What: A New York coalition made waves last week with the proposal of the Fashion Act, which aims to hold all major brands accountable for their environmental and social impacts.

Why it’s important: The Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act would require all fashion companies that do business in New York and generate more than $100 million in revenue to map at least 50% of their supply chains and disclose impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, water footprint and chemical use.

The bill does not specify who these 50% are, but calls on brands to focus on areas of greatest social and environmental risk. Brands would be required to report the total volumes of materials they produce, a notable measure that will highlight the overall impact of the sector that is typically hidden; most brands boast about reducing the impact of individual materials while increasing their production and total footprint.

On the labour side, brands will also be required to disclose median worker wages and measures in place to integrate responsible conduct into policies and management systems.

This ambition could reshape the way fashion behaves given that it would affect virtually every recognizable fashion brand, from American companies such as Gap, Ralph Lauren and Tapestry to international mass market and luxury players such as Shein and H&M, Prada and LVMH.

California had passed a legislation that would hold brands accountable for wage violations occurring in their California-based supply chains. And while a growing number of fashion companies are setting science-based targets to align their emissions with the Paris agreement goals, this remains voluntary and lacks industry-wide participation, and comes with little oversight or enforcement to ensure compliance.

In whole, these laws need further refinement and strengthening. Much of the bill’s criticism stems from who was at the table when it was created.

Deconstructing New York’s Fashion Act