Kearney’s CFX Index measures seven elements of circularity geared toward extending the lifetime of apparel and related products. The info ranks apparel retailers and types, and the outcomes are presented in a circularity report. In its third iteration, this yr’s report, titled, “The Kearney CFX 2023 report: consumers don’t know, and types don’t act,” reveals that while there’s progress on circularity, far more work must be done.

The report concludes that not only do consumers should be higher educated, but brands need to interrupt free from making short-term, fiscally driven investments in sustainability and circularity. As a substitute, the report’s authors say apparel brands must make significant investments with outcomes paced 5 to 10 years out.

It’s not going to be easy. However the Kearney evaluation spotlights why motion is desperately needed. The report’s authors note that their research “demonstrates that while solutions are there, adoption isn’t. Out of the 200 brands [analyzed], only 19 scored at the very least 5 out of 10. This is just not ok to significantly offset the industry’s environmental impact.”

[Follow this link to see the full report]

The discharge of the report arrives as retailers and types face deadlines for next-phase sustainability goals and are in search of strategies to deploy. Other than the CFX Index rating, the 19-page report includes best practices and case studies, and an appendix featuring executive Q&As from solution providers in addition to industry-leader Patagonia. Brian Ehrig, partner out of Kearney’s Latest York office, was the lead creator of the report. He said the CFX Index included additional brands this yr and focused on primary and secondary apparel markets.

“On the first markets, we assess a brand’s performance around the usage of recycled materials, availability of repair, the extent of care instructions, and the way prominently they impart circularity measures,” Ehrig told WWD. “On the secondary markets, we have a look at the breadth and depth of each secondhand/resale and rental, and the way easy they make it to enable recycling.”

When asked if he was surprised by any of the outcomes, Ehrig said with this yr’s report, his team “desired to do an excellent more comprehensive have a look at the industry. We expanded the variety of corporations we checked out from 150 to 200, and I actually thought through that process we might uncover more brands with higher rankings, however the top ten only saw one latest entrant: Madewell.:

Ehrig said the evaluation does show improvement yr over yr, “however the pace of that improvement is neither fast enough nor as extensive because it must be.”

By the use of example, on circularity, Ehrig said the “biggest progress we now have seen is in increasing use of recycled materials and providing detailed and simply accessible care instructions. But much of the eye goes to the secondhand market, which is exciting, but still very small.”

Ehrig said with sustainability, the highest three most material topics is human rights, sustainable raw materials/products, after which climate change. “Certainly one of the explanations it’s so difficult for a lot of the fashion industry to make improvements is it isn’t vertically integrated, meaning they’ve little control outside of design and physical distribution/selling, and a lot of the upstream value chain is opaque and out of their hands,” Ehrig explained. “I might argue that until fashion corporations take more responsibility for orchestrating their upstream value chain, they may proceed to have slow progress in improvement in these areas.”

So, what else wouldn’t it take to maneuver the needle on sustainability and create greater circularity? Ehrig’s response was blunt, and he said there are “so many actions needed.”

“But when I had to choose a serious theme, it might be to increase investments in solutions with outcomes 3 to five and 5 to 10 years out somewhat than the standard Long-Range Plan (LRP), which tends to focus more on 1-to-3-year financial metrics somewhat than sustainability metrics,” Ehrig said. “What are some examples of investments? Fashion corporations typically have little to no R&D budgets and are typically not set as much as take into consideration long-term business and technological change. To create circular materials, they may must make investments which might be long-term in nature, potentially with little, short-term payback.”

Ehrig quickly noted that not all of the investment is required in R&D. “For instance, they should prioritize the gathering of used goods to forestall them from going into landfills and to enable the creation of the recycled feedstocks,” he said. “Taking it a step further, in the event that they can control more of the provision to create a gentle flow of materials, then they will work directly with the recyclers, the yarn spinners, the material mills, to take end-to-end responsibility and make more of an impact.”

When asked what executive leadership at fashion apparel brands must do to enhance their CFX rating, Erhig said assessment of circularity efforts and every of the seven levers is step one. “It’s quite straightforward to do, although I wouldn’t oversimplify how difficult a few of them may be to implement,” Ehrig said. “For instance, we found that three-fourths of corporations offer limited or no repair or maintenance for his or her products. Each brand could assess what products are candidates for repair and start incremental steps to make this service available or find third parties to work with that would do it on their behalf.”

Brands also need to extend awareness of their consumers that circular options can be found. “That was one among the opposite major findings of this yr’s study and went into the title of the report:  Consumers don’t know,” Ehrig said. “I might encourage leaders to undergo each of the seven elements of the CFX and perform a self-assessment of where they wish to improve. Or simply call me and I’ll undergo it with them.”

[Follow this link to connect with Brian Ehrig]