SHEIN has released its 2023 Sustainability and Social Impact Report, which sets out its commitment to continued progress and transparency in its sustainability and social impact initiatives.
This year’s report provides updates on SHEIN’s ongoing efforts to achieve its near- and long-term targets, enhance its governance systems, and build a growing network of partners to support its sustainability and social impact journey.
Introduced in 2022, SHEIN’s evoluSHEIN roadmap is a comprehensive strategy for delivering positive impact across key social, environmental and governance issues, and making continuous improvements across its value chain.
Since then, SHEIN has steadily worked towards addressing the most critical challenges facing the company and the wider fashion industry, guided by evoluSHEIN’s three strategic pillars: Equitable Empowerment (People), Collective Resilience (Planet), and Waste-Less Innovation (Process).
Key highlights from the 2023 Sustainability and Social Impact Report include:
Equitable Empowerment (People)
- Strengthening SHEIN’s commitment to equitable empowerment: In 2023, SHEIN committed up to US$155 million over five years towards initiatives that create enduring value for stakeholders in its ecosystem, which includes:
- US$50 million for aspiring designers under the SHEIN X Designer Incubator Program – in 2023, over 2,000 global artists and designers were supported through the end-to-end process of launching products and collections on SHEIN’s global platform.
- US$70 million for its suppliers through the Supplier Community Empowerment Program (SCEP) – When the SCEP was launched in 2022, SHEIN aimed to upgrade and expand 100 facilities by 2023. SHEIN has exceeded that target, modernising 132 facilities with facility enhancements and upgrades.
- US$35 million for social impact activities supporting women, young people and the underprivileged – in 2023, over US$4 million was disbursed to support causes in Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UK and US.
- Enhancing its supply chain governance and raising standards across its supplier network:.
SHEIN saw better performance on its social compliance audits across suppliers in 2023, with the proportion of audits where suppliers received an A or B grade increasing to 29% in 2023, up from 18% in 2022.
Collective Resilience (Planet)
- Committed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050: In line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) net zero standard, we are developing a comprehensive decarbonization roadmap which will chart out a pathway to achieve our near-term target to reduce emissions by 25% by 2030, as well as a long-term net-zero by 2050.
- Decarbonizing SHEIN’s value chain: SHEIN has expanded the use of renewable energy in its own operations and supply chain, with over 90MW of solar capacity installed or being installed as at end 2023, and with partnered suppliers on resource-efficiency projects, resulting in a reduction of nearly 46,000 metric tons of emissions. In 2023, SHEIN also introduced lower-impact delivery and last-mile options, and expanded its nearshoring and onshoring strategy, with over 438,000 metric tons of carbon emissions potentially saved.
- Making progress on preferred materials: 10.9% of the fiber portfolio for SHEIN-branded products consisted of recycled polyester and forest-safe viscose, and 16.2% of packaging used for SHEIN-branded products contained at least 50% GRS-certified recycled polyethylene plastic or was made of forest-safe paper.
Waste-Less Innovation (Process)
- Taking steps to reduce its overall waste footprint: SHEIN launched industrial waste recycling projects at 14 of its facilities in 2023, with over 86% of industrial waste generated being recycled or thermal recovered, amounting to over 32,800 metric tons of industrial waste materials. Two of these facilities obtaining Zero Waste to Landfill certification, independently assured by TÜV Rheinland.
- Enhancing efficiency by conserving resources: SHEIN leveraged manufacturing technology and production processes to enhance efficiency throughout its value chain. By using Digital Thermal Transfer Printing, a zero-water-waste printing method, SHEIN is estimated to have saved over 290,000 cubic meters of water and more than 32,600 MWh of electricity in 2023. SHEIN has also been working with suppliers to increase adoption of Cool Transfer Printing, a denim printing production method which was verified by Bureau Veritas in October 2023 to use 70.5% less water than traditional denim apparel washing methods.
- Advancing a circular fashion and textile economy: SHEIN continues to promote solutions to reduce and deal with waste. In partnership with Queen of Raw, nearly 20,000 meters of high-quality deadstock fabric were rescued and incorporated into new products. SHEIN has also utilized over 101,000kg of textile-to-textile recycled polyester fabric in our SHEIN-branded apparel products. In addition, SHEIN continues to engage its customers in circularity through its peer-to-peer resale platform, SHEIN Exchange, with more than 4.2 million new unique users registered and over 115,000 pre-owned items listed for sale in the US.
The full report is available here.
To learn more about sustainability and social impact at SHEIN, visit www.sheingroup.com/our-impact
