Let’s Dive Deep:
Reformation’s Q3 Sustainability Report
For many young women, Reformation was their first introduction to “sustainable fashion.” It was certainly my first introduction to trendy, cute, sustainable clothing, and the brand has maintained sustainability as a pillar of the brand along with simple but trendy designs and interesting fabrics (that tend to be quite pricey).
But the big green monster is always looming. I’m talking about Greenwashing. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Greenwashing is a term that simply refers to a marketing practice that aims to make a company or product seem more environmentally sustainable than it is. I’m sure we have all seen products labeled as “green” or just the label being literally green when it is the same product as before just with a different label. The issue of greenwashing is present in pretty much ever industry and fashion is a big one.
Now this isn’t to say that Reformation is guilty of greenwashing. In fact, over the years they have vastly improved their sustainability programs. So let’s dive deep into this Q3 Sustainability Report and take a look at some of what Reformation is doing.
People:
Paid Volunteer time for employees resulted in 175 hours of volunteer work in Q3
Code of Conduct for supply chain members enforced through tier system, moving towards 75% Tier 1 (the facility meets all standards) by 2022
Currently pays 56% of employees a living wage in the US, down from 100% last year due to increases in the US living wage
My question is … What about the employees throughout their supply chain? Are they being paid a living wage? If not, how can Reformation and the rest of the fashion industry work to make sure garment workers are paid a living wage?
Product:
Introduced Vegan leather shoes using Cereal Leather (that still contains 25% virgin plastic) What is actually worse plastic, “Vegan” leather or the real thing?
Goal of being virgin plastic free … eventually.
Use of regenerative Nativa Wool to reduce the impact of wool on their carbon and water footprints
Only 6% away from have 100% traceability in all Tier 1,2, and 3 suppliers (everything but the forest, farm or ranch in the supply chain)
On the way to this year’s goal of 75% of all dye houses, printers and tanneries to be clean chemistry certified
Planet:
Use of RefScale to assess comparative environmental impact of Reformation clothing vs. “conventional clothing in the US”
Offset 100% of carbon impact and buy water restoration credits
What is your opinion on Carbon offsets? Do they actually make an impact on the environment or is this just one more form of greenwashing?
Encourage and designing garments for low impact care
Overall, Reformation as a brand is better than most when it comes to sustainability efforts. They provide clear sustainability metrics and goals and cover a wide range of issues from providing a living wage to in-house employees to clean chemistry in their supply chain. My question is … What is the next step? They mention circularity and take back programs that are in the works but what will those look like? What is the next step for most brands to reduce their impact? Will it be through a more circular model with less virgin fibers or will we just learn how to produce and grow textiles and fibers with less impact?
Reformation Q3 Sustainability Report
The Big News!!
Rent the Runway and Allbirds are gearing up for their IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange.
Two companies with sustainability on the mind and two very different business models. Rent the Runway leaning into the shared economy while Allbirds leans more into sustainable textiles and production. What does it mean that neither of these companies in profitable … yet as we look forward to their IPOs? What does this mean for other private sustainable brands?
Allbirds Targets $2 Billion Valuation in New York IPO
Fashion Site Rent the Runway Raises $357 Million in Upsized IPO
Enter the Luxury B-Corp
Chloe, the French luxury brand for the boho, designer woman, is officially a B-Corp. (Yay!) Having a luxury fashion brand under their umbrella must be a great sign for B-Corp, a sign that will hopefully push other fashion brands, luxury or otherwise to seek this strict certification. What does becoming a B-Corp mean for Chloe as a brand? What does Chloe becoming a B-Corp mean for the rest of luxury fashion?
Chloé Becomes Luxury Industry’s First B-Corp
Tracking the True Cradle to Grave with Higg
In partnership with three traceability and supply chain technology companies, Atma.io, FiberTrace, and TrusTrace, Higg, a global standard in the fashion industry, has launched this program to aid manufacturers and brands in traceability and sustainability throughout their supply chains. A partnership that will allow “customer brands” to “identify and share the supply chain provenance” of garments. So what does that mean for customers? Hopefully better, more traceable information regarding the fashion supply chain and less back door dealings with sketchy subcontractors who fail to meet health and safety regulations.
Higg Launches Traceability Partner Program for Supply Chain Sustainability
The journey has truly begun. This is the first “official” edition of this newsletter, Sustainability in Fashion. I really hope you enjoyed it. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts and comments not only on the questions I posed throughout but also the format. I want to hear from you, what can I improve?
What would make this format better? More or less articles? Shorter commentary? More comments and thoughts? Is there anything you want me to dive deep into?
Let me know here in the comments or on any of the socials listed below.
I hope you are all have a great week.
All the best and see you next week,
Madison Daniels
Actually a couple of questions - first, is there an independent third party that provides a Sustainability assessment or grade? This seems to be their own format and sort of a self-grading system. Is Reformation following and industry standard form or is this their own? Second, perhaps I missed it but where is the information on downstream sustainability - getting product to users? There is a fair bit of comment on upstream suppliers, which is great, but I have to imagine the environmental impact of getting product to users is also an important consideration. Thanks.