Member-only story
Sustainable Fashion: Three Things Advocates of More Ethical Purchasing Practices Should Stop Saying
Critical nuances for effectively advocating change in the fashion industry.
1. “We need more accurate forecasts.”
More accurate forecasts should not be conflated with improved purchasing practices, or with shared financial risk. Brands will never have a crystal ball to see into the future. Brands will never be able to perfectly predict demand.
Sure, brands getting more accurate at forecasting would be a good thing. For example, it would seriously diminish the industry’s inventory problem and reliance on over-ordering (which, as my podcast co-host Jessie Li likes to point out, is the more apt term for overproduction). It would also reduce net losses (and increase net gains) for the whole supply chain.
But more accurate forecasts don’t fundamentally change how those net losses (and gains) are distributed in the first place. The fundamental question that advocates of better purchasing practices must consider is: when, inevitably, forecasts are wrong… who pays for it? And are those risks (and rewards) distributed equitably?