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Fashion’s new must have: Sustainable sourcing at scale

Since 2016, the hits for the Instagram hashtag #sustainablefashion have increased fivefold. More than half of the world's fashion purchasing leaders consider sustainability to be one of the most important business strategies. Accordingly, the supply of sustainable clothing is growing fivefold every year. Nevertheless, the share of the overall market remains low: Less than 1% of products released in the first half of 2019 were already labelled as ‘sustainable’. There is a lack of international standards for sustainability and clear definitions. Sometimes this means ecological standards, sometimes social aspects in production. So both keywords such as organic materials, recycled materials, supply chain transparency, water consumption, plastic use as well as fair wages for factory workers, overtime rules, occupational safety and co-determination. Karl-Hendrik Magnus, partner at McKinsey & Company and expert in the fashion industry: "There is still a long way to go towards objective standards that are internationally binding. Only then will there be an even greater pace of development."

These are the findings of the study ‘Fashion’s new must-have: sustainable sourcing at scale’, for which McKinsey interviewed 64 Chief Purchasing Officers (CPO), who are responsible for more than $100 billion in total procurement value. In addition, in street interviews, consumers in four major European cities and industry experts were surveyed and data from online fashion retailers were evaluated by the research service provider Edited.

Scope: 48 pages
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