As Companies Abandon Climate Pledges, Is There a Silver Lining?

Peter Ford has seen the promise—and the pitfalls—of corporate climate pledges up close. The 40-year-old Briton recently spent five years at Hennes & Mauritz AB trying to cut emissions from the Swedish fashion giant’s vast supply chain, from Cambodian sewing lines to Vietnamese dye houses. He met with hundreds of suppliers, pushed for energy efficiency upgrades and urged the elimination of coal boilers. And to its credit, H&M invested about $200 million a year in these efforts and recently reported a 24% cut in its supply chain emissions.

But Ford isn’t celebrating. “As an industry, it’s not working out yet,” he says bluntly. Apparel emissions are still growing—and could expand an additional 30% this decade, according to McKinsey & Co. While a few brands are doing a lot of work, Ford says, most of the industry “would much rather sit there and wait for things to happen.” That mismatch isn’t unique to fashion. From airlines to banks to retailers, the story is the same: Over the past few decades, more than 4,000 companies have made big climate pledges, but results are scant, and emissions continue to rise.