Superdry

How sustainable is Superdry?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­rify on July 14^th 2020

Superdry is a Bri­tish fashion brand with a glo­bal pre­sen­ce. The brand is known for its com­bi­ning of Wes­tern design with Japa­ne­se cha­rac­ters. The com­pany publishes an annual report that inclu­des its sus­tai­na­bi­lity jour­ney, but fails to report on the num­bers that matter.

This beco­mes pain­fully clear on the topic of cli­ma­te action. The com­pany pre­tends like it’s doing great and redu­ces its emis­sions on an annual basis. But when we zoom in on the topic, it beco­mes appa­rent that the com­pany doesn’t inclu­de impor­tant ele­ments, like mate­rial sour­cing and emis­sions gene­ra­ted in its pro­duc­tion faci­li­ties. The­se figu­res gene­rally make up about at least more than half, but honestly clo­ser to 90%, of total emis­sions that fashion com­pa­nies gene­ra­te. What’s even wor­se, the­re are no sig­ni­fi­cant tar­gets for improvement.

This way of repor­ting is more rule than excep­tion in Superdry’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Mate­rial ori­gins, inclu­ding ani­mal-deri­ved mate­rials, are almost com­ple­tely unk­nown. Its supply chain map doesn’t lack inter­ac­ti­ve design, but we would’ve rather seen a sim­ple spreadsheet that actually inclu­des a fac­tory-spe­ci­fic list. The list goes on.

Neverthe­less, the com­pany has adop­ted a sus­tai­na­bi­lity jour­ney. The tar­gets Superdry has set as part of this jour­ney inclu­de 100% rene­wa­ble elec­tri­city and orga­nic cot­ton by 2040. Taking 20 years to achie­ve the­se, whe­re most com­pa­nies aim for 2030 latest, lacks serious ambi­tion and doesn’t show any pro­mi­se that this com­pany will chan­ge for the bet­ter any­ti­me soon. Orga­nic cot­ton is currently at a mere 5.4% and has an inter­me­dia­te tar­get of 10% by 2025. Labor rights are worri­so­me as well. Social audits do hap­pen, but Superdry doesn’t spe­cify who con­ducts the audits, at what fre­quency they’re per­for­med and what the results are.

Con­clu­si­vely, Superdry is a very unsus­tai­na­ble com­pany that tries to make up for it by pre­ten­ding to be more sus­tai­na­ble than it actually is. To find any rele­vant infor­ma­tion in its repor­ting is a real cho­re and even seems deli­be­ra­tely mis­lea­ding at times. The com­bi­na­tion of this repor­ting sty­le and the lack of ambi­tion, action and trans­pa­rency, doesn’t align with the public ima­ge that the com­pany broad­casts and that’s very worrisome.

When a brand doesn’t offer any infor­ma­tion, the­re are seve­ral risks you take as a con­su­mer. For exam­ple, the cli­ma­te impact of that par­ti­cu­lar brand or pro­duct can be much higher com­pa­red to its industry peers. The com­pany might use cer­tain harm­ful che­mi­cals or the­re might be ani­mals or humans har­med for the manu­fac­tu­ring of its pro­ducts. For the­se reasons, we belie­ve that you should be awa­re of how pro­ducts are pro­du­ced and how a com­pany as a who­le ope­ra­tes in regard to our pillars. When there’s no trans­pa­rency, you are at risk of sup­por­ting some or more of the pre­viously men­tio­ned harm­ful conditions.

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