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Fashion Industry Lags on Climate Pledges as COP Summit Opens
As COP climate talks begin, most major fashion brands are falling short of their 2030 emissions targets, with only H&M and Kering making significant progress.
At the start of this decade, many of fashion’s largest companies, under public pressure, pledged to halve or significantly reduce their supply chain emissions by 2030. Now, as the UN’s annual COP climate summit gets underway, those near-term commitments are slipping out of reach for the majority of brands.
H&M and Kering have reduced emissions by more than a third, but most other major players remain behind the schedule they set for themselves. The industry's overall trajectory is insufficient to cap planet-warming emissions, signaling a gap between ambition and action.
The pledges were made amid growing scrutiny from investors and consumers, yet implementation has been slow. The COP summit serves as a backdrop for the industry’s lagging performance, highlighting the challenge of translating promises into measurable cuts across complex global supply chains.