Are mass-market fashion companies the industry’s worst sustainability performers?
What: Levi Strauss & Co and H&M Group ranked highly inThe BoF Sustainability Index 2022.
Why is it important: Every year, BoF Insights benchmarks the sustainability efforts of fashion’s biggest companies within the luxury, high street (or mass market) and sportswear segments. The index was designed to assess the fashion companies’ progress towards ambitious environmental and social targets across six impact categories, designed to align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The 2022 edition of the Index analyses the sustainability performance at 30 of fashion’s largest public companies, addressing the 10 biggest by 2020 revenue in each of the three segments. It assesses performance across six impact categories: Emissions, Transparency, Water & Chemicals, Waste, Materials and Workers’ rights.
The high street segment was one category to note with the overall average score for the segment comes in at 27 points out of 100, Within the individual impact categories, the segment performs on par with the overall Index average in Emissions and Materials, but slightly underperforms in the four other impact categories assessed. It also contains the only company (Chinese retailer HLA Group) in the Index to score no points at all, making it one of two in this group of companies to score less than 10 points overall.
Levi Strauss & Co. tops the high street segment’s rankings with an overall score of 44 points out of 100, closely followed by H&M Group with an overall score of 42. Both companies place in the top five when ranked against all 30 companies assessed in this year’s Index.
Are mass-market fashion companies the industry’s worst sustainability performers?
