As is well known, the clothing and footwear industry is a major contributor to environmental degradation and global warming. This industry is also notorious for poor working conditions that often violate human rights. Many workers, especially women, young people, homeworkers and migrants, often work in conditions below international standards. Despite this, the demand for clothing and footwear continues to grow every year.

But over the last few years, consumer awareness of environmental issues at all levels has gradually changed and some steps in the direction of more sustainable production and development have been taken. In 2021, the European Union and UN member states challenged the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) to prove that traceability and transparency were possible in the clothing and footwear sector. Today – after more than 20 pilot projects and more than 100 commitments from leading brands, manufacturers, non-governmental organisations, industry associations and sustainability initiatives in almost 30 countries – UNECE has demonstrated the positive impacts of traceability of cotton, leather, synthetics, cellulose and wool products worldwide, from production to use and beyond. The results of the last three years of The Sustainability Pledge initiative were presented on 19 June in Milan during the event ‘Vision & Visibility: Scaling Transparency’, involving over 200 partners for a day of open sessions and workshops. On this occasion, UNECE also presented its ‘Community of Practice’, an initiative created with the aim of growing best practices and common sustainability solutions for the industry.

‘Sustainability efforts have demonstrated our ability to trace products from origin to the end consumer,’ UNECE Executive Secretary Tatiana Molcean stressed. ‘This represents a key step towards creating a more sustainable and responsible clothing and footwear sector. I invite all stakeholders in the sector to join our Community of Practice to contribute to the collective effort to implement transparency and Practice to contribute to the collective effort to implement transparency and traceability at scale.’

The Sustainability Pledge

The three-year monitoring report ‘The Sustainability Pledge’ provides the Community of Practice with an overview of industry best practices to improve traceability and transparency in the apparel and footwear sector. The report showed the facts and figures based on the analysis of key data on the 100 pledges submitted to UNECE, the progress and impact achieved over the past three years, including the drivers and challenges faced by industry players. The development of key performance indicators (KPIs) at company, product and material level and customised recommendations strengthen the overall report with clear guidance for the industry on how to measure traceability and transparency.

Working with over 800 experts, policy makers, companies, academics and NGOs, UNECE has developed a set of policy recommendations, guidelines and standards to enable industry players to authenticate their sustainability claims. These systems enable all actors in the sector, including consumers, to improve transparency and traceability along the entire value chain, from field to factory to shop, through a free open-source framework.

These systems have been put to the test in pilot projects, exploring the supporting role that innovation and advanced technologies, such as blockchain and DNA traceability, can play.  At each key stage of the production process, information is stored on the blockchain, creating a database for tracking information. Materials and products can be identified and located at source thanks to the information exchange standard and the open source blockchain system, which allows even small manufacturers with only a smartphone to upload their data onto the blockchain.

The Sustainability Pledge is also fuelling future legislation to regulate the garment industry. By tracking garments, it has promoted local production around the world and supported consumer choice with the required information. Now, through the creation of the Community of Practice, the aim is to accelerate traceability and transparency initiatives and share best practices to change the clothing and footwear industry at scale.

EUDR regulation rejected by the US

While UNECE presented the results of the Sustainability Pledge and the new Community of Practice, the US government, reveals the Financial Times, formally asked the European Commission to postpone the so-called ‘EUDR Anti-Deforestation Regulation’ until a later date as it was deemed ‘unworkable’. The EUDR Regulation is considered acceptable in its aims – namely, to ensure that products traded in the European Union do not originate from territories subject to deforestation (or, more generally, environmental and social degradation practices), but it is not accepted in its proposed methods, as well as in the timeframe for adoption. ‘The regulation imposes unworkable requirements,’ are the excerpts from the text published by the FT. ’These would unnecessarily restrict trade in products from low-risk countries that have responsibly managed supply chains, such as the United States. We therefore urge the Commission to delay the implementation of the regulation and the subsequent application of sanctions until the substantive challenges have been addressed’.

In Europe, too, there has been criticism of the EUDR. The Austrian government, supported by 22 EU countries (including Italy), has already called for its application to be postponed until 2025, and the tanning industry itself has repeatedly pointed out its technical limitations.

“Vision & Visibility: Scaling Transparency”, Milan last 19th June