Green Fashion: The Scorecard

Climate Counts has issued its second annual Climate Counts Company Scorecard, which ranks major companies in several sectors (Apparel/Accessories, Electronics, Household Products and six others) according to their self-reported activities to addressing climate change. The entire report (pdf format) is an interesting read, since it relates the challenges and opportunities of going green on a corporate scale. They also offer a printable pocket guide (also pdf format) you can take shopping with you. The annual report's major drawback is that they limit their analysis to only the most popular and largest companies. So Nike (good) makes the report, as does Levi Strauss (one of the most improved) and Jones Apparel Group (in the basement with a big fat goose egg), but not Patagonia or American Apparel. One very handy feature -- the individual report page for each company not only explains in detail the reasons for their score, but offers an email link so you can let them know that sustainable fashion is important to you. As a longtime Liz Claiborne customer, I will certainly let them know that I think it's great that they are making an effort to reduce their impact on global warming, but suggest that customers would like more self-reporting and transparency about their pro-environment activities.

As for Jones Apparel group, who make some of my favorites brands, tsk, tsk! They earned a score of zero, indicating no activity in this area at all; someone at Jones needs to wake up!