Any fashion e-commerce professional has a duty today to approach and include Sustainability at the forefront of any decision making regarding conversions and returns (and of course any issues regarding fashion, but for the case of this article we will focus on conversions and returns).
A theme that was quite exceptional has now become more and more central for fashion brands and e-commerce managers and their teams. We know that changes in customers buying habits has in part promoted this change – and will continue to do so.
Customers are savvier than ever and not only pay attention to the quality of their garments, but also the entire supply chain, production processes, and product afterlife. One of the biggest culprits in the fashion industry is “fast fashion,” or clothes made cheaply to meet demands for the hot new styles. However, fast fashion is putting our environment at risk.
Issues like COP 22 and terms like carbon footprint and upcycling have become mainstream and part of every customer’s shopping habits.
In IBM Insights report (2020) which includes 18,980 respondents from 28 countries, two groups of consumers stand out:
41% of consumers buy considering cost/benefit. The second group (40%), buy products and services aligned with their values and respecting the environment.
In another survey published by Statista (2021), “around 69 percent of consumers worldwide have exchanged their consumption habits (and products and services) due to climate change concerns.” Shoppers are showing that they want to put their dollars where their values are, and brands need to make that experience as easy as possible for them.
Just as consumers today are taking a closer look at the food they consume and the chemicals they put into their bodies, they are also shifting their purchasing decisions to create a cleaner environment through the clothes they wear.
So what does sustainability for the fashion industry actually imply?
How sustainability is applied to fashion e-commerce
How should we describe “responsible fashion”? This has always been challenging, even before mainstream players got involved. Any brand, large or small, that uses a hard-to-prove word like “sustainable,” could be accused of greenwashing. On the other hand, if this is not included in brands communication customers could be lost as the fashion industry relies on it as a search term.
Let’s discuss a few of these terms:
CO2 emissions
With the pandemic and the repeated lockdowns around the world air quality was positively impacted and was news headlines in many different media outlets around the world.
This happened due to many factors but maybe the most impactful was the interruption of industrial activity and huge freeze in commuting which of course implies the reduction in burning fossil fuels and consequently the CO2 emission into the atmosphere which fell to levels that had not been seen in a long time (however, as soon as the lockdowns ended, pollution returned to previous levels).
Facts like this bring more light to the public debate about how our production, processing and transportation generate air pollution.
Take a look at transportation, for example: products are transported to factories, production takes place, products go to inventories and are delivered to consumers in need.
If we do not consider that exchanges and returns occur for many avoidable reasons, and if we keep disregarding the waste generated by these returns, we are creating a heavy “environmental debt”.
It may take time to create a cleaner production and logistical process for industries, however, we can already bring amazing changes in the way that e-commerce managers and teams optimize the use of their materials and products they sell as well as market positioning.
Clothing items are short-lived, even when in good condition
When fast-fashion boomed, it meant a huge simplification in production processes, a tremendous cost reduction and availability of products in many more markets.
However, it has also brought negative environmental consequences such as the acceleration of new collections and demanding constant new products which makes previous collections out of date in a very short period of time, pressing shoppers to update their closet by exploiting consumer triggers via aggressive advertising campaigns.
Recycling could be an excellent answer for many of these pieces of clothing that end up in rubbish dumps after very few uses. But unfortunately most items are made of materials, such as Polyester, Cotton, Viscose, Wool etc, and they are discarded without separation making recycling expensive and almost impossible to perform.
As the One Army Foundation argues, even sales of clothing that has been donated in the second hand stores has its challenges. These stores usually receive more clothes than they can handle which means they will only sell the best items, discardarding or sending to developing countries like India and Ghana the rest, where they are sold in markets or donated (more plastic bags in sight).
Sustainability in production and labor relations
Another very important issue when discussing sustainability in the fashion industry is the relationships between labor and the production process. The fashion industry has suffered many accusations of abusive labor relations and human rights disrespect. These accusations must be addressed urgently if the mindset behind fast fashion and low margins are to be reversed.
Most of these complaints involve suppliers of major brands, so each brand must take control of it´s supplier policies implementing stronger and more efficient quality control processes that include sustainability and labour law guidelines, as it is a shared responsibility to encourage the entire production chain to be more just towards their workers.
There are several initiatives promoting this debate, such as quality stamps that authenticate suppliers that have incorporated labour laws that respect human rights. This gives retailers and brands visibility in regards to labour policy and also the capacity to demand accountability in regards to the suppliers they choose.
Institutional communication
Sustainability is also an increasingly strong argument for brand communication and market positioning, largely due to a change in consumer values, as we have already discussed.
This is a very positive shift of consumer mindset, as it positions environmental responsibility as a type of currency where consumers will pay more for items/brands that show care with the environment.
According to IBM´s survey:
“Almost six out of 10 consumers surveyed are willing to change their buying habits to reduce their environmental impact. Almost eight out of 10 respondents indicate that sustainability is important to them.
And for those who say it is extremely important, more than 70% would pay 35% more, on average, for brands that are sustainable and environmentally responsible. ”
We can see variations in these numbers from country to country, but changes in collective behavior are already a reality. The decision your e-commerce needs to make is whether it will benefit from it now, while it is still in early stages, or whether it will wait until it becomes a legal requirement.
Avoiding packaging waste in fashion e-commerce
An issue which has an enormous impact on the environment is, of course, the packaging used to ship goods in any ecommerce and especially in the Fashion Industry. The quantity of waste created by packaging with each exchange or return is tremendous and growing and a big percentage of it can be easily avoidable by implementing simple solutions.
What characterizes a sustainable e-commerce?
As far as we can see, we don’t need to include a Greenpeace banner on our e-commerce to implement sustainable actions.
There are different strategies that can be adopted within any ecommerce operation that can generate considerable improvements that will positively impact carbon footprint.
One of these strategies, for example, is the reduction in exchanges and returns brought by the implementation of a Virtual Fitting Room in e-commerces, since customers who buy without size and fit doubts are less likely to return the garment, avoiding costs with reverse logistics as well as additional packaging and many times also garment loss as garments are damaged.
Environmental groups are more and more involved with the development of appropriate certifications that confirm environmental compliance. For example, the Business of Fashion consultancy, created a proprietary methodology to assess the sustainability practices of fashion companies, and applied this methodology to 15 of the largest companies in the fashion market.
These companies did not obtain very positive classifications but the idea of this methodology is to create measurable parameters that are less subjective.
The importance of creating these methodologies that give credibility to “green issues” and implement measurable kpi´s is crucial at this stage, promoting the fashion industry to move into a new phase. We will definitely see many more proposals for similar types of methodologies being created by environmental related groups.
This is a trend that cannot be ignored, and brands need to adapt to these new consumer habits and implement sustainability transparency.
And you, what actions would/should you take to transform your brand into a more sustainable one?
