Kmart Australia and Target Australia have ranked highest on the Fashion Transparency Index at 78%, moving 22 percentage points from their 2021 rank.
The Fashion Transparency Index, under the lead of Fashion Revolution, analyses and ranks 250 of the world’s biggest fashion brands and retailers based on various factors.
The two major retailers, under the Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers, are tied with Italian brand OVS, which was ranked highest in 2021.
The five main areas of concern to the Fashion Transparency Index are Policies and Commitments, Governance, Traceability, Know, Show and Fix, and Spotlight Issues.
While Kmart Australia and Target Australia ranked high in the five areas, their most notable ranks are in Know, Show & Fix and Spotlight Issues.
Sitting at 80%, Kmart Australia and Target Australia have taken over OVS, who was the highest scoring brand in the Know Show & Fix category last year.
According to the report, the Know, Show & Fix category reviews what brands disclose about their human rights and environmental processes, how they assess suppliers, what brands do when problems are found, and how workers can file complaints.
In Spotlight Issues, Kmart Australia and Target Australia sat at 63% among a few major international brands, including Gucci which took the top spot at 69%.
The Spotlight Issues section looks at what brands disclose around various issues, such as living wages, racial and gender equality, overproduction, waste and circularity, climate and deforestation.
An overview of the final report
Despite the substantial growth by many major brands, there were 17 companies out of the 250 who scored a 0% overall rating in the Fashion Transparency Index.
From this, a total of 73 brands – nearly a third of the world’s largest brands and retailers – scored in the 0-10% range.
“It is frustrating to see brands’ continued lack of transparency on critical issues like their waste volumes, carbon and water footprints and workers being paid a living wage,” says Liv Simpliciano, Fashion Revolution’s policy and research manager.
“When there is a lack of transparency on the issue itself, we cannot reasonably understand if what is being done is robust enough to drive the impact we so urgently need.”
According to Fashion Revolution, progress on transparency in the global fashion industry is still too slow among 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers, with brands achieving an overall average score of just 24%, up 1% from last year.
The majority of brands (85%) do not disclose their annual production volumes despite calls to curb clothing waste and overproduction.
Most major brands and retailers (96%) do not publish the number of workers in their supply chain who are paid a living wage.
And only 24% of major brands disclose how they minimise the impacts of microfibres despite textiles being the largest source of microplastics in the ocean.
However, despite these results, Fashion Revolution is encouraged by increasing supply chain transparency among many major brands, primarily with first-tier manufacturers where the final stage of production occurs (cutting, sewing, finishing and packing).
“In 2016, only 5 out of 40 major brands (12.5%) disclosed their suppliers. Seven years later, 121 out of 250 major brands (48%) disclose their suppliers,” says Fashion Revolution’s co-founder and global operations director Carry Somers.
“This clearly demonstrates how the Index incentivises transparency but it also shows that brands really are listening to the millions of people around the world who keep asking them #WhoMadeMyClothes?
“Our power is in our persistence.”