As per a report by the nonprofit financial organization Planet Tracker in June 2022, only 11 percent of brands published their raw materials suppliers in 2022. The overall brand traceability score was just 19 percent in 2021. Planet Tracker worked with Segura, a digital supply chain company, to evaluate the financial risks and opportunities inherent in supply chain traceability. Common opportunities to curb impact include reducing air freight, consolidating suppliers and reducing production.
Titled “Lifting the Rug, the report outlines fashion’s business case for supply chain traceability against a number of environmental and human rights malpractices. The nonprofit also recently published a report evaluating the financial risks of business-as-usual in big plastics, especially relevant given incoming legislation.
In Planet Tracker’s analysis of 52 publicly listed retail companies, 19 companies or 37 per cent published a supplier list, and of those only 11 companies or 21 per cent had published any suppliers beyond Tier I. Supply chain traceability approaches from Patagonia, LVMH, etc were documented in the report.
The report showcases the degree to which the top apparel producers are disclosing their supply chains.
According to the report, Apparel companies can improve net profit on average by 3 percent to 7 percent, based off of Segura’s retail ROI calculations and Planet Tracker’s 14,000-strong textile data points. By introducing traceability industry-wide, the researchers conclude that the industry could introduce a retail net profit between $3 to $8 billion.
As for funding, Planet Tracker said apparel companies invested less than $200 million in supply chain traceability technology in the last 10 years. This is significantly less compared to the secondhand clothing market, which has seen $3.5 billion of public and private capital raised since 2015.
