On The 6th Anniversary Of The Rana Plaza Tragedy – How Transparent Are Fashion Brands Being Now?

Although the index might not immediately improve the state of the industry, it will hopefully drive change by showing brands where they can do better and making them accountable for their actions.

Founder of Fashion Revolution Carry Somers says: “We believe transparency leads to a greater accountability”, which will in turn lead to positive change in the industry.

Fashion Revolution wants the industry to adopt more concrete and measurable goals, both in terms of the environment and human rights. There has been an improvement in transparency of many of the brands listed on the index – particularly with luxury labels like Gucci and Bottega Veneta – but there is still a lot to be done. “Much of the fashion industry still operates in an opaque manner,” says Somers.

Despite improvements from last year’s index, there’s still lots fashion labels could be doing. One particular issue which has come out of the report is a lack of information around how brands are working for gender equality, which is troubling as women make up the majority of the fashion industry, from the factories to the shop floors.

What the fashion industry does with excess stock is still a relatively murky area, which is surprising considering the uproar around the news of Burberry burning its unsold stock last year. Only 26.5% of the brands on the index are open about what they do with defective or surplus stock, the rest choosing not to disclose any details.

Fashion Revolution hopes to push more brands to publish their supply chains and make them easily accessible for anyone who wants to hold them accountable.

Some brands are taking these issues seriously. Adil Rehman, senior ethical trade manager at ASOS, says: “Without transparency there is no accountability, and without accountability there is no change.” He adds that brands have a responsibility to meet the social conscience of the customer, and transparency is the main way to build trust between the two – saying: “There is no hiding any more”.

The index arms consumers with more information, which can help us make more clearer choices about where we shop.

Fashion Revolution has created the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes – it has over 400,000 hits on Instagram and is a way for consumers to push brands into being open about their supply chains. Somers describes how an industry insider told her that every person who uses the hashtag is considered to represent 10,000 more people who want to know the same, but haven’t registered this publicly on social media.

Sarah Ditty, policy director at Fashion Revolution and author of the report, says really “the most powerful thing” consumers can do is contact brands directly, asking questions about their policies and practices as well as raising any concerns they might have about the business.