SDA Bocconi and Enel X release 2022 Monitor for Circular Fashion

Although “sustainable fashion” is an established concept, a lot of work still needs to be done in the fashion industry, which accounts for 10% of greenhouse gases (GHG) globally as the result of long supply chains and energy-intensive production processes. Therefore the Monitor for Circular Fashion Research 2022 managed by SDA Bocconi decided to focus on two main research questions:

• How to make a good sustainability claim? 
• What are the key eco-design principles and how can they be implemented? 

How can brands avoid falling into the greenwashing trap? The Monitor for Circular Fashion 2022 suggests five ways:

1. Be clear and understandable
2. Don’t mislead consumers with a false impression on the sustainability aspects of a product, a process or an organization
3. Be relevant to the  sustainability aspects of the product, process or business
4. Be reliable, supported by evidence
5. Claims can also go beyond simply informing the consumers on product sustainability aspects, by involving them in acting more sustainably during consumption and post consumption phases. 

Secondly, the Monitor looked at the key principles of eco-design and how they should be implemented. To achieve this, SDA Bocconi research team adopted the European Commission's proposed "Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation” and identified 10 key principles to be applied and implemented when designing a circular fashion product, gathering them into three macro-categories: life cycle (durability, reusability, reparability, recyclability), health and safety (use of chemicals, release of microfibers) and sustainable inputs (use of renewable, recyclable or recycled inputs, efficient use of resources).

These principles were applied to eight pilot projects which also tested some selected industry-specific Key Performance Indicators, identified by SDA Bocconi research team with the support of the partner companies of the Monitor for Circular Fashion and presented by SDA Bocconi.

 

To see the results, download the Monitor for Circular Fashion Report 2022.

The main objective of the Monitor for Circular Fashion is to identify tailored KPIs that fashion companies can adopt to assess their progress in sustainability, circularity, value chain traceability and transparency performance. In 2021, SDA Bocconi identified 40+ fashion industry-specific KPIs, based on primary and secondary data, gathered by its research team through desk research, an online survey and semi-structured interviews. 

 

Enel X had a hands-on role in helping the Monitor’s authors, the SDA Sustainability Lab research team, draft the section on Corporate and Energy KPIs.