If you’ve been reading the reporting work we’ve done for Good On You, you might’ve seen the special COP29 feature we published last year on the pitiful state of most fashion brands’ actions to reduce their emissions or even talk about doing so. 

That report, authored by Sophie Benson, found most brands aren’t even disclosing any progress towards their emissions targets, let alone meeting them.

This year, the narrative from the industry’s leaders is much the same: blah, blah, blah. 

But in this week’s briefing, Amy looks at the COP30 view from fashion and spotlights the (fairly straightforward) solutions activists are calling for. 

Thanks for reading! Find the full briefing below.

Amy and JD

As COP30 climate talks wrap up in Belém, Brazil, one thing is clear: Fashion leaders keep doing what the vast majority of other world leaders are doing — emitting hot air as they drag their feet. That’s according to climate campaigners and advocates of a just fashion industry, who are getting, let’s call it, COP fatigue from the inaction. 

Yes, for the past seven years, since COP24 in Poland, the United Nation’s Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action have published letters and asked the industry to voluntarily pledge to do better. But emissions have actually “skyrocketed” since then, according to an open letter released last week by climate groups addressed to the UN Fashion Charter signatories.

Ruth MacGilp tells anxiety.eco: “This is no longer about ‘progress over perfection’ — it’s time for brands to put their hands up and say ‘we haven't done enough,’” MacGilp is fashion campaigns manager at Action Speaks Louder, one of the three signatories of the letter alongside Fashion Revolution and Stand.earth. She underscores the stakes: “This year’s COP is a wakeup call for the trillion-dollar fashion industry to stop talking, and start paying up.”

“If brands are still complaining about a lack of data or lack of consumer demand for sustainability, they are simply unserious about safeguarding the future of their business on planet Earth,” MacGlip says. “Five years from now, we need emissions to be cut in half, but the good news is that we know exactly how to do it: stop using fossil fuels.”

However, the defining theme coming out of COP30 is a continued denial of that imperative; rather, in what sounds like satire, the public relations firm that’s most reliant on fossil fuel revenue is representing COP30. The UNDP commissioned Edelman — the PR firm to oil giants including Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil — to handle this COP’s communications with a contract worth $835,000. 

Such a ludicrous decision makes a mockery of COP itself, activists point out, amidst a round of talks that should be significant. They’re being held on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, where the impact of the climate crisis and fashion’s exploitative practices are already hard-felt — particularly in deforestation for cattle-ranching to produce leather and to make way for monoculture forests in cellulosic fibre production. 

The urgency and commitments to systemic change are still sorely lacking. You can see it in the news that some world leaders haven't even shown up to this year’s talks, of weakening emissions targets, and of slow progress. Not to mention that Indigenous voices are still not being heard.