Sustainability data at Fashion Cloud can refer to a range of different things such as certifications, standards, and trademarked materials. With support for over 100 data points, brands can effectively communicate their sustainability efforts on an article level to their retail partners through Fashion Cloud.

For the full breakdown of accepted certificates and licensed materials, mandatory fields, file specifications, and further information, please check our Sustainability Data Guide here.

Which sustainability data claims are accepted?

​Widely used examples are: Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), MADE IN GREEN by OEKO-TEX®, Cradle to Cradle Certified™, bluesign®, Global Recycled Standard, Leather Working Group, LENZING™ ECOVERO™ and many others. You can find a list of all currently Accepted Sustainability Certificates, Standards & Materials here.

What if I have a standard or certificate or material that is not in the list?

Whenever a brand shares a new “attribute name”, we check it meets the minimum criteria and evaluate if it can be added to our Accepted Sustainability Certificates, Standards & Materials list in the following update.

Can I share our own (private) sustainability label via Fashion Cloud with retailers?

No, own ‘private label’ sustainability labels do not qualify as sustainability data at Fashion Cloud. Sustainability data must meet the three minimum criteria to 1) apply on product level, 2) be relevant for the fashion wholesale community, 3) be issued by an independent third party.

How do you decide which certificates and materials get added to the accepted list?

When evaluating a new certificate, standard or licensed material, we assess it against our minimum criteria, and also against retailers’ requirements which we have consolidated in the Retailer Requirement Matrix, a tool developed to help brands face growing sustainability data requests.

How is Sustainability Data structured?

Brands can share up to 4 Sustainability data points per product (EAN) with retailers. To meet the Fashion Cloud requirements, each data point reflecting a certificate or standard must include the following values:

We have certificates only on material level, can we share this?

Yes, certification data on any level along the supply chain is relevant to your wholesale partners and will become increasingly relevant with current regulation developments. By indicating the ‘certification level’ brands provide the retailers with enough information to make good judgment of how the sustainability data can be used e.g. in what kind of claim.

What if I have complementary information for licensed or trademarked materials, can I show my data?

Yes. If you have further values to share corresponding to licensed or trademarked materials, please do so. We are able to share attribute names, certification/license numbers, certifying institutes, certification levels, percentages, visibility on product and expiration dates.

Do I need to share proofs with every certificate I want to share as sustainability data?

No, brands cannot share proofs like pdfs of transaction or scope certificates as part of sustainability data on Fashion Cloud. However, we highly recommend for the brand to store everything in an organized way and share a sustainability contact person in your Fashion Cloud brand profile, so retailers can reach you easily with eventual requests to send evidence of a specific claim.

How can I share Sustainability Data?

To effectively share sustainability data with Fashion Cloud, it is essential to include them in the same file as your other product data. Whether you use an API connection or a CSV file (other formats like XML, JSON, or EDIFACT are also supported), the sustainability attributes should be integrated seamlessly.

We don’t have sustainability data in the same system as the rest of product data. Can I share this data in a separate excel sheet?

No, sustainability data need to be shared integrated in the same product data export file you share with Fashion Cloud to submit the rest of your product data.

Do you have an example of how the CSV should look like?

Yes, you can find a step by step explanation of how to share sustainability data and how the file should look like in section 3 of our Sustainability Data Guide here.

Where will my data go and how it will be used?

Data can be used by retailers as base for customer communication, for reporting purposes as part of the value chain, or for internal goal setting, such as increasing the share of brands that disclose sustainability information.

How do you handle different laws in various countries, such as France?

We closely monitor all laws that impact our customers and product data specifically, whether at the EU level or within specific countries, such as France's Anti-Waste Law (Loi AGEC) or Germany's Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG). Our dataset will continually be updated to stay aligned with regulatory changes while staying feasible for brands and relevant for retailers.

Why do you ask for more mandatory values for standard or certificates now (compared to 2022-mid 2024)?

Transparency is increasingly demanded, but it’s also an evolving process. New legal requirements are pushing for sustainability claims to be backed by reliable data. It's no longer enough to simply claim a product is sustainable; the industry needs to align to address issues like greenwashing.

When I update the information, how fast will this be online?

Please inform a data integration manager so they can proceed. Our data integration managers will review and integrate new product data including sustainability data as soon as possible after receiving it. Depending on their capacity this can take 1 day to 2 weeks. The more standardized the data is, the quicker the processes.

When a brand makes changes to sustainability data, how will the retailers get informed?

Retailers who receive product data from Fashion Cloud in automated ways (via API), get regular updates - practically in real time. Old data is simply overwritten by the updated version, just like Fashion Cloud does it with updated data sets from brands.

Do retailers need to pay for sustainability data?

Currently sustainability data is an integrated part of product data on Fashion Cloud. Hence, retailers who access their brands product data can additionally access sustainability data without an extra fee.

You have any further question about sustainability data at Fashion Cloud? Get in Contact with us: sustainability@fashion.cloud