https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/global-fashion-brand...
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/global-study-finds-m...
https://www.context.news/just-transition/fashion-brands-drag-feet-on-the...
"Fashion brands drag feet on their green promises", 30 June 2025
The fashion industry is responsible for up to 8% of the world's planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions...which many of its companies have promised to tackle with targets to reach net zero by 2050 or sooner.
Yet researchers, companies and industry insiders say that little has been done to push this along in their supply chains...
It found that only a fraction of leading brands are providing funding to cut emissions in their supply chains, which puts pressure on factories and suppliers that lack the financial clout to shift towards cleaner processes...
...a large number of brands still lack visible efforts to finance their climate plans and support suppliers to decarbonise.
"What we are seeing is a dangerous disconnect," said Mohiuddin Rubel, a former director of Bangladesh's garment manufacturers' association who is now director at textile maker Denim Expert Ltd.
"Brands are turning their ambitious targets into unfunded mandates placed upon suppliers, who are asked to bear the full financial burden of decarbonising the brands' value chain," he told Context...
Overall, Bangladeshi fashion suppliers face an investment gap of $4.8 billion for cutting emissions by half by 2030, AII has said...
About half of the brands surveyed by Stand.earth offered some form of support, but much of it involved assessments and audits to measure the carbon footprint or small-scale pilot projects, said Bangladeshi supplier Rubel...
Suppliers also need long-term purchase agreements and price premiums from brands that would work as incentives to invest in cleaner production, said Abhishek Bansal, head of sustainability at the Indian textile supplier Arvind Limited.
Only six brands reported that they offered project financing for suppliers' decarbonisation efforts, the Stand.earth report said. Among them is...H&M, which has supported 23 smaller suppliers to invest in low-carbon tech...
Labour leaders have raised concerns, regarding the impact this will have on workers, and have argued that environmental improvements to factories have not translated to better conditions for workers. Razequzzaman Ratan, president of the Socialist Labour Front, said, "factories are going green, but workers are left in the dark -- still underpaid, insecure, and now carrying the added fear of layoffs."
