Is the data debate the most important debate?

Like many conversations in sustainable fashion, the subject of debate is the data. Are the numbers used to make the claim true, or not? Is the data reliable, or not? Should we have used different data? Do we have better data? And if we don’t, is inadequate data better than no data?

For example, the New York Times allegations were made on the basis that Higg data is outdated and funded by the synthetics industry. The Norwegian Consumer Authority said that the Higg MSI data was "likely to be false and untruthful." In response to the New York Times article, Amina Razvi, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (the industry body that created the tool), wrote that incomplete data is better than brands, manufacturers and consumers “having less access to robust and credible data” and advocated for “closing the data gap.” 

The data can and should be debated. But I want to zoom out for a moment: data is just information expressed as a number.  And numbers are just values representing a quantity. In other words: the meaning of data is derived from context; it’s not intrinsic.

It’s worth referring to a quote from a 2021 report on cotton misinformation by Transformers Foundation, where co-authors Marzia Lanfranchi and Elizabeth Cline write: “Part of what pulls us towards data and statistics is that they’re closely linked to our ideas of objectivity and truth, as we tend to assume that data transcends all human relations and stands alone with no outside influences.”

Elizabeth Cline, in a podcast episode about the same report, reflects: “If you understand the complexity of agriculture, and the localism of different techniques that apply to different regions and cotton-growing fields, you understand that using a global average figure without context and applying it to every geography, it means reducing the complexity and not really pushing people to lean into that gray area...”

Sarah Mock, an agricultural journalist participating in the same conversation, went on to respond: “What is actually the point of the numbers? You know, I think we [make intuitive assumptions] about a lot of points... And I think that the [myth debunked in the Transformers Foundation report that cotton takes 20,000 liters of water per kilo of lint] again, is a great example of that.  We intuitively assume that we don't want to use water… [it’s] like this weird assumption that, like, at the core of the Earth, there's, like, a single well of water that we all draw all of our all our water from. And if something is using too much of our universal single hold of water, then that's a bad thing. But that's just not how water works, right?”

My point isn’t that numbers aren’t useful. It’s that numbers, in order to be useful, require context. By focusing on data’s credibility, we risk missing the elephant in the room: universal, aggregate, claims about a garment’s social or environmental impact, will, by definition, strip data of the context that gave it meaning in the first place. Regardless of which data we use, or how credible it is, an aggregate or universal claim is likely to be greenwashing. 

Brands and retailers could talk about context if they wanted to

So while debating the numbers themselves is certainly worthwhile, the more fundamental question is: why is it so hard for brands and retailers to communicate data with context? I’m going to speculate that many brands and retailers would answer this question by referring to their scale and complexity.  Practically, when production is done by so many actors in so many countries (and there are so many different products), context-specific claims are hard! (Some might also point to a lack of consumer interest in context, but I would venture to say that this very debate is evidence to the contrary).

Deferring to scale and complexity misses the more fundamental point: long, complex, and unwieldy supply chains are a choice, not an inherent state of play.  Most brands and retailers have chosen to be footloose (one might even say: promiscuous) because all the things that would tie them to a specific place, context, and business partner (like having lots of production staff on their payroll, building a factory, or fronting material costs) are too risky. Instead, they’ve opted to minimize financial risk for themselves by offloading it onto their supply chains. Suppliers, in turn, tend to cope with this by further offloading that risk (for example, through subcontracting, outsourcing, and short-term contracts) until, ultimately, it lands with the most vulnerable.  One result: supply chains get longer and more complex. 

The crux of this debate is not the data itself, but the fact that, on the one hand, most brands and retailers chose to give up the very knowledge they would have needed to make meaningful claims about their sustainability impact — because it was better for their books and their shareholders.  Meanwhile, on the other hand, those same brands and retailers sought to leverage their so-called “sustainability chops” as a market differentiator. These two things are fundamentally in conflict with one another. The Higg controversy is just one example of how brands and retailers have tried to square this circle. Cue the accusations of greenwashing. 

Maybe instead of debating which aggregate universal figures can be most credibly presented to the public (or advocating for better data to support different aggregate claims), we should be talking about how to reduce the breadth, depth, and complexity of fashion supply chains so that it’s possible for brands and retailers to regain their understanding of how and where their clothes are produced. 

Triggering supply chains to contract isn’t rocket science, it simply requires more equitably distributed financial risk (or, to put it differently, it requires brands and retailers to be a little less footloose – a little less promiscuous – to have a little more skin in the game). We could achieve this by advocating for prices that hinge on consistency relative to forecast. Or by putting pressure on brands to make financial commitments equal to at least 50% of projected demand for a period equal to the supply chain’s total lead time. 

This begs the existential question: should we even have supply chains at all? Is vertical integration the way to go? Maybe. But there are some good reasons to outsource — for example, expensive capital investments that would not be justified by one firm’s demand alone. Or technical expertise — whether that’s knowledge of how to make products, or knowledge of the diverse local contexts in which peoples’ livelihoods, for better or worse, now depend on the global fashion industry.

Room for imagination: Co-creating a new way to talk about impact 

I’ve been reading How the Word Really Works by Vaclav Smil, a scientist. He writes: “complete decarbonization of the economy by 2050 is now conceivable only at the cost of unthinkable global economic retreat.” While we debate data gaps at a micro level, the big picture science is abundantly clear: modern life as we know it is fundamentally dependent on fossil fuels. Reaching a dignified standard of living for all requires increasing, not decreasing, our per capita energy use. 

What if, as an industry, we made it our mission to help the public understand these realities? What if the public knew exactly how much fossil fuel was needed to produce a specific t-shirt (and again, I maintain that this is only feasible if we simplify our supply chains)? And what if, instead of leveraging this number as a market differentiator, it was used to help people understand that we must fundamentally rethink our relationship with clothing? We must buy less – and even that is not enough. And what if, maybe, just maybe, this created the public demand and understanding that we, as industry, need to make new business models a reality? Wouldn’t we all be better off?

Reimagining how we communicate to the public requires co-creating a vision for the future.  This requires recognition: when brands and retailers make big aggregate claims about how they want to change their impact, they are not asking their supply chains for tweaks around the edges, they are asking for a fundamental rethink of the way those suppliers do business and of the contexts in which those suppliers operate. Aggregate claims, universal figures, certification schemes: all these brand-driven ways of communicating about impact trivialize their supply chain’s realities. We can’t co-create a vision for the future if the entities doing the heavy lifting do not feel seen, understood, and recognized.

Instead, co-creating a vision for the future requires a different kind of conversation. I hear supplier after supplier emphasize the importance of context. Meanwhile, I hear brand after brand dismiss this point of view as impractical and unscalable. It’s as if brands are having a conversation about tennis while their supply chains are playing football. Brands and retailers would do well to listen to their supply chains, to attempt to learn the game of football, instead of dismissing it on the grounds that it is not tennis.