Most transparent clothing companies worldwide in 2023

The environmental and social impact of fashion companies is increasingly under scrutiny. However, not all companies make the relevant information and metrics available in order to effectively ascertain their sustainability. In a 2023 list compiled to rank the most transparent fashion companies in the world, OVS came out as the highest scoring fashion brand in terms of transparency. The Italian retailer received a transparency index score of 83 percent. This was twelve percent higher than H&M, with 71 percent.

Apparel manufacturing

One of the key pieces of information to evaluate a company’s environmental and social impact is the number of and location of their supplier factories. A common theme among fast fashion companies is that China is the country with the highest number of supplier factories. Turkey also ranked in the top three supplier countries for all of Inditex, H&M, and ASOS, three of the largest European fast fashion retailers. In financial year 2022, the Inditex Group had 404 factories in China and 201 factories in Turkey.

Companies’ attempts to be seen as more sustainable

Such rankings can be useful for consumers to assess how sustainable a company is, something which is increasingly important to consumers. However, in a 2022 survey, fashion executives named a number of challenges when it comes to improving perceptions of their company’s sustainability credentials. At the top of the list was a lack of standards to assess sustainability performance. Almost four-fifths of respondents cited this as a challenge. 28 percent of fashion executives said that the reduction of environmental impact linked with supply chains was a challenge.