The Circular Fashion Index (CFX) by Kearney analyses claims made by Europe’s 100 largest fashion brands—claims that they have moved to a more circular model and secured their sustainable future along the way. The CFX ranks these brands on eight measures based on their efforts to extend the life span of their garments. The potential impact of these circular strategies on the environment is also examined. Above all, this represents a call to action to fashion brands and to consumers to make a tangible—and credible—positive contribution to the environment. 

Producing new clothes will always carry an environmental cost. By 2030, the world’s population is expected to reach 8.5 billion people and the total output of the fashion industry will only increase. As a result, the fashion industry’s CO2 emissions are expected to swell by more than 60 percent by 2030, speeding up the climate crisis and eating up the emissions savings of numerous activities. 

Kearney's Circular Fashion Index (CFX) aims to measure the fashion brands’ efforts to extend the life cycle of their clothes. A company’s circularity performance is scored based on eight dimensions that affect the garments’ longevity. These dimensions include two perspectives: the primary market (affecting new product sales to consumers) and the secondary market (such as the second-hand market or recycling). The scores for each dimension have been weighted, giving the most weight to second-hand sales, rental services, and reuse of returned clothes as raw material. After that, these scores were combined to give an overall score between one and 10, with one representing the lowest score and 10 the highest. Brands with scores between seven and 10 were classed as leaders and those with scores between one and three were classed as laggards. 

The Index reveals that only three companies have achieved an acceptable score: Patagonia, The North Face, and Levi’s.

Unfortunately, most fashion brands are achieving abysmal scores. The median score across all fashion brands in the CFX ranking is just 1.6, while the bottom 80 brands earned a score of less than 2.5 out of 10. Only 15 percent use recycled materials to a credible extent: 46 percent do so, but only for a few selected items or a few product features, and 39 percent use no recycled materials whatsoever. Communication and promotion of circularity efforts are the easiest and fastest measures to implement, yet 47 percent of brands don’t do it at all. Only 14 companies do it credibly, and 80 percent settle for giving the minimum amount of care instructions required by law. 

Photo taken by Mel Poole on Unsplash