Fashion Accountability Report Slams Brands Such as Temu, Fashion Nova and Skims for Environmental Impacts

Remake, a U.S.-based nonprofit, has released its annual Fashion Accountability Report for 2024, with brands including Temu, Fashion Nova, Missguided and Skims scoring zero points out of a possible 150 for factors like transparency and environmental justice.

The nonprofit’s Fashion Accountability Report scores companies for their progress on various criteria, including transparency, wages and wellbeing for workers, raw materials, environmental justice efforts, commercial practices and governance. In total, a company can score 150 points for progress toward these markers. The report assessed 52 companies on their social and environmental actions.

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Four companies fell to the bottom of the rankings this year with zero points: Fashion Nova, Missguided, Skims and Temu. Fast fashion giant Shein, which was recently called out in a bill proposal in France that would enact penalties on fast fashion companies, scored slightly higher than these four companies with six total points. Other companies with fewer than 10 points include Columbia Sportswear Co., Macy’s, Amazon, Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Chanel and Rothy’s, among others. 

The highest scoring brand was Everlane, with 40 out of 150 points, followed by H&M Group with 37, PUMA with 36, Reformation with 34 and Ralph Lauren with 30. 

The report highlighted that about half of the companies, 28, have set Supplier Codes of Conduct to assess how factories comply with international labor, health and safety and environmental standards. But none of the companies assessed showed purchasing practices that make sure suppliers provide fair wages and are environmentally sustainable, the report noted.

Another part of the report compared how much money some companies were spending on garment workers wages per year compared to CEO salaries. According to the report, Asia Floor Wage Alliance has estimated the monthly living wage for garment workers in Bangladesh to be around BDT 53,104 (about $484), although the current minimum wage is short, BDT 40,604 (about $370) a month or about BDT 487,248 (about $4,440), annually.

The report authors wrote, “To put it into perspective, it roughly equals: 

• 0.02% of the Walmart CEO’s annual compensation of $24.1 million
• 0.03% of the Target CEO’s annual compensation of $17.6 million 
• 0.03% of the VF Corporation CEO’s annual compensation of $15.4 million 
• 0.1% – 0.04% of the H&M Group CEO’s annual compensation of between $5 – $12 million 
• 0.06% of the Inditex CEO’s annual compensation of $7.4 million  
• 0.07% of the Marks and Spencer co-CEOs’ annual compensation of $6.1 million 
• 0.1% of the NEXT CEO’s annual compensation of $3.2 million 
• 0.6% of the C&A CEO’s annual compensation of $700,000  
• 0.8% of the New Look CEO’s annual compensation of $524,000.”

The gap could be even wider, as Reuters reported in November 2023 that following worker protests, Bangladesh was raising the minimum wage for garment workers to 12,500 BDT (about $114) per month, or around 150,000 BDT (about $1,367) per year.

On the environmental front, the accountability report found that most of the companies, 37 of them, shared their total annual carbon emissions across their value chain, and 30 of the companies in the assessment have short-term emissions reduction goals to meet the 1.5°C target. Burberry, Everlane, H&M Group and Patagonia have additionally set long-term emissions reduction targets.

Further, 13 of the companies utilized in-site resale programs for their preowned garments, and 15 of the companies assessed offered repair or upcycling programs. But zero companies offered transparency about what happens with collected items taken for upcycling or other take-back initiatives, according to the report.

“What the fashion industry needs is a significant investment in decarbonization that is tailored to the unique needs of each country and each factory,” the authors wrote. “For a true partnership between fashion companies and suppliers, workers should be at the table helping to guide the co-creation of strategies to reduce emissions. Workers are crucial partners in the clean energy transition and need to be supported through and insulated from the effects of climate change.”