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Sustainability used to enter brand conversations somewhere between sampling and sign-off. Now, it is part of the agenda from the start.

Many of the fashion brands we speak to have hired dedicated sustainability managers, are fielding detailed traceability questions from customers, and are putting Digital Product Passport implementation higher on the priority list.

The harder part is the day-to-day reality of delivering on it.

A sourcing decision raises questions nobody can answer straight away. Deadstock sits in the warehouse while the team works out what can be reused, resold, or repurposed. A customer asks where something was made, and the answer means pulling information from three different people, two spreadsheets, and a supplier email chain.

That’s the reality of implementing more sustainable fashion practices. They cut across product development, sourcing, production, sales, logistics, and operations.

Still, sustainability doesn’t have to start with a total overhaul. Most brands already have a lot of the information they need. The challenge is connecting it, so existing data can support decisions that are easier to track, explain, and build on.

In this guide, we’ll look at practical ways fashion brands can be more sustainable by using their data to make better decisions across the product lifecycle.

What makes a fashion brand sustainable?

In our experience, there isn’t a single definition. 

Sustainable fashion practices span teams and decisions across the business, shaping how materials are sourced, how products are designed, which suppliers a brand works with, and what happens to inventory that never sells.

For brands that are actively working on this, the focus usually touches on areas such as:

• Responsible material sourcing
• Ethical production conditions
• Reduced environmental impact
• Transparency and sustainability across the fashion supply chain
• Overproduction and having leftover stock at the end of the season
• Recycling and slow fashion
• Designing products with longer lifespans

Put together, these start to show what sustainability actually looks like day to day for a fashion brand.

Most teams have a decent grasp of the principles, but the challenge is managing the information behind them. 

Details about materials, suppliers, certifications, and products are often spread across systems, teams, and external partners. When that information is difficult to access or align, it becomes harder to measure impact, compare options, and make consistent decisions across collections.

Sustainable fashion practices brands are implementing today

Across the industry, brands are feeling the pressure to become sustainable, but there’s no single way they’re going about it.

Some start with materials, often driven by customer expectations or incoming regulation. Others focus on supply chains or on the inventory challenges that sit at the center of fashion’s waste issue.

From what we’ve seen, where they start usually comes down to which issue is most visible.
Below are four areas where we see brands turning sustainable fashion practices from intention into everyday practice.

1. Sourcing responsible materials

Materials are often the first place where you see real change. More collections now include recycled fabrics, organic options, and certified materials, reflecting both customer demand and internal goals.

Sourcing decisions also involve more detail than they used to. 

Teams are often working with:

• Information about where materials originate
• Certification requirements and supporting documentation
• Product data that needs to stay consistent across collections

Managing this requires you to coordinate between internal teams and external suppliers, especially as collections evolve over time.

Brands like Butcher of Blue, who collaborate with Itsperfect, take a considered approach to material sourcing, with a strong focus on fabric quality and long-term supplier relationships. They work closely with production partners they’ve built over time, placing emphasis on consistency, durability, and the conditions under which their garments are made.

2. Improving transparency in the supply chain

By the time you finish a product, it has already moved through a long chain of steps, starting at the raw material source, passing through processors, shifting across regions, and going through multiple stages of production.

For most brands, that chain runs longer and with less visibility than they’d like. Tracing what happens at each step has become a recurring pressure point, showing up in customer questions and growing regulatory demands.

Building more transparency typically involves:

• Supplier information across different production stages
• Documentation on sourcing and production processes
• Data that connects materials, products, and suppliers

In many cases, that information exists, but it is managed separately across different stages of the supply chain.

Itsperfect client Dstrezzed ran into this as they placed more focus on transparency. With products moving through multiple suppliers and production stages, they introduced a production map to show where materials are sourced and where garments are made, making that information easier to access both internally and externally.

3. Reducing overproduction and inventory waste

By the time your product reaches the warehouse, most decisions have already been made. You’ve decided on quantities, planned channels, and locked in expectations for the season, often based on forecasts from months earlier.

