An Earth Day 2022 Statement from the Industry

The American Apparel & Footwear Association has joined forces with other leading organizations to unify the fashion industry’s efforts in accelerating transformative change to address the climate crisis. 

The fashion industry has engaged in and remains fully committed to enhancing sustainability and social responsibility within the apparel, accessories, and footwear industry’s supply chains. The thousands of brands and organizations we represent are committed to ESG and working pre-competitively to achieve the highest ethical and responsible standards across our global supply chain and production practices. We continue to transform our industry from the inside out to ensure we are meeting our climate targets and sustainability and governance goals in a responsible and productive manner. 

Fashion brands and retailers have committed to advancing environmental, social, and governance goals over the past several years. Through their efforts, the companies have repeatedly demonstrated a shared commitment to working together to further responsible business practices and meet increasingly ambitious ESG targets.

To help the industry continue to build on its ESG progress and succeed in reaching 2030 and 2050 climate action and decarbonization targets, we will continue to facilitate policy and innovation conversations, in alignment with the UN Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action’s guidelines. Additionally, we will conduct and share research from diverse perspectives of fashion stakeholders, businesses of varied scales, price points, and specializations to identify gaps and opportunities for reducing barriers to progress.

The industry shares the interest of advancing policies that protect the planet – and its people. The integration of the industry’s holistic perspective and voice at the policy-making table is imperative to ensure such approaches can be implemented; are in alignment with global efforts; have appropriate, plausible, and transparent jurisdiction, use clear definitions that encapsulate the diversity of the industry, and, most importantly, are effective in moving us towards achieving our shared goals.

Open dialogue and broad collaboration are crucial to this net-zero transition. We will continue to engage stakeholders across the American fashion ecosystem, including brands, retailers, producers, worker rights’ groups, NGOs, academia, and global peer alliances to align, support, and guide these efforts.

While we are not alone in this effort, our industry must play a leading role in addressing the climate crisis. By uniting thousands of fashion brands and retailers around a common ambition, we are committed to advancing responsible business and meeting our environmental, social, and governance goals.