Collaboration v. Competition: Fashion’s Sustainability Push

Fashion industry occupants are being encouraged to join forces to accelerate their climate-centric efforts – and many are doing just that. In December, for instance, ASOS, Selfridges Group, and Boozt announced that they signed on to Fashion Leap For Climate, the climate education program launched by About You, Yoox Net-a-Porter, and Zalando. Before that, Gap Inc., H&M Group, and Mango were among the companies that joined the Future Supplier Initiative, which aims to “accelerate the transition to net zero by sharing the financial risks and responsibilities of transitioning to renewable energy sources in Tier 1 and 2 factories.”

Most recently, Global Fashion Agenda and Deloitte Global announced a collaboration in which they have established “a strategic Knowledge Collaboration – to help set the global agenda on sustainability in fashion, raise awareness, educate, convene, and foster innovation … and accelerate action to transform the industry for the better and create an environment for change.”

The Challenges with Collaboration

These types of collaborative efforts are being lauded as an important step towards advancing sustainability initiatives and achieving important climate targets, with collaboration offering several advantages, including “pooling resources, knowledge and expertise to develop scalable solutions to combating climate change, fostering innovation and spreading risks across stakeholders,” per Deloitte. Yet, these types of alliances can also lead to scrutiny from a regulatory perspective.

“When businesses work together – for whatever reason – they run the risk of breaching the competition laws” by way of anti-competitive practices that can hurt consumers, like cartel behavior and misuse of market power.”

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