But when demand doesn’t match those expectations, the impact shows up as unsold stock, markdowns, or items that remain in storage longer than planned. Estimates suggest that as much as 40% of manufactured clothing is never sold or worn.

To reduce overproduction, you need access to:

• Demand forecasts based on sales data
• Inventory levels across wholesale, retail, and e-commerce
• Return patterns and product performance over time

When these signals are not connected, it becomes harder to adjust as collections move through the season. An ERP system built for fashion, such as Itsperfect, helps bring planning, sales, and inventory data together, giving you a clearer view of what is happening across the business.

4. Designing products with longevity in mind

The way you design a product before launch has a lasting impact on how it performs over time. Choices around materials, construction, and how a design carries across seasons all play a role in how long your garment stays in use.

The numbers put this into perspective. Estimates suggest that around 85% of clothing ends up in landfill, while less than 1% is recycled into new garments.

In practice, you often need to manage:

• Material choices that hold up over time
• Construction methods that support repeated wear
• Product data that tracks performance across seasons

Supporting this over time requires visibility into how your products perform after launch, including returns, sales cycles, and customer feedback.

Itsperfect client No Excess approaches this through a focus on long-lasting products and consistent quality across collections. Alongside this, they have introduced initiatives such as more sustainable material choices, allowing teams to assess designs earlier in the process and reduce reliance on physical samples.

How can fashion brands be more sustainable?

Most of the brands we work with are ambitious about sustainability. They’ve set goals, made commitments, and decided on a clear direction.

The trouble comes later, when someone has to pick a material, sign off on a supplier, or decide what goes into next season’s collection.

It’s one thing to set a direction at a brand level, and another to carry that through when decisions are being made across teams, timelines, and systems.

Below is a practical way to approach that gap, based on patterns we’ve noticed first hand.

Step 1: Map your supply chain more clearly

Start by mapping how your products move through the supply chain.

That usually starts with identifying all involved suppliers and understanding where materials come from, how they are processed, and how products move between different production stages.

Even a high-level overview can help you spot gaps, dependencies, and areas that need more detail.

A practical example: Mapping a sustainable fashion supply chain for a single product

A smaller fashion brand might start by mapping one core product, such as a denim style that returns each season. The fabric may come from a mill in Turkey, move to a factory in Portugal, and then arrive at a warehouse in the Netherlands before being sold through wholesale partners and the brand’s webshop. Often, the information behind that journey is scattered across emails, spreadsheets, and separate production tools. Bringing it into one overview helps the team see which suppliers are involved, where materials originate, and where delays or dependencies may occur. From there, the same approach can be expanded across more products and collections.

Step 2: Capture the right product and material data early

Many decisions later in the process depend on the information you defined at the start.

Capturing product and material data early helps you reduce inconsistencies and makes it easier to track changes over time.

This often includes:

• Material composition
• Supplier information
• Certification and compliance data
• Product specifications and attributes

When this information is structured from the beginning, it becomes easier to reuse across collections and workflows. For teams managing this across multiple collections, a fashion-specific ERP system like Itsperfect helps keep product, material, and supplier data connected from the start.

Step 3: Make sustainability information easier to access across teams

Perhaps you already have all of the information you need, but maybe it’s not accessible to the people within your team who need it.

Making your product and supplier data easier to access internally helps your team reduce duplication and keeps decisions aligned.

This becomes especially relevant when multiple teams are working on the same product at different stages.

A practical example: Making product and supplier data accessible across teams

A growing fashion brand is preparing a new collection. The design team has defined materials, including organic cotton and recycled blends, while the sourcing team has confirmed suppliers and gathered certification details. At this point, the information exists, but it’s spread across different places. Material composition, supplier data, and certifications are stored separately, and updates are shared through email or messaging tools. When other teams need this information, they often have to piece it together themselves. By bringing product, material, and supplier data into a shared view, the team gains a clearer picture of what has already been defined. This makes it easier to keep product information consistent and to answer questions about materials and sourcing as the collection moves forward.

