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In 2015, the United Nations outlined a bold vision for a better world. Dubbed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the framework included 17 goals for progress, from eradicating poverty to building more sustainable cities. Despite its ambition, the framework is heading for failure, says UN secretary general António Guterres, who issued a wake-up call to world leaders at the SDG Summit in New York this week.
Only 15 per cent of the 140 targets that sit within the 17 top-line goals have been improved since they were set, while more than a third have either stagnated or regressed. According to the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report, this is partly due to the intersecting crises of Covid-19, ongoing global conflicts, the cost-of-living and debt crises and climate change-related disasters wiping out several years of progress. But, even before that, the world was not changing enough.
Fashion could learn a lot from the closure of coal mines when it comes to coupling social and environmental impact, experts say. But the process of a just transition is complex, and requires a radical mindset shift many brands are reluctant to embrace.
“The SDGs were not a promise we made to each other as diplomats from the comfort of this chamber, it was always a promise to people,” said Guterres in a rousing opening statement. “People crushed under the grinding wheels of poverty. People starving in a world of plenty. Children denied a seat in a classroom. Families fleeing conflict, seeking a better life. Parents watching helplessly as their children die of preventable diseases. People losing hope because they can’t find a job or a safety net when they need it. Entire communities literally on devastation’s doorstep because of changing climates.
“So the SDGs aren’t just a list of goals; they carry the hopes, dreams, rights and expectations of people everywhere. And they provide the surest path to living up to our obligations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
For the fashion industry, slow progress on the SDGs means a more difficult environment in which to enact its own development goals. But the industry is also lagging on its contributions to the SDGs, stuck in a cycle of ignorance, lack of investment and inequality. Now, experts say the industry needs to act faster and more fiercely than ever before.
Fashion as a prism for progress on the SDGs
Part of the problem is that the SDGs are lofty goals, and many fashion industry players still don’t understand their role in the change, says Anna Bryher, policy lead at UK non-profit Labour Behind the Label. While there are plenty of small-scale solutions and suggestions, there is no comprehensive blueprint for how the industry moves from current reality to idealistic goals. And even if such a blueprint did exist, the industry wouldn’t be able to achieve it alone, because the goals require global collaboration, across governments and industries.
“The problems are so multi-layered in fashion, and we need many actors to change at the same time,” she explains. “Because it’s so difficult, people back away. So the UN has an important role in galvanising collective action.” That starts with raising awareness of the ways fashion intersects with each SDG.
Eradicating poverty (goal one) and hunger (goal two) seem near impossible in an industry where so many are denied minimum wages, let alone living wages. Likewise, good health and wellbeing (goal three) is unlikely for many factory workers, whose roles often bring a higher risk of lung disease, cancer and birth defects, as well as breathing problems from poor ventilation and musculoskeletal hazards from repetitive motion tasks. That is without considering structural hazards and fires, which have been top of mind for fashion activists since the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013.
These conditions also prevent many children of garment workers from accessing quality education (goal four), and education around these realities remains low in the Global North, where greenwashing is rife and transparency is limited.
On gender equality (goal five), the majority of garment workers globally are women, but many lack opportunities for career advancement and face sexual harassment or assault and physical or psychological abuse, according to unions and workers’ rights activists.
To achieve clean water and sanitation (goal six), fashion will need to address water pollution and overuse, especially at the farm level for natural fibres like cotton and cashmere, and in the manufacturing process, from thermal heating to dyes and finishing chemicals.
Transitions to affordable and clean energy (goal seven) — which include reducing energy consumption and decarbonising supply chains — have been slow, with experts arguing they re all but doomed to fail if brands do not step up to fund accelerated change. Meanwhile, fashion remains reliant on fossil fuels for synthetic fibres, which make up around 69 per cent of new fibres each year, and have been linked to Russian oil since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
The cost-of-living crisis has only worsened the situation for fashion workers, undermining the bid for decent work and economic growth (goal eight). And the roots of this in the intersecting global crises fashion is currently navigating — including the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit and inflation — shows its failure to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation (goal nine).
Inequalities have not been reduced (goal 10) as promised, but actually exacerbated by the pandemic, from the gap between global supply chain workers and fashion CEOs, to the inequalities and biases at play in more aspirational fashion roles in the Global North. There have been some efforts to create better infrastructure for sustainable practices in cities (goal 11), but challenges persist, from urban sprawl to pollution.
Responsible consumption and production (goal 12) is the most obviously applicable to fashion, but even here, the industry is failing to progress. Despite an increase in claims about circularity, many brands still refuse to change their underlying business models or address degrowth, a fundamental lever in reducing emissions.
Climate action (goal 13) has not been fast enough to prevent increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events from jeopardising supply chains, with impacts from farm to factory and beyond. From life below water (goal 14) to life on land (goal 15), fashion is stuck in pilot phase. Zooming out, ongoing conflicts from Ukraine to Afghanistan show just how far we remain from peace, justice and strong institutions (goal 16).
As for goal 17 — partnerships for the goals — the UN is calling for renewed momentum. “We can prevail if we act now and if we act together,” Guterres said at the summit.
