Lululemon, Victoria’s Secret Top Air Cargo Emissions Offenders, Advocacy Group Says
A month after taking Zara parent Inditex and Shein to task over their air freight emissions, Swiss public advocacy group Public Eye is pointing its finger at more fashion companies like Lululemon, Victoria’s Secret, Fast Retailing and Calzedonia as offenders for contributing to the problem.
Lululemon stands out in particular, transporting around 30 percent of its products manufactured in Vietnam and Sri Lanka by plane, the research said.
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The yoga pants purveyor also identifies air freight as the main contributor to the high proportion of its total emissions accounted for by transport (25 percent), having established an air freight management task force in 2021 to shift freight transport from air to sea when possible.
Meanwhile, “about a quarter” of the products made for Victoria’s Secret in Vietnam are shipped via air, while as much as a third of products from Sri Lanka being transported in this way, according to Public Eye.
Public Eye said the intimates retailer and its U.K. partner, Next, “are taking a lead from Inditex and Shein” in that they no longer talk in general terms about their transportation emissions.
“It’s a similar story with Fast Retailing,” the firm said. “The company refers instead to its overall climate goals and involvement in an initiative to cut transport emissions. However, this commitment has not presented progress so far; quite the opposite, as transport emissions have increased by 55 percent since 2019.”
According to the research, Next imports 10 percent of its goods out of Bangladesh via air, and 20 percent out of India. Fast Retailing, the parent of fast-fashion giant Uniqlo, ships almost 20 percent of goods from Vietnam by plane.
Calzedonia, the Italian fashion group known for its legwear, socks and swimwear, ships 20 percent of its goods via air. The proportion of air transport out of Sri Lanka ranges between 5 and 10 percent, the group said.
Public Eye didn’t chastise all the brands it covered, highlighting H&M, Primark and Bestseller for curbing air freight emissions better than top competitor Inditex. While Inditex flew 20 percent of product manufactured in Bangladesh, H&M and Primark reportedly ship out just 2 percent out of the country via air.
“Bestseller states that its use of air freight has been declining for four years and that its proportion of the total freight transported is currently 1.04 percent,” Public Eye said. “As a result of this, transport-related emissions have dropped by 55 percent since 2018. H&M’s sustainability report also shows a significant reduction in air freight emissions (51 percent) in the last financial year.”
The firm also praised Puma as the company that provided the most detailed information about its air freight usage.
The footwear company reports a reduction in its air freight rate from 3 percent of goods pre-pandemic to 1 percent today, “and is the only company to tell us the total amount of air freight it transports,” the advocacy group said.
Puma has also set a specific reduction target, saying cutting the proportion of air freight by half to 0.5 percent by 2025.
The advocacy group also pointed out that Adidas transported just 2 percent of freight via air in 2022.
Public Eye, which focuses its advocacy initiatives on areas like sustainability and workers’ rights, generated its research from Customs data, and noted that it should not be interpreted as being a complete or even a representative picture of the current situation.
“Currently, only a few companies voluntarily report on how they transport their products,” the report said. “And public statistics, especially from the largest import markets in Europe and North America or major manufacturing countries such as China, are not detailed enough to present an accurate picture.”
While the details from entities out of the Far East are fuzzy, Shein and rival Temu might be pushing so much product via air that they are helping prop overall air freight demand numbers up.
According to Xeneta Clive Data Services, a surge in e-commerce volumes from China and Hong Kong pushed global air cargo demand up 5 percent year over year in November, with the dueling e-commerce giants “almost single-handedly” accounting for the increase in volumes and air cargo rates last month, the ocean and air freight analytics platform said.
Global air freight demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs), increased by 3.8 percent compared to October 2022, according to data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). In line with the Xeneta data related to Shein and Temu, air freight demand increased 7.6 percent for Asia Pacific airlines—outpacing regional growth everywhere except the Middle East.
Overall, demand is still lagging from pre-pandemic 2019 levels, down 2.8 percent from the four-year ago period. The IATA recently forecast that air freight cargo volume will grow 4.5 percent in 2024, building on this year’s second-half momentum, which saw three consecutive months of year over year growth.
