Supplier Sustainability: The New Fashion Frontier

It is no secret that supplier sustainability is vital for modern businesses. The imperative to reduce environmental harm keeps growing, pressuring suppliers to cut emissions, waste and water usage.

A Stanford Business School survey found that 64% of companies agree assessing supplier sustainability performance impacts how they evaluate supplier competitiveness.

Brand reputation now relies on selecting suppliers who can follow through, and on coming together to put competitiveness aside and solve the sustainability problem collectively. 

The Fashion Pact was born out of this recognition that collective action is the most effective way to change the environmentally harmful impact of the fashion industry.

What is The Fashion Pact?

The Fashion Pact is the most significant CEO-led sustainability initiative in the global fashion industry.

As an evolution from France’s President Emmanuel Macron's call to industry leaders, the international coalition today reflects a broader awakening across fashion, focusing especially on the supplier and upstream supply chain activities that contribute the most to emissions.

The Fashion Pact was conceived in 2019, under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron and presented to G7 Heads of State in Biarritz, representing a landmark move to forge a collective to address environmental impacts.

Co-founded by François-Henri Pinault and Paul Polman, formerly of Kering and Unilever, the Pact quickly took root as a bridge between multi-stakeholder platforms such as the One Planet Summit and the fragmented fashion ecosystem.

“There is now a real momentum within fashion among leaders who are ready to work with others to drive the changes our societies and planet need,” explains Paul.

“This sector has a long way to go, but no single CEO or business can tackle these issues alone and The Fashion Pact offers unprecedented partnership and scale.”

Today, the coalition has more than 55 CEOs, across 160 brands in 20 countries – covering a third of the industry by volume. Its governance structure features an elected committee of 15 CEOs, including leaders from H&M Group, Kering, GAP, Tapestry and Ralph Lauren. 

Their inputs are then channelled through an Operations Committee of 24 Chief Sustainability Officers, including from Farfetch, Moncler, Chanel and J.Crew Group, ensuring that broader industry strategy is grounded in operational reality.

The supply chain challenge

As the fashion industry reckons with its environmental legacy, the focus has shifted decisively upstream. Upstream activities, which include the production, preparation and processing of raw materials, represent fashion’s greatest impacts in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

The 2022 Textile Exchange report exposed the urgent need for transformation across the supply chain if the industry hopes to keep within the 1.5°C global warming limit.

The Fashion Pact's roadmap identifies collective actions most likely to accelerate the transition to more sustainable material alternatives. The ambition is to increase the market availability of these materials, aiming for 25% of the coalition’s key raw material inputs to be classified as ‘lower impact’ by the end of 2025.

A significant portion of emissions arises at the Tier 4 raw material stage, particularly with cotton. The Unlock Program, developed by The Fashion Pact and sustainability consultancy 2050, is incentivising cotton farmers to adopt regenerative and low climate-impact practices as a result.

The system addresses critical barriers including upfront investment costs, information gaps and the absence of immediate financial rewards for transitioning to better farming methods.

The programme tracks progress across multiple areas including GHG emissions, farmer livelihoods, biodiversity, soil health and water use. It then collaborates with existing agricultural initiatives to boost measurement and farmer support.

In 2024, pilots in India and the USA demonstrated notable progress: the programme achieved carbon reduction results of 200-600kg per hectare in India and 950kg of removals alongside 2,000kg of reductions per hectare in the US.

Having enrolled more than 10,000 farmers in 2024, it is poised to scale further, promising emissions reductions of at least 10,000 tonnes and €1.2m (US$1.3m) in direct payments to farmers – contingent on replicating pilot success.

Supplier data harmonisation

Supplier sustainability data sits at the heart of effective decarbonisation. 

In response to this challenge, The Fashion Pact has launched the European Accelerator with Chanel, Kering, Moncler Group and Prada Group – aiming to unify supplier environmental data and build supplier capacity for sustainability.

It is estimated that €4.4bn (US$5.1bn) is required by 2030 for European fashion to meet decarbonisation targets, but high debt ratios make such investment unaffordable for nearly 60% of suppliers.

The Accelerator will adopt a whole-systems approach by harmonising data collection, simplifying reporting and working to unlock financing for supplier investments in cleaner technologies.

Eva von Alvensleben, The Fashion Pact’s Executive Director and Secretary General, says: “This unprecedented level of collective commitment marks an important step forward for our industry. 

“By encouraging harmonised environmental data practices, we are not only strengthening the quality and consistency of sustainability data, but also significantly reducing the reporting burden on suppliers.”

The Accelerator created a single questionnaire to collect energy, water and waste data. It was then tested for six weeks with 74 Italian suppliers across sectors including finished goods, textiles and accessories. 

The project gathered support from Italy’s Camera Nazionale della Moda, with input from more than 200 member brands. Quantis, an environmental consultancy from BCG, also helped develop it to meet best practices and regulatory standards.

This shared questionnaire aims to cut down duplication, improve reporting accuracy and save suppliers time.

Lorenzo Bertelli, CMO and Head of CSR at Prada Group, explains: “By establishing a harmonised framework for environmental data collection, it facilitates more consistent and reliable reporting, while also reinforcing our shared commitment to support the value chain.”

Overcoming financial barriers

Many leading luxury brands concentrate production in Italy, a market pivotal to sustainable supply chain transformation. 

Mango’s CEO Toni Ruiz characterises sustainability as a “journey the fashion industry has to make,” with decarbonisation of the supply chain essential for meaningful change. 

Toni describes the Future Supplier Initiative, supported by The Fashion Pact, as a game changer; “a huge step forward” enabling affordable financing for energy efficiency at factory level, and testament to the power of industry-wide cooperation.

“Under the theme of time,” says Peter Charles, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Tapestry, “there is a burning platform to drive change and take good intentions and drive that into impact”.

Economic contexts can often reduce flexibility for investment, especially as high debt ratios stall initiatives. 

The Accelerator aims to address these bottlenecks, offering capacity-building and identifying opportunities for renewable energy and efficiency improvements across the supply base.

“With the European Accelerator, we’ve been able to strike a good balance between the need of brands to get robust environmental data and the effort of suppliers to provide it,” says Edoardo Zegna, Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer at Ermenegildo Zegna Group. 

“Trust, open discussions and willingness to find a common ground are the key enablers of this initiative.”

A collective path forward

The Fashion Pact’s Decarbonisation Accelerator marks a turning point for fashion’s fragmented supply chain.

Its first milestone – the harmonised supplier questionnaire – may seem technical, but it does signal wider change.

“The clearer questions help us provide more accurate information and see where we can improve,” Lucia Mantero, Product Development Director of Mantero, says.

“Most importantly, this shared approach strengthens collaboration and trust between suppliers and brands, making sustainability progress more meaningful.”

As regulations tighten and expectations rise, the industry’s need for unity has never been more urgent.