New York City’s annual textile waste is about as high as the Empire State Building. A draft law, known as the “Fashion Act”, should soon put large fashion groups in their place from an environmental and social point of view.
One of the largest fashion metropolises in the world, namely New York, wants to use a new draft law to force major fashion players to make their supply chains visible, at least to a large extent. Already in October last year, the two state politicians Alessandra Biaggi and Anna Kelles presented the “Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (S7428/A08352)”, better known as the “Fashion Act”. However, the draft law is still in its infancy.
Nevertheless, high potential is attributed to him. Biaggi himself describes the design as “historic for the USA”. There has never been a law to regulate and combat the harm caused by the fashion industry that is so comprehensive.
accountability to the environment
The new law will target fashion multinationals that do business in New York and whose global sales equate to more than $100 million. This applies to luxury parent companies such as LVHM and Prada as well as fast fashion brands such as H&M and Shein. Those who fall under this category must explicitly document at least half of their supply chain – from the procurement of raw materials to tailoring and sewing factories. Greenhouse gas emissions, for example, the energy consumption, the use of chemicals and the average wages of everyone involved in the chain must also be recorded in reports. The addressed companies have 18 months from the passing of the law to do so.
This is to ensure that fashion groups fulfill their social duty of care towards people and the environment. Various environmental accounting standards, which are defined in the “Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard” and in the “GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard”, serve as benchmarks. These standards are intended to guide companies to their goals or to help them set them. This includes purchased resources such as electricity, vehicles and company facilities as well as indirect emissions and previous activities.
The fight should also be declared against textile waste – after all, this is as high as the Empire State Building in a year, i.e. about 443 meters. To do this, corporations would also have to break down their use of materials in detail, and failure to comply would result in fines that would be calculated in relation to annual sales. These should then flow into the financing of sustainable projects in individual communities in New York. This would bring to light dimensions of the sector that have so far remained hidden.
Safe framework for workers
In addition, the draft law should also protect workers along the entire supply chain. In the draft itself, the social due diligence requirement encompasses “the process that businesses should undertake to identify, prevent and mitigate actual and potential adverse impacts in their own operations, supply chain and other business relationships.”
Specifically, incentives are to be created for their suppliers to promote the rights of employees there, for example in the form of salary increases and better contractual conditions. The efforts and actions are to be checked by means of a due diligence protocol that conforms to the guiding principles of the United Nations on business and human rights and those of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development for responsible corporate conduct.
Better, faster, stricter
In a series of partly open letters to the legislators, associations and organizations expressed their support, but also called for a tightening of obligations and a circular economy that goes beyond mere textile recycling. It is an important and courageous first step, but in order to be able to celebrate it properly, he has to go further. The bill is currently before the Senate Consumer Protection Committee and the Assembly’s Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee. Once he has passed the two committees, he is taken to the plenary for the vote.
In several European countries there are already binding due diligence laws that oblige companies – including those outside the fashion industry – to identify and report on human rights and environmental violations in their supply chains. The EU is also in the process of developing legislation that will apply across the region. In the US, California passed legislation last September that would make brand companies liable for wage violations in their supply chains. New York is now following suit. Compared to the fashion magazine WWD, Biaggi announced her hope, which is subject to the “Fashion Act”: “This draft law has the power (…) to transform the fashion industry into an industry that puts environmental and labor justice in the foreground.” Let’s hope that in the end he does.
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