Thirty of the industry’s largest listed companies are expected to fall short of social and environmental targets mentioned in the Paris climate agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals, says a Business of Fashion report. The industry is wildly underperforming despite few front runners taking small steps to achieve environmental sustainability, says Sarah Kent, Chief Sustainability Correspondent, The Business of Fashion.

The second annual report by the online publication ‘Business of Fashion Sustainable Index 2022’, analyzed publicly-disclosed information of companies in three categories - luxury, sportswear and high street fashion. Puma emerges a leader in the report with a score of 49 points out of 100, followed by Kering, which continued to lead rankings of luxury players. It is followed by new additions to the list Levi Strauss, H&M Group and Burberry.

Kent adds, the industry is not seeing the big transformational leaps that we really do need to see over the next 8 years, adds Kent. This would lead to companies losing their cultural relevance and destroying long-term value, claims the report. The companies scored highest points for progress in reducing emissions amongst the six topics including workers’ rights and materials. Dragging down the overall scores was the enlarged scope of this year's report, which doubled the number of companies from last year's 15.