EXCLUSIVE: Everlane Reports Emissions Reductions Progress, B Corp Bound
In Earth Day fashion, Everlane will release its second annual impact report on Saturday, outlining its progress on climate, materials and more.
The company said in the report that it upped its use of preferred materials to 76 percent, from 67 percent in 2021, per Textile Exchange definitions. Everlane also reduced its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, compared to a 9 percent reduction in the prior year.
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This latest stepping stone pushes the brand almost halfway to its goal of a 50 percent reduction by 2030, in alignment with the rallying cry in the latest U.N. climate report and the Paris Agreement.
“We try to make [the impact report] very clear, which has been a challenge for us even as a company that wants to learn from other leaders while making it readable and understandable to a wide variety of audiences,” said Everlane’s director of sustainability Katina Boutis, in an interview with WWD ahead of the report’s launch.
Getting a pulse point on the industry is something the brand does more frequently now.
Though Everlane drew criticism in the past by human rights watchdog Remake, the company was a standout in climate and policy engagement in the nonprofit’s latest report from 2022.
Everlane was among two companies (or 3 percent of the 58 companies assessed annually) who officially endorsed the Fabric Act, or ‘‘Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change Act” that seeks to parlay gains from SB62 for the garment industry nationwide. The other backer was Reformation. Everlane was also among three companies, alongside Burberry and H&M Group, that met all four of Remake’s climate demands including publishing their full emissions; having set and approved short-term 1.5-degrees Celsius pathway-aligned science-based targets; having set and approved ambitious long-term net-zero targets (2050 or sooner), and demonstrated reductions in total greenhouse gas emissions compared to its baseline year.
“We recognize that all of these NGOs and rating organizations are playing a key role in pushing the industry forward,” said Boutis. “We are fully engaging with Remake and many others as well, and people who are crafting policy in the states of New York, California and nationwide. We want to be part of — and a leader in — the industry transformation that needs to happen and demonstrate that in our progress.”
Everlane has provided commentary for the Federal Trade Commission’s “Green Guides,” a sort of marketer’s playbook to guard against greenwashing, (next up for vote April 24) on why sustainability speak is challenging for brands and better aided by standards.
“This has been a really challenging landscape for a lot of different people. As you know, the FTC Green Guides haven’t been updated since 2012. So much of this work has not been well-regulated,” she prefaced. “We’ve been doing a couple of things. First and foremost, we’ve built a strategy in supply chains and operations as well as communications strategies.”
Passing a 10-year milestone in the same year the brand set ambitious long-term climate goals, Boutis said Everlane’s actions are more than a symbolic gesture — but a powerful actualization of progress for a relative industry youngblood.
As the brand revealed to WWD, Everlane will achieve B Corp status in this quarter.
“The B Corp certification process is a really in-depth audit and certification scheme,” she continued. “It’s truly comprehensive and is meant to ensure that a company, particularly a for-profit company, is meeting environmental and social performance metrics and being held accountable.”
In this process, the brand has also armed up with certifications such as the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Organic Content Standard (OCS), Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) or the “alphabet soup,” in Boutis’ words, of certifications. “We have a really limited timeframe to communicate [sustainability] that doesn’t require a master’s degree or PHD to understand. At the same time, we don’t want to trivialize the issues or make light.”
Other callouts in the report included materials. Cotton headlines Everlane’s core materials at 70 percent of its material mix (of that 75 percent is certified as organic, regenerative or recycled, up from 66 percent in 2021). The majority, or 96 percent of the polyester and nylon used, are certified recycled by the Global Recycled Standard, though the materials are a much smaller fraction of its mix.
As with others in the industry, Everlane has found challenges in pushing that fully recycled goal as well as living up to its radical transparency trademark.
“This is still very much a part of the work we’re striving for,” Boutis admitted. “We find it critical to de-risk but also know who we’re working with.” Though tier one and two are fully mapped, per the report, the remaining visibility work lies in tier three, where Everlane estimated visibility in 65 percent of its extended supply chain.
For this, the brand partners with organizations such as Transparency Pledge and the Open Supply Hub to further engage in transparency and map upstream supply chain partners and practices at least twice a year.
Until then, Boutis is excited for the brand’s achievements thus far (where she will be celebrating with an Earth Day beach cleanup with nonprofit Surfrider Foundation). Reflecting on a past interview with WWD, “We’ve had so much great progress even since that point,” she said.
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