The complexity of the supply chain

When we talk about the production chain, we are referring to all the steps from the raw material to the finished garment.

Today, the fashion supply chain is a dense chain of suppliers and sub-suppliers scattered from one side of the planet to the other; it is difficult to know them and monitor them. Globalization played a big role in this, allowing production to be optimized by distributing it to very different geographical areas. Without this dislocation, it would be impossible to bring dozens of collections a year to the shops at the cheap prices of fast fashion. We know that this production model has a huge impact, environmentally and socially, and this complexity and opacity of the value chain makes it difficult to identify where such impacts occur and to devise necessary targeted actions.

Although there is no single model of a fashion supply chain, since its products are so different from each other and therefore follow different processes, simplifying a lot we could have a similar structure, where every Tier is a different level:

https://www.uts.edu.au/news/business-law/what-covid-19-means-people-making-your-clothes

-Tier 0: design, logistics, marketing

-Tier 1: final product making

-Tier 2: fabric manufacturing

-Tier 3: raw material processing

-Tier 4: raw material production, e.g. cotton cultivation

On average, in Tier 1 alone, each structured brand has a network of between 300 and 3000 suppliers, each of which in turn has between 50 and 200 others.[1]

The landscape with which the brands are confronted is therefore extremely complex and made up of very different actors and sustainability issues: a company that deals with cotton cultivation has completely different environmental issues than a company that deals with cutting and tailoring, for example.

Moreover, being millions of kilometers apart, these companies are usually subject to different regulations and for a single brand it is difficult to follow all of them and make sure they are respected.

[1] Francesca Rulli,  Fashionisti Consapevoli: vademecum della moda sostenibile