BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FASHION BUSINESS
A company that has strong sustainable values holds a stronger brand identity. By building a sustainable business, you will attract employees with similar visions of positive environmental impact along with a loyal consumer base. So it is important to engage with your stakeholders. Are your suppliers and employees clear of the sustainability of your brand? Do you communicate your sustainable story to your customers and buyers? Have you thought of running activities that include and benefit the wider community?
REPORTING TO STAKEHOLDERS
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the conventional name for the commitments by a business to behave ethically and to contribute positively to society and to the environment. A CSR team is responsible for implementing strategies and communicating them to stakeholders. Over time, the role of CSR has been evolving from a periphery department to becoming more integrated into all business aspects and CSR now often sits at the very core of businesses as CEOs switch on to the growing importance of action in this area. Along the way, the name of this function has also changed and it is more often now known simply as a sustainability team.
However large your business, reporting is a key part of CSR or sustainability. And now more than ever, as the pace of information flow is accelerated and customers demand transparency of the brands they buy, it’s important to show accountability for your business’ impacts to your stakeholders. Your sustainability targets come into play here as a key measurement of how you are doing on your journey.
As a result of the changing landscape, reporting is shifting to be more fluid and is becoming a major tool for fashion brands to communicate their sustainable commitments and developments with customers, employees and the wider community. Reporting is moving away from the printed, more formal annual reporting alongside finance information. Reporting now includes more regularly updated, integrated reporting on a brand’s website, or newsletters, videos and social media. There are many ways to communicate the steps you are making big and small.
Some fashion conglomerates are also now dedicating resources to measuring their brands’ impacts more deeply to allocate a financial ‘true cost’ value in order to demonstrate to stakeholders the broader impacts of how their business affects the environment and society.
It’s important to engage your customers in your sustainability initiatives as they will be your biggest advocates. Share your sustainability efforts with your customers as part of your marketing strategy and build trust by connecting with their values and motivations.
You will need to adopt a proactive and transparent strategy to let your customers know about the positive ways your business has engaged in sustainable practices. But also be honest about the challenges that you are still working to improve.
Engaging your customers can be done in many ways. You could go for more subtle informative messaging, for example on hangtags or as part of the product’s information your website. Or you could go bolder with communications that are shared through advertising or on social media, which ,drives conversation among your consumer base. Whichever messaging route you choose, remember that unclear, misleading or false information - often described as green-washing - can result in customers losing confidence in a brand and their environmental claims and labels. So it’s essential that your marketing team - even if this is you putting on a different hat! - has a clear understanding of both the issues and your brand’s commitments before they start communicating externally.
As well as communicating with your customers, holding shared values within your organisation is also very important. Your team is the backbone of your business, so engaging them on the journey to sustainable business can have multiple benefits. Communicate your core values to your whole company, even your junior employees, and ask for their ideas and inputs for improvements. Research shows that when employee and company values match, employee loyalty, creativity, quality and accuracy of communication and integrity of decision-making increase!4 Allocating sustainability champions to help you address and succeed in the major challenges will further drive their engagement. Why not also incentivise your employees by adding sustainability KPIs to your staff targets?
Engaging with the wider community is also a useful step that can lead to long-term gains. Working with people beyond your customers and employees will help you build brand reputation and spread the message about your work. You may also discover ways in which the wider community can help you achieve your sustainability targets. You might want to engage people in the local community where your company operates, for example your suppliers, local schools, charities and NGOs or even your local authority. And don’t forget the media too!