Fashion with Integrity (FWI) is our strategy for sustainability and corporate responsibility at ASOS. First launched in 2010, our latest evolution of FWI landed in 2024. Our updated strategy reflects the latest best practice, upcoming regulations, and changes to our business model and operating context.
We recognise our responsibility for reducing our impact on the environment and protecting the people in our supply chain.
Fashion with Integrity will always be a key part of how we work at ASOS. As we make progress with our wider business strategy, we must also deliver against the principles, targets and commitments that underpin Fashion with Integrity; and continue to strengthen the existing link between sustainability, risk management, and business resilience.
José Antonio RamosCEO, ASOS
The urgency of addressing climate change and its impacts on nature and people has never been clearer. We’re witnessing the tangible effects of climate change through extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and diminishing biodiversity. These changes not only threaten the ecosystems we rely on but also pose risks to our supply chain, operations, the people who work in them, and longterm business sustainability.
We’re increasingly aware of the need to map the interfaces between ASOS and biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, and water, and deepen our understanding of the impacts and dependencies realised between these areas.
Our emissions reduction targets have been validated by the Science-based Targets initiative and are set against a 2022 base year.
This long-term target builds on our 2030 targets. In line with the SBTi Net Zero Standard, we commit to reducing our absolute emissions by 90% from our FY22 baseline, excluding the use of carbon offsets or removals until FY50, at which time we’ll neutralise the residual carbon (<10%).
We’ve set this target to ensure alignment with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree emissions pathway scenarios. To achieve net zero, we’ll engage and collaborate with industry peers to drive the necessary innovation to support the decarbonisation of our shared supply chains and ensure the fashion and apparel industry successfully transitions towards a low-carbon economy. We’ll work with our inbound and outbound logistics partners to ensure we’re working towards the same emissions trajectories.
Looking beyond our FY30 targets, our operational plans for 2030 to 2050 will require further supply chain improvements including the continued uptake of renewable energy by our suppliers and mills, and the decarbonisation of thermal processes, for example the replacement of fossil fuels by biomass or by electricity generated from renewable sources.
Our Scope 1 and 2 emissions account for <1% of our total greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce our emissions, we’re increasing our procurement of renewable electricity to cover 100% of electricity consumption across our direct operations: our offices and fulfilment centres. We’re a member of RE100, a global initiative bringing together the world's most influential businesses committed to using 100% renewable electricity in their operations.
Almost all our emissions come from Scope 3. This target requires us to work with our suppliers to identify and implement emissions reduction activities. Progress will be measured using the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM), through which suppliers report their energy sources to ASOS.
We’re continuing to map our fabric mills and fabric wet processing units further down our supply chain, adding to our existing mapping. Doing this will help us identify opportunities to drive improvements in energy usage to help meet our carbon reduction targets, for example removal of on-site use of coal and adoption of renewable energy.
Adoption of renewable energy includes the substitution of coal by biomass and the sourcing of electricity from renewable sources, either through direct generation (on-site solar panels, for example), Power Purchase Agreements, or Energy Attribution Certificates.
We’ll encourage our suppliers to move to sources of renewable electricity that better contribute to increased renewable capacity across the grid, such as on-site generation rather than through certificates, although we do accept use of these.
Achieving this reduction will also require the increased adoption of more sustainable raw materials in product manufacture. These are defined as materials with a lower environmental impact on average at raw material production stage than the conventional form of that material.
We’ve developed a circularity framework to guide our Product pillar and support our teams to implement circularity. Our circularity framework was informed by a comprehensive review of existing frameworks, including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s vision of a circular economy for fashion and the Textiles 2030 Circular Design Toolkit. Our circularity framework is split into three subcategories: Raw Materials; Design & Production; and Use & Recovery. These form the focus areas of our Product pillar.
A significant portion of a product’s environmental impacts occur in the production of the raw materials it contains. Switching to more sustainable raw materials is also core to reducing our emissions.
Our initial efforts are focused on switching our three most-used materials (by weight) – cotton, polyester, and viscose – to more sustainable alternatives. We’ll continue to explore ways to switch our less-used materials, like nylon and acrylic, to more sustainable alternatives where possible.
We define more sustainable raw materials as those with a lower environmental impact on average at raw material production stage than the conventional form of that material.
Each year, we set out our target for our use of more sustainable materials in our products over the year ahead, and report back on our progress against the previous year’s target.
We‘re committed to increasing our use of more sustainable materials year-on-year, while recognising the uncertainty around the availability of these materials in the market several years in the future.
We continue to work to increase our use of recycled materials in our packaging and to test and trial new packaging materials, for example reusable and paper mailing bags. These tests are helping us plan for potential legislative changes, such as bans on single-use plastics, or increased waste compliance fees. We’re also continually exploring ways to reduce our packaging use.
Since we started our circular design journey in 2018, we’ve worked with our partners such as Centre for Sustainable Fashion to deliver training on circular design: first to our designers, then to our product team across buying, merchandising, and garment technology. We also published our circular design guidebook for use by other designers and brands in the industry.
Now, we’re training our final stage manufacturing suppliers for our ASOS own brands on circular design. These suppliers are responsible for most final-stage product manufacture and will be key collaborators to ensure we accelerate the use of circular design across our business and the industry.
Our circular design techniques reflect industry best practice and the Textiles 2030 Circular Design Toolkit, and our denim meets the minimum mandatory requirements of The Jeans Redesign Guidelines.
Our commitment is to pilot – or launch to customers – at least one circular business model across each area of resale, rental, takeback, and repair. Through this, we hope to learn more about how we can encourage our customers to keep products in use at their highest value for as long as possible, in line with our circularity framework.
Circular business models are defined as:
Resale: including customer-to-customer and customer-to-business-to-customer resale models
Rental: whether offered directly by ASOS or by a partner
Takeback: where items are collected for reuse or recycling, whether by ASOS or a partner
Repair: including repair kits, repair models, education resources, training videos, and events or workshops
We recognise our responsibility to respect and protect the human rights of all workers in our supply chain. This means two things: first, avoiding causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts, both in our supply chain and in the communities supporting it. Second, we must address and remediate those impacts if they occur.
To help us manage our approach to human rights and ensure that we focus on projects and initiatives that address our biggest and most relevant risk areas, we commissioned a salience human rights review from an independent expert. It identified four main areas as salient human rights risks for our garment supply chain for ASOS own brands. These form the four areas of our human rights strategy: Forced Labour (Modern Slavery), Freedom of Association, Wages and benefits, and Gender empowerment.
Conducting effective due diligence is already an important part of how we do business. Our Human Rights commitment will help us to comply with upcoming due diligence legislation and other relevant regulations, while addressing the salient human rights risks in our supply chain. We’ll work with stakeholders to ensure engagement and monitoring from local to international level. As part of our due diligence, we’ll ensure that partner brands sold on our platform are committed to transparency. We’ll continue to engage all partner brands to map and share their factory lists in line with industry best practice
We know access to the fashion industry is not equal for everyone. That's why we deliver ScaleUP, an incubator programme for global-majority owned brands, in collaboration with the (Fashion) Minority Report.
We know that we can do more to improve the experience we offer under-served and under-represented customers. Our current focus in this area is launching our first ASOS Design adaptive collection, designed in collaboration with people with disabilities.
Updates from across Fashion with Integrity
