TROUBLE-SHOOTING TRANSPARENCY

Sustainability can be defined as the “avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance”. 

By that measure, I’ve got some news for you :

Your brand isn’t sustainable.

No brand is.

So why would you want your audience to know explicitly how much your practices are messing with that ecological balance?

Surely that’s a PR disaster? 

Fashion Transparency Index 2021 : Headlines

If the results from the 2021 Fashion Transparency Index by Fashion Revolution are anything to go by, then 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers would agree.

On average those organisations, across 5 key areas, scored a 23% overall transparency rating - a non-mover from the same survey conducted in 2020.

What was noticeable about the breakdown by section (see below), is that scores were markedly higher on the topic of policy & commitments (i.e. what the future might look like) than any of the evaluations of their current operations.

Brands are clearly more comfortable selling a utopian vision, rather than communicating their current challenges to the outside world.

Either because they don’t have the tools to measure their impact, or - worse - they don’t want to for fear of the backlash from an increasingly informed and moral-bound audience. 

Fashion Transparency Index 2021 : average score by section.

What I’ve also inferred from these findings is that brands have expended most of their energy on this topic in a “pledge contest” - another form of competition whereby the quality and size of your public promises, perhaps in relation to those of your competitors, has taken precedent over the deep understanding of your own shortcomings.

Managing public perception has been the priority, and the route to achieving that has been pointing your audience towards a paradise of responsibility, usually arriving in either 2025, 2030 or 2050.

Embrace your shortcomings.

So let’s tackle the issue of public perception. Is it too linear to assume that your brand will suffer commercially if you publicise the flaws of your actions?

I think it is.   

There is something very human about embracing weakness, sharing vulnerability and ultimately putting actions in place to better oneself. In the relationship of a brand with its audience, this kind of behaviour chimes nicely with what consumers expect now and in the future.

Studies carried out by insights specialists The Future Laboratory show that more than half of Millenials and Gen Z say they want to “connect with brands that enhance their spirit and their soul” and are tired of ubiquitous “purpose-washing”. 

So the expectation is that brands should portray character traits that are more reflective of the behaviours associated with achieving personal improvement - honesty, kindness, commitment, fairness, integrity - and I expect this shift to deepen as these age groups start to proliferate further through society and land positions of influence in the coming decades.

Brutal honesty by Noah.

Additionally, you are also dealing with a growing contingent of activist groups and individuals who are gaining an increasing amount of airtime through social media channels - there are plenty of people ready to expose any cover-ups (intentional or otherwise) in the spirit of “getting one over on the system”.

I try to offer a balanced point of view, but I too have felt the overwhelming temptation to call out contradictions between responsibility pledges on brand websites and their actions - those “a-ha” moments are very satisfying when you’re sitting in that underdog position. 

And there’s a watch-out : if you don’t highlight your own failings, then someone else will be poised to do it for you and take control of the narrative in doing so.

I know which position I’d prefer to be in.

Understand & communicate your impact.

So, in my view, your future customer is on board with more honesty and the vulnerability of sharing imperfections.

What’s holding you back then?

Fling the doors open and let everyone have a good nose around.

Unfortunately it’s not that easy, particularly if you’re an established organisation with a complex, multi-tiered supply chain spanning many different countries and partnering with endless 3rd parties to help bring your product to market. And the high likelihood is that there’ll be some nasty stuff under the bonnet, if you can even find the button you need to pop it open. 

Luckily there are tools out there to help with this exercise, particularly regarding product.

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study can be carried out - admittedly at significant (though I would say essential) expense - to evaluate the environmental impact of your product from cradle-to-grave. This can lead you to understand where the highest environmental impact is felt across the product’s lifetime. 

In this example by GORE-TEX on a pair of waterproof hiking boots, half of the impact came from the materials used. So immediately you have a big focus area to get to work on, combined with recommendations on where to go to start to reduce the impact brought by your material sourcing operation.

Another idea from this example is the benefit that building a durable product, with options for repair or component replacement, can have, even if that means higher material costs at the outset:

GORETEX: Extending life = reducing carbon footprint.

Pretty handy, and maybe this is just me, but it’s the kind of information that can help make better buying choices as a shopper, so why not label up your product packaging with all this useful information? 

That in itself poses its own challenge in terms of the actual relevance of the data, and above all how tangible it is for consumers. It’s still very difficult to know what “good” looks like from a carbon footprint point of view and perhaps the need to educate the public on this is equally as urgent as publishing your brand’s impact. Sustainability lead at Allbirds Hana Kajimura sums it up perfectly here:

“An average person can’t explain exactly what a calorie is and how it’s measured, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they can contextualize a calorie.

It’s that context that needs to be created around carbon footprints as much or even more so than the science behind how it’s calculated. That will only happen if many other companies, not just in our industry but beyond, label products with this data.”

Nailed it. There clearly needs to be a PR-drive around the carbon footprint that can make it as emotionally meaningful as the calorie. So what if my shoes produce 27kg of Carbon Dioxide? It’s still an intangible in terms of what the consequences will be.

