Chapter 1 — full chapter
1.3 Transparency and Traceability
A fundamental prerequisite for credible sustainability communication is a robust, data-driven foundation. In an era of heightened public skepticism and regulatory enforcement, external marketing messages cannot stand in isolation from internal operational reality. Transparency and traceability serve as the twin pillars that enable companies to substantiate environmental and social performance, navigate legal requirements, and restore consumer trust.
Fashion supply chains are commonly described in tiers. Tier 1 covers final manufacturing, such as cutting, sewing and garment assembly. Tier 2 covers material processing, such as spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing and finishing. Tiers 3 and 4 cover raw material processing and production, such as fibre processing, farms, forests and polymer plants.
Defining traceability and transparency
While often used interchangeably, transparency and traceability represent distinct operational stages in a brand’s sustainability journey:
- Traceability is the internal operational mechanism. Put simply, traceability entails having full knowledge of where and how every single part of a garment is produced across the global value chain. This requires full supply-chain visibility that extends far beyond Tier 1 cut-and-sew assembly facilities to track relevant materials, components, processing stages and facilities according to the traceability objective and scope. Traceability must be achieved in addition to thorough social due diligence regarding the working conditions, wages, and human rights of the people who make those clothes at every tier.
- Transparency is the proactive external disclosure of relevant and substantiated information. Transparency transforms internal data into an accountability tool, giving citizens the information necessary to make truly informed choices and hold decision-makers accountable for their operational footprint.
Transparency as an internal enabler and external foundation
As highlighted in Global Fashion Agenda's Fashion CEO Agenda, transparency serves first as an internal enabler for corporate transformation. Brands cannot manage, mitigate, or transform what they cannot see. Mapping complex, global supply chains allows internal sourcing, product development, and management teams to identify environmental hotspots, address human rights risks, and streamline production efficiencies.
Once internal visibility is established, transparency becomes the foundation for credible external communication. When a brand communicates its environmental or social progress, that messaging must be anchored in accurate, traceable data to prevent overclaiming, greenwashing, or misleading marketing. External communication that lacks a traceable data foundation risks misleading citizens and exposing the organization to severe regulatory penalties and public reputational damage.
Navigating supply chain complexity and the data gap
Textile supply chains are notoriously long, fragmented, and geographically dispersed, often spanning multiple countries and specialized tiers. However, industry experts caution that supply-chain complexity cannot be used as an excuse for continued opacity. As sustainable fashion advocate Kim van der Weerd notes, long supply chains remain unmapped largely because traditional business models minimized financial risk by offloading oversight responsibilities onto suppliers.
Data from Fashion Revolution's Fashion Transparency Index (FTI) illustrates the steep "disclosure drop-off" that occurs deeper in the supply chain:
- Tier 1 (Final manufacturing): 52% of major fashion brands publicly disclose their primary cut-and-sew factory lists.
- Tier 2 (Processing facilities): Disclosure drops to 36% for processing facilities such as wet processing, spinning mills, dye-houses, and tanneries.
- Tier 3 & 4 (Raw material level): Disclosure plummets to just 12% for raw material suppliers (e.g., cotton farms, forestry, synthetic polymer plants).
- Living wages: An overwhelming 99% of major brands fail to disclose the number of workers in their supply chain who earn a living wage.
Restoring public trust and adapting to policy
Public demand for transparent supply-chain data is exceptionally high. Yet, because many brands co-opt vague sustainability language without sharing objective, auditable data, consumers report an overall trust deficit, often stating that they do not always trust brand sustainability claims.
Policy is rapidly stepping in to enforce transparency across the market. Policy is also moving towards greater transparency. Under the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the Digital Product Passport (DPP) will require products to carry digitally accessible information on aspects such as material composition, circularity and environmental performance. The specific information requirements for textiles will be set out in a forthcoming delegated act. See the FashionKIC module on DPP for more detail. To build credible, future-proof communications, brands must embrace open data standards (such as publishing supplier lists via the Open Supply Hub in machine-readable formats). By treating traceability as a strategic operational imperative, communication professionals can bridge the trust deficit, eliminate greenwashing risks, and provide the objective evidence required for a genuinely sustainable fashion system.