3 ways to show sustainability boosts garment business profits

The opinions expressed here by Trellis expert contributors are their own, not those of Trellis.​

If you work in sustainability at an apparel company, you already know the most common problem garment companies face: Everyone says they care — until the quarter gets tight. Then the questions turn blunt. What does this do for margin? Cash? Returns? On-time delivery? If you can’t answer those in plain numbers, sustainability becomes a nice-to-have that gets frozen the first time a forecast slips.

So here’s the cleaner framing: Your job is to make the operation run with less friction. Less waste. Fewer surprises. Fewer expensive emergencies. More repeatable performance. That’s where sustainability earns its keep, because the business already pays for inefficiencies every day.

Below are three approaches that land with apparel leaders  because they feel like operational discipline, not a conference panel stacked with environmentalists.

1. Find the money you’re already losing 

Most apparel companies don’t have a sustainability problem; they have a waste problem. It shows up everywhere: Energy running when it shouldn’t, rework that’s become routine, inconsistent fabric driving write-offs and claims, cutting-room scrap that nobody owns, quality issues that bounce around until they become returns. In the moment, none of that feels like sustainability. It feels like friction or like you’re paying a tax for disorder.

Start there. Pick one important product line and one supplier who’s willing to work with you. Keep it small on purpose. Choose two fixes you can implement quickly and measure cleanly — things like tightening process controls, reducing scrap, improving first-pass quality, cutting rework, stabilizing dye/finishing, or addressing a repeat defect that keeps showing up in claims.

Then do the part that builds credibility: report the results in the language finance teams already trust. Show before-and-after in familiar terms:

• Lower utility cost per unit
• Fewer defects and fewer rework hours
• Reduced scrap and write-offs
• Fewer chargebacks
• Fewer returns

You’re not trying to save the world with one pilot. You’re proving the work pays for itself. Once you get one win on the board, the next project stops being a debate. People start bringing you problems instead of making jokes about the word “sustainability.”

2. Price the stress your company already dealt with

Leaders don’t respond to grand theories. They respond to painful memories.

They remember the late shipment that forced air freight. They remember inventory landing late and getting marked down immediately. They remember the scramble when a retailer asked basic origin questions and nobody could produce clean documentation.

That’s when sustainability suddenly becomes urgent, because much of it is really supply-chain control. Knowing your inputs, knowing your factories and keeping documentation consistent. Being able to answer questions fast, accurately and the same way every time.

So don’t sell risk as an abstract concept. Use a real failure. Pick one program that failed and write down what it actually cost:

• Air freight
• Chargebacks
• Markdowns
• Lost orders
• Internal disruption and time burned
• Reputational damage that shows up later in tougher negotiations

Once leadership sees the cost of disruption in dollars, the next step becomes an easy sell: Better traceability and tighter supplier management reduce the odds you pay that bill again. This is how you make sustainability feel practical — via fewer expensive surprises.

3. Treat your best suppliers like partners 

Many apparel supply chains are managed like a statistical model, swapping parts in and out and assuming the machine keeps running. That works when demand is smooth and capacity is loose. It falls apart the minute conditions tighten.

Suppliers are dealing with their own realities: Energy costs, labor turnover, financing constraints, compliance pressure and cash flow volatility. When they’re unstable, you feel it fast; quality slips, lead times stretch, prices rise and suddenly you’re in crisis mode trying to “manage” problems that were predictable.

This is where sustainability becomes one of the smarter business moves you can make. Not because it’s noble, but because it reinforces the suppliers you rely on. The key is focus. Don’t try to upgrade everyone. Pick two or three suppliers that matter most: The ones tied to volume, core categories or chronic pain points. Align on measurable improvements:

• Less energy per unit
• Less waste
• Tighter process control
• Better first-pass quality
• Less rework

Then deal with the real constraint: Funding. Many suppliers can’t finance upgrades, even when the return on investment makes sense. Your role then becomes practical by helping to design a way for the upgrade to happen. That might mean longer commitments, shared investment tied to results, improved payment terms linked to performance, or helping the supplier access external financing.

When suppliers stabilize, your costs stabilize. Deliveries get more reliable. Quality improves. And you stop paying the hidden premium of a fragile supply chain. That’s not just a moral win. It’s a competitive edge.

What to do next week

In short, focus on where real-world impacts make all the difference with bottom-line-oriented management.

Day 1: Pick one product line and one supplier for a small pilot. Choose two quick changes. Decide exactly what you’ll measure before and after.

Day 2: List three real disruptions from the past year — late deliveries, airfreight, chargebacks, program losses. Put a conservative dollar range next to each.

Day 3: Meet with sourcing and quality and agree on what “proof” looks like in your business. What do you need to know instantly when a customer asks? Where does your documentation break down?

Day 4: Choose two suppliers for deeper collaboration this year. Not 10, two. Define the improvements you want and the metrics you’ll use.

Day 5: Brief leadership with a simple narrative: One pilot that saves money, one disruption that had a real cost, and one supplier plan that improves stability.

That’s the approach. No campaign or sermon needed. Just fewer leaks, fewer mistakes, fewer last-minute scrambles. And a supply chain that costs less to run because it behaves more predictably while becoming more sustainable.