Allbirds : clear on their impact, but how do you make it count with an average person?

Using the calorie as a guide, perhaps this needs to be framed as the direct impact that carbon has on human wellbeing, rather than just…you know…that of the planet’s?

A wrecked environment will mean of course that humanity will suffer, but from a communications perspective, that idea around the personal cost could really be effective.

That’s the power behind calorie-counting and furiously going round the supermarket checking RDA percentages on food packaging.

People can’t see, touch or feel the evil but they have been trained to know what good looks like. 

Could the same apply to the similarly invisible carbon-footprint?

Tread VERY carefully with “Green Claims”.

The other tricky part of communicating your impact is that, at least as I write, there are no agreed, industry-wide guidelines on what claims you can make, particularly as you consider publicly reporting back about the improvements you’re making.

It’s important to note that in the UK, this topic is very much on the table through the Competition and Markets Authority and recommendations on how to communicate “green” claims should be forthcoming next month.

But up until now it’s been very easy to fall into the trap of misleading your audience, even if your intentions are genuine.

One brand to have recently fallen victim of this is GANNI - a brand who have been very careful not to misinform on the subject, even creating a separate Instagram account (with just 13k followers) for the detail of their responsibility pledges, rather than plastering claims on their main brand feed (975k followers). 

However claims like the below are problematic (read the small print) and here’s why:

If you visualise the new GANNI collection as a big pile of materials, and assume (which is all we can do without the full detail) that every “responsible” product contains exactly 50% recycled or organic content and anything non-responsible is at 0%, then actually only 36.5% of that material pile is “responsible”.

GANNI : the pitfalls of green claims.

This is not to target GANNI in any way as I believe their intentions are authentic, but it just demonstrates how easy it is to get it a bit wrong, but in a sizeable way. 

Basically brands are allowed to make up their own rules as to what constitutes a “responsible” product, in a desperate effort to be a positive voice in the conversation.

With agreed guidelines coming for the UK, and in doing so hopefully setting a benchmark for other major markets to follow suit, this issue could soon be resolved.

In the meantime however, it is advisable to steer clear of this kind of self-promotion and just double down on dealing with your deficiencies in private.

Build Transparent Experience into your Product.

Looking ahead, what could the future of transparency look like?

How much detail should you have to put out there, and what tools will there be to enhance the experience for your customers and even provide opportunities for your business?

One idea which has caught my eye on a number of levels is leveraging the power of the humble QR Code, which has probably earned a bad rep right now due to it’s association with the Test & Trace system in the UK.

But I can tell you that this reputation is unwarranted - the QR is an honest sort, and its grainy black-and-white maze can open the door to opportunity. 

PANGAIA, materials-science-company-slash-cool-responsible-sweats brand, are one of the first in our world to jump on this by creating “Digital Passports” on their products.

A quick scan leads you to a world of information and advice, from environmental impact, to how the item’s made, through to how to look after, repair or repurpose your hoodie or t-shirt:

You could envisage bolt-ons to this, firstly in brand protection terms. 

In a future where the Secondhand Fashion market becomes more valuable than the Fast Fashion market, that instant verification is an extremely useful tool that as a shopper you are buying genuine goods, and as a brand you are maximising your control over counterfeiting risk and, at the same time, analysing the data to understand the potential value of a brand-owned Resale channel. 


Furthermore, the opportunities for brand story-telling, personalised experiences and heightened 2-way engagement with your community are endless.

As a result, the chances are you will be able to strengthen the bond between the product and the user, thus promoting greater care for the item, and consequently feeding a repair-or-repurpose culture, rather than a throwaway one.

If you are a business currently embroiled in feeding the seasonal cycle of disposable fashion because you feel like you have to in order to stay relevant, this avenue may give you an escape.

You could well find that your product works harder for longer, the benefits of which are untold in terms of being able to plan effectively and really reduce the amount of waste you generate.

Final Thoughts.

So as you weigh up how best to navigate transparency for your brand or business, here’s my advice:

• Embrace your flaws. It’s the first critical step to redemption and positive change - you literally cannot move forward unless you have clarity on where your issues lie today, so invest in the tools you need to shed light on the darkness in your operation. Otherwise someone else will.

• Communicate your shortcomings. This may be uncomfortable, and feel like a kamikaze move commercially, but this is the expectation of the future consumer. Warts-and-all honesty over artificial perfection.

• Keep your mouth shut on green claims. Until there is an industry-standard framework, let other independent bodies have their say and humbly take on board their critiques, ensuring you investigate every misgiving that your brand is cited for.

• Build meaningful engagement through product. Product alone has the power to mesmerise its users, but through technological advancements you can enhance that experience and boost loyalty.

The topic of transparency is littered with pitfalls, and I sympathise (to an extent) with established brands who are having to go against every commercial fibre in their body to disclose their impact.

The picture that’s revealed will be, at best, messy and at worst, utterly horrific. 

But going through this is a non-negotiable.

And even if the horror of those revelations has initial commercial consequences, I am certain that this is the path to take in order to avoid obsolescence in the future.