Over the past few years I have seen members of the fashion community talking a LOT more about sustainable and ethical fashion and it has been really exciting to engage with other influencers (and regular people who wear clothes) about the shifting values in the fashion industry. It seems like the general population is starting to get an idea of what sustainable and ethical fashion is all about — it’s organic, it’s fair trade, it’s made by factory workers who are paid fairly and treated with dignity. If you look even deeper you’ll find that a sustainable supply chain is the root of sustainable and ethical fashion. In this post I’ll talk about the important role a sustainable fashion supply chain plays in the future of this industry.

If you follow me on Instagram you might know that I got a Master of Science degree in Global Supply Chain Management. I like to throw around the topic of supply chains quite a bit when talking about sustainable and ethical fashion, but I also realize that the term isn’t the easiest topic to grasp (especially if you aren’t talking about it, thinking about it, and studying it every day for two years of your life). It took me traveling to Singapore and Malaysia, visiting a highly active port, and working on a semester-long supply chain consulting project to fully grasp the scale and importance of supply chains when talking about sustainable and ethical solutions for the fashion industry. Despite its somewhat complicated nature, I see supply chains as the most effective avenue to creating change in the fashion industry.

What is a supply chain?

The best (and most brief) description of a supply chain that I’ve come across is “everything from concept to consumer“. Another description that we learn in school is “plan, source, make, deliver”. Think about the supply chain for producing a t-shirt: it would include everything from growing and picking cotton, weaving into cotton cloth, cutting and sewing a finished garment, shipping the tee to a company’s warehouse (by air, by sea, by train, and/or by truck), and finally packing and shipping the tee to a brick-and-mortar store or directly to an e-commerce customer. Each of the people, organizations and resources involved in completing these steps are linked by the flow of information or physical goods, and together they make up a supply chain. If you’re a visual person like me, here is a super simplified supply chain map:

The thing is, supply chains are rarely this simple. Sourcemap is a company that helps brands visualize the parties involved throughout their supply chains all the way back to their Tier 3 (or raw material) suppliers. Though many companies use this information internally, they can also choose to make this information available to the public. VANS published a very detailed map tracing their Checkerboard Slip On Shoes all the way back to their cotton and rubber providers, and it’s a perfect example of just how complicated and spread out supply chain networks can become.

How is a sustainable fashion supply chain different?

When you take a step back and think about all of the steps involved in a process like creating a simple cotton t-shirt — or look at the supply chain network above for just one style of shoe — it’s easy to see how many people and resources are actively involved in the global fashion supply chain. It’s also easy to see how many opportunities there are to create unnecessary waste or not follow ethical guidelines when supply chain networks are this large and spread out.

Fast Fashion quite literally gets its name from the speed at which products move through the supply chain. This speed comes at a cost — not a cost to the consumer, but a cost to the environment and the human capital involved in the supply chain. One of the main pillars of conscious consumerism is transparency: knowing where products come from and what they’re made of. Although consumer demands for transparency are growing, a majority of consumers continue to demand lower prices and faster delivery times. These demands can pressure different parties down the supply chain to outsource work to sub-contracted factories that circumvent environmental and ethical standards. As we tragically learned from the Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of 2013 (the event that inspired Fashion Revolution Week), many brands lack full supply chain visibility, meaning they are not aware of every factory that produces items for them.

What can brands do?

A transparent brand requires a transparent supply chain, and transparency requires traceability. My biggest takeaway from grad school is knowing everything about every link on a supply chain is easier said than done. In some cases, it just isn’t possible to have a 100% traceability. While it can be easier to track down factories producing your products and end the use of under-the-table sub-contracting, the same can’t be said for every other link on the supply chain. With a raw material like cotton, unless a company is the sole purchaser from a farm, it is difficult to trace. Cotton is often aggregated in markets and sold from there to textile mills, making it nearly impossible to map back to specific farms and specific field workers. The larger a company is, the larger their supplier network is, and the more likely it is for something to fall through the cracks and become untraceable.

Aside from transparency, better materials, and fair wages, there are many things brands can do to have more sustainable and ethical supply chains. Brands can get their factories certified by organizations like the Fair Labor Association that conduct regular audits of factory employment practices and working conditions. They can work with factories to set stricter environmental standards than the local governments for processes like wastewater treatment or discarding toxic by-products. Brands can choose the shipping method with the least impact on the environment. Brands can choose better packaging materials. They can educate their consumers about the most environmentally friendly way to care for their clothing after it is purchased (Past Life The Collective does a great job with this). Brands can produce smaller batches of product to prevent overstock waste. Brands can create a take-back program and recycle or re-sell their old products.

What can you do as a consumer?

Beyond brands being transparent, there is also power in consumers understanding sustainable fashion supply chains. Having an understanding of how vast and complex supply chain networks are brings a greater level of appreciation for the brands that can and do share information. Such as who makes their clothes, what standards they uphold in their factories, and the social/environmental initiatives they are tackling as a company.

Supply chains are complex but incredibly important in the quest for a more sustainable and ethical fashion industry, and I hope this blog post helped to kickstart your journey to understanding the importance and scale of global fashion supply chains.

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