The growing responsibility of ethical fashion platforms

In recent years, sustainable fashion has clearly boomed, with brands exploring circular business models, innovative planet-friendly materials, rental and resale to respond to the growing demand coming from environmentally conscious customers. With COVID-19, people have re-evaluated their shopping habits and the need to follow the latest trends in favour of buying less but better. According to a McKinsey survey conducted in July 2020, more than 60% of surveyed consumers have reported spending less on fashion during the crisis and 63% consider a brand’s promotion of sustainability to be an important purchasing factor as a result. It’s the younger generation especially who has been open to experiment with smaller and lesser-known brands. And these trends are expected to continue as restrictions are being lifted in some parts of the world.

If their sentiments are genuine, customers are, for the most part, slow at changing their behaviours and turning their intentions into actions. While the ethical fashion market is expected to grow to $9.81 billion in 2025 according to The Business Research Company, obstacles such as price, availability and access to information are still standing in the way of consumers to actually take the leap. Ethical rating platforms such as Good on You or Compare Ethics are already listing fashion labels from around the world, disclosing important information about their supply chains and giving customers easy-to-understand scores to shop more consciously. Now, a growing number of online ethical marketplaces are making it even easier and quicker for customers to discover and buy from sustainable brands in one single place.