Embedding the SDGs to accelerate progress
Some fashion brands and initiatives have registered official commitments to the SDGs. While this doesn’t require them to report on progress or even guarantee action, it can help steer decision-making and keep progress in focus. Beyond the triple bottom line of B Corp certified companies, to the post-sustainability principles of regenerative leadership, brands could embed the SDGs in their business models, and add them as key metrics in annual impact reports.
SDG-affiliated organisations are already modelling this, says Kerry Bannigan, executive director of the Fashion Impact Fund, founding executive producer of the SDG Media Zone, and founder of the UN-supported Conscious Fashion Campaign. The Fashion Impact Fund has public commitments to goals five and eight, which it hopes to improve by providing grants to fashion skills and training programmes for women to achieve decent employment and financial independence. Grant recipients include Custom Collaborative in the US, Fashion-Enter in the UK, Artisan Global in Uganda and Saheli Women in India. “Alignment with the SDGs, goal setting and integration into strategy shapes our support of female-founded non-profit fashion workforce development solutions,” says Bannigan.
Elsewhere, the Swarovski Foundation has committed to goals four and eight, explains director Jakhya Rahman-Corey. It invites grantees and partners to share feedback and case studies, as well as reporting on key indicators, such as knowledge acquisition, behavioural shifts and community engagement. The non-profit’s Creatives for Our Future programme, a collaboration with the UN Office for Partnerships, hopes to empower the next generation of creative talent to innovate across the SDGs.
“We cannot meet the SDGs alone, but more effective collaborations between charity partners and associated sectors could facilitate more impactful knowledge-sharing and innovation,” explains Rahman-Corey. “Engaged individuals can push for resources where they are needed the most.”
One of the programme’s mentors is Kenyan artist, social entrepreneur and cultural innovator Anyango Mpinga, who founded non-profit Free As A Human to advocate for the elimination of modern slavery and human trafficking, which often limits the economic empowerment of women, directly undermining goal five. This manifests as community events, educational programmes, public awareness campaigns, fundraising through merchandise, and scholarship programmes. But voluntary efforts are not enough, says Mpinga. “Accelerating progress in the fashion industry requires both voluntary actions by brands and policy-level changes across the industry to tackle deeply entrenched inequalities.” She advocates for policies that offer preferential terms to SDG-oriented businesses, mandatory unconscious bias and diversity training, and support for minority-owned and operated supply chain programmes.
The call for legislation that supports the SDGs is echoed by Dana Davis, VP of sustainability, product and business strategy at New York label Mara Hoffman. Without this, first-movers will lose out financially, disincentivising positive change, she says. As such, Mara Hoffman is supporting pending legislation including the Fashion Act and the Fabric Act. “Now is the time for legislation to be passed. Both of these pieces of legislation tie directly into the SDGs, and will help level the playing field for brands like ours.”
There needs to be enforcement and accountability, with a focus on collective action rather than incremental changes made in siloes, says Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union, which helped lead the implementation of the International Safety Accord (formerly known as the Bangladesh Accord) after Rana Plaza. “Global agreements with fashion brands are a key pillar for enhancing due diligence and cooperation with trade unions. Additionally, mandatory human rights due diligence laws like those in France and Germany, and being considered on an EU level, would accelerate progress in fashion and beyond. Nationally, there needs to be stronger laws and stronger enforcement of the laws that protect workers’ right to organise and collectively bargain.”
Throughout all of these efforts, a just transition to the SDGs must be prioritised, says Ngozi Okaro, founder of Fashion Impact Fund recipient Custom Collaborative. The non-profit, which trains people for work and trains workplaces in how to treat people equitably, has registered commitments across goals eight, nine, 11 and 12. “The marginalised communities we support — including Black and brown women, and immigrant communities — are often left behind in new economic opportunities, especially around the environment,” says Okaro. “But communities of colour should be prioritised and listened to. Their communities are generally most in harm’s way, so their solutions and concerns should be brought to the forefront.”
Underlying challenges
At the heart of the SDGs is a shift in public consciousness, prioritising different values than those society currently incentivises. This is the founding principle of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), a set of 23 skills and qualities, across five categories, developed in 2020 to complement the SDGs. They cover being (relationship to self), thinking (cognitive skills), relating (caring for others and the world), collaborating (social skills), and acting (driving change). Companies, communities and even countries — Costa Rica was the first — can commit to them.
“We will not solve any of the SDGs if we remain the same, just with some tax incentives or technical innovations added on,” says associate director Michael Wernstedt. “But that is how we treat the SDGs, which is why we’re not making progress.”
The IDGs ask existential questions, with very real-world implications. Take the ‘being’ category, for example. “Being raises the question of where an individual ends,” says Wernstedt. “If we have a narrow mind, we end at the boundary of our skin. But every day, we breathe air, eat food and drink water. We are part of a bigger ecosystem, a product of our environments and upbringings, and likewise we will impact others. If we see ourselves as part of a collective in this way, it’s much easier to create sustainable development.”
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