Funding regenerative agriculture
Highlighted as a case study within the report, J. Crew Group, parent company of Madewell, is working on a regenerative cotton program to diversify suppliers and implement practices that improve soil health and sequester carbon.
“With denim at the core of our business, it quickly became clear to us at Madewell that we needed an end-to-end denim sustainability strategy,” said Liz Hershfield, svp, head of sustainability at J.Crew Group. “We saw the importance that regenerative agriculture could play in our holistic approach to materials, bettering both the people and the planet.”
Apparel brand Outerknown, which wasn’t involved in Accenture’s report, spoke with Adweek on its work in regenerative farming and soil health.
Founded in 2015 with sustainability as its mission, its programs in regenerative agriculture, water conservation and paper-based packaging all give some insight into what the report’s levers for change look like in action.
“We’re actually able to identify, [for] each step of the supply chain, where it takes place,” explained Dylon Shepelsky, senior manager of R&D and product development at Outerknown. That goes all the way down to the level of lot numbers—or where, on each farm, a bale of cotton comes from, he said.
Storytelling around these initiatives, as Vans has done on social, is a key way that marketers have a role in fueling a sustainable transformation for fashion.
Industry roadblocks exist—sometimes by design
In the wider industry, many brands aren’t motivated—or even built with the capacity to—reach the levels of innovation that Outerknown and Madewell are working toward.
Thriving fast fashion companies with sprawling, global supply chains are the product of a system that devalues fair labor and climate-friendly processes while failing to hold brands accountable for the environmental harm they inflict.
That reality proves the need for regulatory action, according to Ken Pucker, senior lecturer on sustainable business dynamics at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Pucker has worked with brands and stakeholders on the New York Fashion Act, which would hold companies accountable for the labor practices and climate impacts within their supply chains.