The pressure on the fashion industry to deliver full traceability of its supply chains – which means knowing where and how every single part of a garment was made – has been intensifying ever since the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh back in 2013.
With a death toll of 1,134 and around 2,500 people injured, the tragedy was the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history. In order to try and establish which brands were producing clothes at the factory, rescuers had to dig through the rubble looking for clothing labels.1
The fallout from the incident led to much greater demand for transparency from fashion brands about where and how their products were being made. Coupled with increasing awareness of the industry’s environmental impact, this has led to growing calls for action by brands as well as suppliers.
Progress has been tracked by the Fashion Transparency Index, which in its seventh annual edition published last year, reviewed and ranked 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers according to what information they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices and impacts in their operations and supply chain.2
The Index concluded that “progress on transparency in the global fashion industry is still too slow”, with brands achieving an overall average score of just 24%, up 1% from in 2021.
Among the key findings around supply chain traceability was that while more major brands than ever (48%) now publish a list of their first-tier manufacturers, 50% of major brands still disclose no information about their supply chains.
The report also found that only 29% of major brands and retailers publish a decarbonisation target covering their operations and supply chain verified by the Science Based Targets Initiative3 – and that only 34% of brands publish their carbon footprint at the processing level and 22% at the raw material level.
Other findings included that 85% of major brands still do not disclose their annual production volumes, only 24% of brands disclose how they minimise the impacts of microfibres, and only 11% of brands publish their supplier wastewater test results.
The pressure on brands and retailers to deliver greater transparency – and therefore achieve higher levels of traceability – is also being driven by new regulation. In March 2022, the European Commission launched the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles4, which implements the commitments of the European Green Deal5, with its goal of climate neutrality for the EU by 2050.
As part of its strategy, the Commission launched a package of proposals designed to make sustainable products the norm in the EU. Among them is the proposal for a Regulation on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products6 to address product design, which the Commission notes determines up to 80% of a product's lifecycle environmental impact.
The regulation sets new requirements to make products more “durable, reliable, reusable, upgradable, reparable, easier to maintain, refurbish and recycle, and energy and resource efficient.”7
The Commission said that, in addition, product-specific information requirements “will ensure consumers know the environmental impacts of their purchases” and that “all regulated products will have Digital Product Passports.” The Commission said, “this will make it easier to repair or recycle products and facilitate tracking substances of concern along the supply chain. Labelling can be introduced as well.”
As the textile and clothing industry looks to meet the growing need for traceability, an array of solutions are continuing to emerge – many of which will be examined during the Innovate: Traceability event organised by World Textile Information Network (WTiN) taking place online on April 25-27.8
The event will focus on the latest track and trace technologies and digital certification, as well as the latest challenges and opportunities in implementing traceability within the textile and apparel sector.
In particular, speakers will assess how track and trace delivers business value and takes organisations a step closer to transparency. Topics to be addressed include the supply chain revolution; regulations: processes and inputs that need tracing; available technologies for traceability; how to go from pilot to full-scale traceable projects; traceability as a business case; and can circular value chains be created?
WTiN notes that traceability is vital to implementing transparency in the textile and apparel value chain.
“Traceability gives companies the ability to follow raw materials and products as they journey through various part of the manufacturing process and from factory to the retail floor,” it states. “There is growing interest from both consumers and brands on the provenance of raw materials, sourcing practices and manufacturing processes. With data being recorded and tracked at every stage companies are able to make informed business decisions, optimising their manufacturing methods and offering a competitive edge.”
The event will assess some of the latest blockchain-enabled solutions, including Textile Genesis, a platform designed to allow the tracing of goods from fibre through to retail9, and Waste2Wear, which has developed authentication systems to verify genuine RPET and expose fakes.10
The progression from digital to physical traceability tools will be highlighted, too, with a particular focus on tracer technologies, which can be used to analyse the micro composition of fibres, materials and finished products. A tracer can also be applied to substances at a certain point in the supply chain to be detected later for origin verification.
Physical traceability markers will also be discussed, including those from FibreTrace, which claims that its markers suspended in recycled fibres help brands be sure the fibre they are promoting is indeed the fibre in their hands11, and from Haelixa, which has developed a product marking and tracing technology where distinct DNA markers are sprayed on textile fibres and stay linked to them, which the company claims withstands harsh production steps and provides unique forensic proof that cannot be removed or tampered with.12
As the pressure continues to increase on the textile and clothing industry to deliver greater transparency – which will play an important role in the sector’s efforts to ultimately reach net zero – we can expect to see more traceability solutions like these emerge over the coming years.
References
1 Why do we need a Fashion Revolution? : Fashion Revolution
2 FASHION TRANSPARENCY INDEX 2022 : Fashion Revolution
3 Ambitious corporate climate action - Science Based Targets
4 Textiles strategy (europa.eu)
5 A European Green Deal (europa.eu)
6 EUR-Lex - 52022DC0140 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)
7 New proposals to make sustainable products the norm (europa.eu)
8 Home | Traceability (wtin.com)
Jonathan's work on the sports industry has been published by The Times, The Observer, The Independent and The Sun, as well as Sport Business, Off The Pitch, FC Business and Zero Carbon Academy.
He has also contributed to BBC Radio 5 Live, Middle East Eye, The Scotsman, Rediff.com., World Soccer, When Saturday Comes, Wisden Cricket Monthly and School Sport.
Away from sports, he has held full-time and freelance roles at a number of global B2B publishers. He was the Founding Editor of Twist - a magazine covering the latest developments across the fashion industry supply chain. The title is published by World Textile Information Network (WTiN). Following the success of the launch of Twist, Jonathan was promoted to Head of Content at WTiN. In this newly-created role, he was responsible for developing WTiN's digital content and social media presence as the company evolved from being a magazine publisher to a market-leading media company across all platforms.
