Fashion has a bad reputation of being the second largest polluting industry following oil and gas. It is responsible for 10% of the world’s carbon emissions, 8% of global water usage, 20% of global wastewater, and a whooping 85% of garments made are waste. Let’s not forget the massive labour issues as well. In the past years more designers and fashion brands are looking for ways to reduce the social and environmental impact of fashion, yet fashion is the perfect example of how challenging the balance between people, planet and profit can be.
Consumers are confused with the complexity of the fashion supply chain, they are also constantly tempted by ultra fast fashion options that has severely undermined the true cost of garment production. Production cost is vulnerable to geopolitical instability, tariffs, whilst the industry continues to be criticised for its lack of progress and investments in improving its environmental impact. All of that, makes true sustainability efforts extremely challenging and we have witnessed more players leaving the industry in the past few years. Today’s case study is an exception from this “norm”, it is a sustainable basics brand that has been growing steadily, standing out from its struggling peers by being strategic about their sustainability efforts.
🎙: What was the brand’s position at the outset?
🧙🏻♀️: The brand was a German micro fashion company committed to producing affordable, everyday basics with strong sustainability principles. Like many SME fashion brands, it relied on careful raw material selection and responsible production partners. However, small production volumes resulted in high unit costs, limiting its ability to make sustainable products accessible to a wider consumer base. To address this, the brand explored shifting production to Asia in order to access manufacturers with mass-production capacity and lower costs.
🎙: What key challenges did the brand face in pursuing sustainable production?
🧙🏻♀️: In the past year many micro sustainable fashion brands have struggled to keep their momentum as customers are more aware of the sustainability context in fashion, including its massive waste issues from overproduction and environmental impact in the production cycle. Merely having better materials is no longer a competitive advantage, yet most micro sustainable fashion brands struggle to go beyond this point due to its limited influence and technical expertise with their manufacturers to obtain information about their production practices, let alone driving improvements.
What makes a fashion brand “sustainable”?
💡As a consumer it might be confusing when trying to assess whether a fashion brand is operating with people, planet and profit in balance. Here are a few things to consider:
✅Using better materials such as those with recycled content, grown with organic and regenerative farming practices, and animal contents extracted ethically (wool, leather).
✅Low emission freight for transporting products to their stores / warehouse, and to customers.
✅Working with manufacturers that lower the environmental impact on production.
i.e. reducing energy and water consumption for production, using renewable energy sources, reducing pollution from chemicals, wastewater and material waste.
✅Procurement practices that consider social audit scores helps encourage producers to improve the working conditions for their employees through customer demand.
✅Better stock planning to reduce overproduction, and proper handling of excessive stock (avoiding burning stock).
✅Clothing designed with circularity in mind – reducing components that prevent the garment from being recyclable.
🎙: What strategy did Baba Yaga implement to address these challenges?
🧙🏻♀️: Baba Yaga shifted the focus from the brand’s limited leverage to the manufacturer’s wider client ecosystem. We identified the larger clients the manufacturer was already serving and analyzed their sustainability requirements. Using this insight, the manufacturer was supported in better understanding audit expectations, analyzing existing performance data, and developing a clear sustainability transition roadmap. Baba Yaga also assisted with quarterly sustainability reporting to help the manufacturer communicate progress to its western clients.
🎙: What was the brand’s situation after working with Baba Yaga?
🧙🏻♀️: As a direct result of this project, the micro fashion brand has outcompeted many brands in the past two years with its sales doubling every year. It is healthily scaling up into a small fashion company whilst many of their competitors have gone out of business during the past 12 months because of its honest and transparent approach to sustainability.
The brand gained improved visibility and reliable data on the environmental and social impacts of its production, as well as confidence in its manufacturer’s plans for improvement. In addition, it has built a very strong relationship with its manufacturer, building up better production processes and payment terms as they slowly scale up.