Communicating Sustainability Information in the Fashion Industry
Purpose: The purpose of the article is to assess how fashion retail brands communicate their sustainable practices to customers. Design/Methoddology/Approach: The research is carried out through an analysis of websites belonging to 77 fashion brands owned by 50 companies randomly chosen from amongst 200 most profitable fashion companies. The research focused on the quality of sustainability information on the brands’ main pages, sub-pages, and exemplary baskets of goods presented in the stores. Placement and measurability of information were taken into consideration. Findings: The findings indicate that the majority of general information is accurate (measurable), although there are also areas where non-measurable information predominates, most notably on main pages of brands. All of the analysed brands have at least one mention of sustainable topics on their websites, although some of them communicate information in solely unmeasurable manner. Practical implications: The results show that brands are generally able to inform consumers about their practices in a measurable way, but there are still gaps in the information flow. Originality value: Future research could concentrate on determining whether there exists a causal dependence between the measurability of information and the consumers' decision-making process and purchase decisions.