Supply Chain Transparency

Supply chain transparency is measured directly now — Fashion Revolution has published an annual Fashion Transparency Index since 2017, scoring roughly 250 major apparel brands from 0 to 100% based on how much they publish about suppliers, wages, and environmental policies, and the average brand score has hovered in the low-to-mid twenties for most of the index's history. That gap between what brands know internally and what they publish is exactly what this term addresses.

This is the practical answer to "who made my shirt" — the #WhoMadeMyClothes campaign that Fashion Revolution built its whole index around traces directly back to the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in April 2013, which killed 1,134 garment workers and exposed how little most brands actually disclosed about their own supply chains. Buyers asking us for factory names and audit dates are asking the same question that tragedy made unavoidable.

Push past a brand's overall percentage score and ask for the specific supplier list for the blank you're ordering — a strong index score doesn't guarantee every product line is covered with the same level of disclosure.

The mistake is assuming a certification logo already delivers full supply chain transparency. It doesn't automatically — GOTS or Fair Trade Certified verify that specific standards were met, but neither one obligates the brand to publish its factory list or wage data publicly; a brand can be fully certified and still score poorly on disclosure because certification and transparency are two different commitments.