but, in fact, the reporting tools change, morph, disappear, and can actually operate in conflict with one another. So, as seasoned professionals we spend time debating the accuracy and efficacy of the various tools - and we fail to actually deliver transformational change where the work is done.
So here we are in 2019…
The apparel industry, in particular, is the #2 environmental polluting industry - second only to the oil industry. That is embarrassing - especially since I have invested my career in working for the betterment of it. Home furnishings companies decimate more virgin forests than global forest fires - second only to commercial farming. The data is available. The results of 20 years of “sustainability” are abhorrent. Brands do not allocate budget dollars to “results”, they expect that innovation associated with “sustainability'“ is paid for and managed by suppliers. However, the economics of this are upside down: Brand product margins are 60-85%; manufacturing margins hover around 3-12%. Brands must start to admit, and to account for, their impact and their flawed ‘sustainability’ economic models.
I’d like to shift the focus, alter the perspective, and evolve the dialogue. My point of view is not popular. My point of view demands that people, teams, companies, and brands actually DO something vs market something that leads the industry to massive, scaled transformation.
Refreshingly, or frustratingly, there is no one single solution. Yet there are myriad solutions to exploit, and many options to exercize in the short term and the long term. Let’s start with stating what “IS”: apparel and home furnishings brands have the resources and data to report on their current utilization, impact, and recovery. Before they sign up for a 3rd party assessments, just state what is:
How many units of product manufactured - let’s say per year
Of those produced, how many are sold - at full price or markdown - and go into the homes and lives of consumers
How many units are not sold - where do they go
How much of what / each raw material is sourced to make the product(s)
Of each raw material,, how much is virgin and how much is reused / recycled
How many gallons of water used in manufacturing each raw material and each finished product
How many ‘dirty’ gallons went through treatment - how many did not
How many clean gallons were returned to nature and/or public use
Define ALL waste material
Map disposal of all waste
Define bio-degradation of waste material
How much CO2 is generated in order to support the business
How much particulate is put into the air as a result of the business operation
Community impact - the manufacturing, the purchasing, and the waste-receiving communities: how are their lives and well being improved by the existence of the business
You get the point.
A dashboard that would say what “is” - in measurable units - is essential to know where one is starting from in order to the the course of where one is going. Not percentages of decrease or increase - the absolute values that are, relative to what are “acceptable” and decided health standards - for soil, water, air lungs, kidneys, etc. The data exist. For argument’s sake, and because I know people like to argue absolute values, let’s say that 50% of the data is true. If only 50% of findings are verifiable, they will be significant enough to raise an eyebrow and to demand true action. The indices that exist today measure incremental percentages of change +/-. They do not measure what ‘is’ and they most certainly do not inform people that whatever their current measures are, they are nowhere significant enough to transform the industry.
Starting with what ‘is’ enables us to know how far we have to go, informs what we have to do, and who we have to work with to impact results.