In Sustainability, Who Holds the Mantle of Accountability?

Lauren Parker
·4 min read

Who is responsible for sustainability? Is it the individual brands? Manufacturers? Global and local governments? The court of public opinion?

All of the above play a part, with absolute compliance a moving target. Sourcing Journal’s latest Sustainability Report: Measuring the Impact looks at all the steps the industry has taken forward, plus the hurdles causing slides backward, and who should be held to account.

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Some companies are leading by example. Reports from Madewell, Reformation, Lululemon and American Eagle Outfitters, plus manufacturers such as Gildan and Artistic Milliners show great strides toward sustainability, with actions specifically tracked and accounted for.

Circularity continues to gain traction as a sustainable solution, and legislation—both current and in draft—on how to handle textile waste is helping drive the circularity movement. Over the summer, two new milestones were passed. Member state the Netherlands launched its long-awaited extended producer responsibility policy for textiles in July, making it the third European country after France and Sweden to hold brands responsible for clothing waste.

The new fee-based policy requires all manufacturers to provide collection points and enable sorting, recycling and reuse of the products they sell in the Dutch market, plus account for where that waste goes. The law aims to have at least 50 percent of textiles in the Netherlands be reused or recycled by 2030, and 25 percent of the recycling to be fiber-to-fiber.

The EU is watching, as its executive branch, the European Commission, put forward its own highly anticipated proposals to introduce mandatory EPRs (extended producer responsibility) for textiles in all member states under the European Union Waste Framework Directive. “It will definitely increase how much textile is collected,” said Nusa Urbancic, CEO of the Changing Markets Foundation, who noted that the majority of clothing currently gets tossed into the household trash. “The level of fees will really determine whether or not it acts as a deterrent, and the behavior of these companies.”

In California, however, textile waste responsibility has been kicked down the road at least to 2024. California Senator Josh Newman pulled the bill he authored, SB 707, from legislation. Proposed in March, the first-of-its-kind legislation would hold producers of textiles and apparel goods sold in California liable for their textile waste. SB 707 would mandate that the sector fund an EPR program—a statewide platform for discarded garments and fabrics made up of Producer Responsibility Organizations (PRO), which would manage the collection, sortation and recycling process. The bill was tabled “for more industry input,” and is expected to reach Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk in the second half of 2024.

In the apparel manufacturing hub of India, it’s the entrepreneurs that are bringing about change, and many see the agility of small companies as an advantage when it comes to recycling. “Many of the companies [in Panipat] are small and medium enterprises that don’t have the funds to make a bigger set up. That also becomes a strength in one way, because recycling needs a lot of careful monitoring and attention, which is easier in a smaller company,” said Archish Kansal, co-director of Kay Gee Enterprises.

Mother Nature, meanwhile, has been creating uphill battles, from Southeast Asian floods to rising temperatures that make working inside a factory in Bangladesh unbearable to lethal. But something positive has been shining down, and it’s not just the sun. While solar energy continues to be harvested by companies who invest in the technology, wind energy is gaining attention, even if experts say its adoption is too slow to realize a “secure a resilient” global energy transition.

“At current rates of installation, GWEC Market Intelligence forecasts that by 2030, we will have less than two-thirds of the wind energy capacity required for a 1.5 Celsius and net-zero pathway, effectively condemning us to miss our climate goals,” said Joyce Lee, head of policy and projects at GWEC. Even so, companies like Nike and H&M have made impressive commitments to wind power, setting a powerful example for the industry.

Another headwind for compliance and accountability is the economy, and indeed, some companies have been drawing down ESG initiatives as inflation goes up. “Inflation is causing a lot of trade-offs to be made against other priorities, including sustainability and broader ESG objectives,” said Alex Saric, smart procurement expert at Ivalua, a cloud-based spending management solution.

And while many companies appreciate legislation that holds their peers to account at the same rate as themselves, many feel ill-equipped to comply. From the German Supply Chain Act, mandating that companies undergo human and environmental risk analysis, to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rules for climate disclosures, companies have a lot to answer to. But governmental crackdowns on unfair labor standards is “creating an entirely new level of uncertainty” for organizations that are not used to tracking, much less reporting, their impacts. “This will leave organizations at risk of missing net zero targets, greenwashing, and failing to meet ESG regulatory requirements, said Saric.

To read the full Sustainability Report, click here.

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