Day: June 4, 2021

With the public’s increasing demand, fashion companies are making more significant efforts to improve their apparel supply chains’ transparency, i.e., mapping where the product is made and knowing suppliers’ compliance with social and environmental regulations.

Recently, VF Corporation, one of the most historical and largest US apparel corporations, released the entire supply chain of its 20 popular apparel items, such as Authentic Chino Stretch, Men’s Merino Long Sleeve Crewe, and Women’s Down Sierra Parka. VF Corporation used more than 300 factories worldwide to make these apparel items and related textile raw materials.

We conducted a statistical analysis (Multivariate analysis of variance, MANOVA) of these factories, aiming to evaluate the state of VF Corporation’s apparel supply chain transparency, including its strengths and areas that can be improved further. The findings of this study will fulfill a critical research gap and significantly enhance our understanding of the nature of today’s apparel supply chain and the opportunities and challenges to improve its transparency.

The results show that VF Corporation’s suppliers in different segments of the apparel supply chain had different transparency performances overall:

• While more than 92% of tier 1 & 2 suppliers shared their environmental or social compliance information with VF Corporation, less than 60% of VF Corporation’s tier 3 & 4 suppliers did so (note: statistically significant).
• A higher percentage of VF Corporation’s tier 2 & 3 suppliers (i.e., mills making fabrics, yarns, or accessories) received environmental compliance-related certification than tier 1 suppliers (i.e., garment factories) (note: statistically significant).
• Meanwhile, VF Corporation’s tier 1 suppliers were more active in pursuing social compliance-related certification than suppliers in other levels (note: statistically significant)
• However, no evidence suggests that whether from a developed or developing country will statistically affect a vendor’s transparency performance.

The study’s findings have several important implications:

• First, more work can be done to strengthen fashion companies’ transparency of tier 3 & 4 suppliers (i.e., textile mills making yarns and fibers). Despite the significant efforts to know their garment factories (i.e., tier 1 suppliers), fashion companies like VF Corporation still have limited knowledge about vendors upper in the supply chain. Notably, even VF Corporation doesn’t have much leverage to request environmental and social compliance-related information from these vendors. According to VF Corporation, often “Supplier was unresponsive to VF’s request for information.”
• Second, the results suggest that vendors at different supply chain levels have their respective transparency priorities. However, it is debatable whether tier 1 & 2 suppliers also need to care about environmental and sustainability-related compliance, and if tier 3 & 4 suppliers should be more transparent about their social compliance record. The growing concerns about forced labor involved in cotton production (i.e., tier 4 suppliers) make the debate even more relevant.
• Additionally, different from the public perception and previous studies, the findings call for equal treatment of suppliers from developed and developing countries when vetting their environmental and social compliance-related transparency.

Because this case study looked at VF Corporation only, future research can continue to investigate other fashion companies’ supply chain transparency based on data availability. It will also be meaningful to hear directly from tier 3 & 4 suppliers to understand their perception about improving the apparel supply chain’s transparency and related opportunities and challenges.

by Sheng Lu and Lora Merryman

Note: The study will be presented at the 2021 International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) Annual Conference in November.