Paperwork over Practice: The Paradox of Fast-Fashion Morality

Few things illustrate the absurdities of modern ESG metrics quite like the latest report card on fashion ethics. When ultra-fast fashion titan Shein outperforms established domestic brands on moral supply chain standards, one must ask whether the industry is measuring actual ethical behavior or merely a company's willingness to complete non-governmental surveys.

According to the eleventh ethical fashion report by Baptist World Aid, which evaluated 138 companies representing 543 brands, Shein secured a score of 28 out of 100. While modest, this figure comfortably eclipsed prominent Australian names. Myer managed a score of 20, surf group Boardriders received three, activewear brand 2XU received two, and swimwear label Seafolly scraped by with a solitary point. Domestic retailers like Ghanda and Windsor Smith received a score of zero, matching Chinese e-commerce platform Temu.

The secret to Shein’s relative triumph lies not in a revolutionary overhaul of its production model, but in administrative compliance. Baptist World Aid generated scores using over 15,000 data points across five supply chain metrics, assessing everything from raw material sourcing to factory audits and living wages. Crucially, 58 percent of surveyed companies were judged strictly on publicly available information after failing to respond to a 13-month outreach campaign involving approximately 16 email inquiries. Shein chose to supply additional internal data, whereas many local retailers simply ignored the questionnaire.

This dynamic reveals the central flaw in voluntary corporate reporting frameworks. Established local brands facing tight margins frequently lack the dedicated public relations and compliance departments needed to manage months of external inquiries. Meanwhile, global fast-fashion behemoths possess ample administrative machinery to submit policies and factory audit papers. As brand owners have previously argued, methodologies prioritizing paperwork and formal living wage metrics often end up perversely favoring mass-volume international operators over smaller players who simply refuse to participate in the documentation exercise.

Beyond the paperwork derby, the underlying reality across the fashion market remains stark. Only 13 percent of companies surveyed could prove that any workers in their supply chain were paid a living wage. The overall average score stalled at 31.5 out of 100, representing a negligible gain of 0.2 percentage points since 2024. Australian consumers continue to discard more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing into landfills each year, maintaining the country's position as the world's highest per-capita consumer of textiles. Exceptional performers do exist—underwear brand Mighty Good Basics achieved an impressive score of 94—but researchers explicitly categorized the company as an isolated outlier.

In response to its low rating, Temu maintained that all its sellers had to comply with a third-party code of conduct, which prohibits forced, penal or child labour and requires compliance with applicable laws on wages and working hours, as well as safe working conditions. Yet across the sector, corporate commitments rarely translate into tangible changes for factory line workers. When ethical standing becomes synonymous with answering emails and drafting corporate policies, the resulting rankings say far more about corporate bureaucracy than the realities on the factory floor.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com