Sustainability Fashion CFOs Are Turning Sustainability Into A P&L Issue By Brooke Roberts-Islam ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Brooke Roberts-Islam is a London-based writer covering sustainability. Follow Author Jul 22, 2026, 02:30am EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . Summary The Global Fashion Agenda's latest summit and "The CFO Agenda" report underscore a critical shift: chief financial officers are now central to driving sustainability in fashion. Amid supply chain volatility and rising costs, sustainability is no longer optional, but a non-discretionary expense. While CFOs recognize its importance, integrating sustainability into financial metrics remains a challenge. The report offers guidance for CFOs to embed environmental and social considerations into financial planning, moving beyond mere risk mitigation to becoming "transformation enablers." Examples like MAS Holdings demonstrate successful integration, tracking "sustainability revenue" through ERP systems. Mulberry's CEO and CFO also highlight how sustainability can enhance brand value and profit, with the CFO actively weaving it into financial strategy and supply chain resilience. This marks an evolution of the CFO role from scorekeeper to strategic future forecaster, essential for industry viability.
Mulberry Bayswater bag made with British Pasture Leather, at Mulberry's Somerset factory. Mulberry Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) put chief financial officers in the driving seat at this year’s Global Fashion summit. The shift from CEOs to CFOs acknowledges a new reality: sustainability costs are becoming non-discretionary. Add seemingly interminable supply chain volatility, extreme weather, trade shifts and rising raw material and the CFO’s involvement becomes unavoidable.
It’s in this context that GFA’s latest report– The CFO Agenda –was penned in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group. The publication builds on others before it, including Aii’s Cost of Inaction and H&M and EY’s white paper Accelerating Fashion Decarbonization . The forebear reports quantify well the material risk that climate change poses to businesses; they also posit the evolving role of CFOs includes data management, tracking, forecasting and capital allocation to embed sustainability measures to fortify business operations and supply chains. Planning and strategizing, though, do not equal action.
“Sustainability is important [and] brands believe it’s critical, but the level of integration isn’t where it should be,” says Justin Pariag, Chief Sustainability Officer at GFA, explaining the line of inquiry in their CFO-focused report. To probe this lack of integration, the report collates the anonymized wants of more than 30 CFOs and senior executives and provides a four-level ranking to categorize them by sustainability integration maturity. The report, which was launched at the annual Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, also included an assessment of 150 brand earnings calls to gauge sustainability mentions as a proxy for prioritization.
Most CFOs rated sustainability as ‘very important’ or ‘critical’, though the report uses the term broadly, covering social and environmental actions from worker conditions to water pollution. Few reported that sustainably is fully integrated across their organization or reflected in their financial metrics.
The report…