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Fashion brands and marketers have a new roadmap for sustainable transformation.
Incorporating buzzy practices, including regenerative agriculture and circularity, companies like Outerknown, J. Crew Group and VF Corporation are demonstrating the benefits of progress in several of the 12 areas of transformation laid out in a new report from Accenture.
But there’s a gulf between what the economic system incentivizes and what must happen to pull clothing manufacturing within the planetary boundaries. The industry remains reliant on extractive inputs for products that have become consumer favorites. And without any regulatory enforcement, experts told Adweek, it’s unlikely that the industry at large will elect to make the necessary changes highlighted in the report.
Still, marketers have a unique role to play in better brand decision-making through their involvement in consumer labeling, packaging and circularity. Brands have important decision-making power when it comes to carbon emissions, supply chain and workers’ rights—all of which are outlined in Accenture’s new report.
Outlining levers for change
The report highlights a dozen different “action areas of transformation,” outlining near-term and longer-term goals for each category. The list of categories includes:
- Carbon and net zero
- Materials, regenerative agriculture and biodiversity
- Water and chemicals
- Circularity, waste and redefining growth
- Plastics and packaging
- Traceability and transparency
- Consumer engagement and labeling
- Worker and human rights
- Empowerment, education and digital wages
- Justice, equity, inclusion and diversity
- Supply chain
- Transportation and logistics
The report, Accenture’s second on sustainable fashion, aims to provide a useful roadmap to brands at different levels of maturity when it comes to sustainable practices, explained Frank Zambrelli, managing director at Accenture Retail ESG, executive director of the Responsible Business Coalition at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business and a lead author on the report.
“People are finding operational improvements and efficiencies and actual savings” as a result of implementing sustainable practices, Zambrelli noted. While some of the necessary changes are costly, at least in the short term, others are good for the bottom line.
“There’s this new era of ESG or sustainability being this tool in my toolbox of business management, not simply in the mitigation of negative impacts,” he said.