A frightening new analysis has been released on the eve of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), which will begin on Sunday and is being hosted this year in Egypt. The report finds that the fashion industry is falling behind on its promises to reduce emissions by the year 2030.
In spite of the very public commitments and promises made by fashion companies to reduce carbon output from previous years, the data from Stand.earth’s 2022 Fashion Supply Chain Emissions Report demonstrates that this year saw an increase in emissions. The report’s title is “2022 Fashion Supply Chain Emissions Report.”
The fashion industry is currently responsible for around 5–8 percent of yearly global emissions. If adjustments are not made immediately, certain signatories to the climate pact will fail to cut emissions by the deadline of 2030.
Stand.earth conducted an investigation on ten different fashion businesses, including American Eagle Outfitters, Fast Retailing, Gap Inc., H&M, Inditex, Kering, Lululemon, Nike, and VF Corp. Only one of the ten, Levi’s, is on target to lower the emissions produced by its supply chain by 55 percent compared to the levels produced in 2018, which is in accordance with maintaining a warming that is below 1.5C. On the other hand, Lululemon has grown the quantity of their products by sixty percent since 2021.
“At COP26, each of these businesses promised to cut their emissions in half by the year 2030 as part of their expanded commitment to the UN Fashion Charter,” Ms. Kitchin went on to say that “but despite the fact that there are some minor signals of progress, the majority aren’t just failing; they’re really growing worse.” “It is very evident that those brands are not taking steps to decarbonize their supply chains, which is where the vast bulk of emissions that are harmful to the planet come from,” said the researcher.
The majority of fashion firms are still headed in the wrong direction, putting them further behind on their journey to fulfil the 1.5-degree emissions threshold. Nike and Inditex (the parent company of Zara) are two of the companies that have reported manufacturing emissions of close to 10 million tonnes of CO2e. This is the same as having more than 2 million automobiles powered by gasoline on the road at any given time.
Although many brands experienced a “Covid drop” in emissions in the year 2020, eight out of ten brands saw another increase in supply chain emissions in 2021, which left them farther behind schedule in terms of fulfilling their emissions goals. The majority of fashion conglomerates in 2022 have worked with a “business as usual” mindset. This is despite the fact that COP26 led to some interesting debates regarding digital IDs that trace the production history of a garment and about restricting excess manufacturing.
Gary Cook, the Corporate Campaign Director for Stand.earth, was quoted as saying, “Fossil fuels have no place in a rapidly warming globe, and they certainly do not have a place in our closets.” “Fashion firms must move quickly to swiftly decarbonize their manufacturing by making a commitment to using renewable energy in their supply chains at a rate of one hundred percent and phasing out the use of fossil fuels as a source of energy, fabric, and fuel,”
In its 2021 sustainability impact report, Lululemon stated that it “met its science-based aim to achieve a 60 percent absolute reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in all owned and operated facilities.” [Citation needed] It failed to mention, however, that the majority of its factories continue to rely on coal and other fossil fuels, and the company has not yet made a commitment to renewable energies, unlike the H&M Group, which has stated that it will phase out onsite coal by 2025 and transition its supply chain to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030.
In comparison, the H&M Group has yet to make a commitment to renewable energies. Transparency measures need to be adopted by the fashion sector because the annual reporting and sustainability updates that are currently in place are opaque. The provision of quantifiable data that informs whether corporations are on pace to accomplish commitments while simultaneously reducing and terminating their dependency on fossil fuels should be made mandatory.
Reference:
Adegeest, Don-Alvin. “New Report Reveals the Fashion Industry Increased Its Emissions in 2022.” Fashion United, 2 Nov. 2022,
https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/new-report-reveals-the-fashion-industry-increased-its-emissions-in-2022/2022110266019