Step 4: Bring your supplier, sourcing, and product development workflows closer together

Decisions around materials, suppliers, and design are closely connected.

Bringing these workflows closer together helps you respond more quickly when something changes, whether that’s availability, cost, or compliance requirements.

In practice, this often comes down to creating shared visibility and clearer ownership across your team and external partners.

Step 5: Track your progress in a way that supports future reporting and compliance

As expectations evolve, you’ll be increasingly asked to demonstrate how products are sourced and produced.

That starts with knowing:

• Material traceability
• Supplier compliance
• Environmental and product data

Tracking this consistently over time makes it easier to respond to requests from customers, partners, and regulators.

This is also where initiatives such as the Digital Product Passport (DPP) come into focus, requiring structured product-level data that can be shared across the value chain. Itsperfect’s DPP module supports this by connecting product, material, and supplier data into a single, structured record that can be used for reporting and compliance as requirements evolve.

>>> Looking for more insight on the DPP & ESPR regulation? Check out our complete guide for fashion brands here.

A practical example: Preparing product data for DPP at scale

A larger fashion brand operating across multiple markets is preparing for upcoming DPP requirements. Each collection includes hundreds of styles, produced across different suppliers and regions. Material composition, supplier information, and certification data already exist, but they are managed across different systems and teams. Bringing this together at product level becomes a key step, especially when the same product is sold across multiple channels and countries. By structuring this data in a consistent way, the brand can start building product-level records that support traceability and reporting. This helps brands keep pace with changing requirements and share product information more clearly across the value chain.

How Itsperfect supports sustainable fashion practices

Here’s the common theme across all of these areas: the need for reliable, connected product and supply chain data.

Material choices, supplier relationships, inventory decisions, and product performance are all linked. When that information is spread across systems or teams, it becomes harder to keep everything aligned over time.

Itsperfect brings these elements together in one place, allowing fashion brands to manage product, material, and supplier data within a single system. This creates a shared foundation that supports how you already work across design, sourcing, production, and sales.

By structuring data at product level from the start, you can:

• Keep material and supplier information consistent across collections
• Connect planning, inventory, and sales data
• Track product performance over time
• Prepare for requirements such as traceability and Digital Product Passports

Rather than adding another layer of complexity, this approach supports your existing workflows and makes it easier for you to work with sustainability as part of your day-to-day operations.

FAQ: Sustainable fashion practices

What are sustainable fashion practices?

Sustainable fashion practices refer to how brands manage materials, production, and products over time. This can include responsible material sourcing, improving supply chain transparency, reducing overproduction, and designing products that last longer.

How can fashion brands be more sustainable in practice?

Fashion brands can be more sustainable by improving how they manage product and supply chain data, so teams have a better view of materials, suppliers, and product performance. This helps brands make consistent decisions across collections.

Why is supply chain transparency important in fashion?

Supply chains often involve multiple suppliers and production stages across different regions. Transparency helps brands understand where materials come from, how products are made, and how to respond to questions from customers, partners, and regulators.

What role does product data play in sustainability and fashion?

Product data connects materials, suppliers, and product specifications. When this information is structured and accessible, it becomes easier to track changes, maintain consistency, and support reporting requirements such as traceability and compliance.

What is a Digital Product Passport (DPP) in fashion?

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured set of product-level data that provides information about materials, sourcing, and lifecycle. It allows brands to share consistent product information across the value chain and supports growing regulatory and transparency requirements.

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Conclusion: from intention to execution

Sustainable fashion is shaped by your everyday decisions: which materials are chosen, which suppliers are renewed, how much gets produced, and what happens to what’s left over.

More than anything else, what actually drives those decisions is whether you can see what you’re working with. Clear, connected product, material, and supplier data makes choices easier to make and explain, while fragmented information can cause even well-intentioned decisions to drift.

This foundation matters now, and it will become even more important as traceability requirements continue to tighten.

If you want to see how Digital Product Passports fit into this, and how product-level data can be structured to support them, you can learn more about our module here: