Lindsay Wright breaks down the 2025 Garment Industry Scorecard, highlighting where brands’ purchasing practices are improving, where they’re falling short, and the opportunities for industry-wide change.
The BBPPI Garment Industry Scorecard, the first since Better Buying joined Cascale in February, was released earlier this month.
The Garment Scorecard provides a quick snapshot of how brands and retailers are performing on purchasing practices compared to previous years.
Before we release the full Better Buying Purchasing Practices Index (BBPPI) report and once all participating brands have received their individual company reports, we share topline, aggregated scores. These scores reveal where progress has improved, stalled, or declined.
This year’s results show a slight decline in both the overall score and in most individual category scores, which is perhaps to be expected with all the ongoing uncertainty around the imposition of trade tariffs by the United States. Also, experience teaches us that headline numbers rarely tell the full story. Last year, scores were also fairly static, but deeper analysis revealed that some buyer companies had achieved significant improvements in key purchasing practices categories.
These topline figures present us with a baseline picture of where we stand — six months into Better Buying’s new home within Cascale — and signal an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate industry action. With Cascale’s wider membership, networks, and convening power, we mean to drive collective, systemic change on purchasing practices at scale.
Because every year that progress stalls is another year that suppliers struggle to operate sustainability and profitably. Another year where suppliers have had to deal with aggressive cost negotiation strategies, order cancellations, last-minute changes, poor forecasting, and duplicative audit requests. And where brands and retailers — the vast majority of whom still don’t participate in Better Buying rating cycles — miss out on the strategic benefits of partnering with their suppliers to improve purchasing practices.
The full BBPPI report will be published later this year. That report will go beyond the numbers — sharing supplier stories, highlighting best practices, surfacing persistent challenges, and offering supplier-driven insights on how brands can improve and innovate.
Those stories and insights will inform critical discussions on what we need to do as an industry to make responsible purchasing practices the norm, not the exception, to Support Decent Work for All.
Stay tuned!
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In this joint blog post, Cascale’s Lee Green and Worldly’s Jay Gaines outline the shared value and goals between the two organizations.
In this blog, Maravillas Rodriguez Zarco, senior director, Higg Index Strategy & Operations; and Adrián Branco, senior manager, Higg Index Brand & Retail; discuss Cascale’s secondment with EFRAG, the importance of the organization, and the Higg FEM’s acknowledgment in a recent report.
Do you know Better Buying’s seven key purchasing practices? Read Lindsay Wright’s latest blog to re-familiarize yourself ahead of the upcoming Better Buying Purchasing Practices Index (BBPPI) report 2025.
