Victoria's Secret & Company
Company Double Materiality Analysis
This one-page analysis examines a company’s products, services and operational practices and whether they positively contribute or detract from sustainability goals. Our analysis relies on quantitative indicators, leading industry frameworks and covers topics most relevant to the company’s industry. A primer describing the Double Materiality approach is available here.
Victoria's Secret & Company
Ticker: VSCO US
ISIN: US9264001028
Market Cap: US$1.6 billion
GICS Sector: Consumer Discretionary
SICS Industry: Apparel, Accessories & Footwear
Country: U.S.
SMS theme: Protecting Natural Capital
SMS sub-theme: Circular Economy
Contribution to theme: Negative
Company Description
Victoria's Secret & Co. operates as a lingerie, clothing and beauty retailer. It offers bras, panties, lingerie, pajamas, sleep, sport and swim apparel, and beauty products.
Revenue exposure by country/region: United States (49%), Canada (13.1%) and China (8%).
Contribution to the sub-theme objectives:
As a retailer offering clothing through the fast fashion business model, VS detracts from a circular economy model. VS has too few ambitions for sustainability within its collections. Moreover, before executives stepped down in 2020, the company was accused of encouraging a culture of misogyny, harassment and discrimination. And besides its approach on chemicals, VS could grandly improve transparency in its operations.
Sub-theme indicators:
Operational Performance
(Laggard, Aligned or Leader)
Material Topics for Apparel, Accessories & Footwear: management of chemicals in products, environmental impacts in the supply chain, labor conditions in the supply chain and raw materials sourcing.
Assessment: Laggard
Member of ZDHC and recognized for achieving Aspirational Level, highest tier of success, in Brands to Zero program.
In 2022, 81%(+11% from 2021) of lingerie and apparel Tier 1 and 94%(+4% from 2021) of Tier 2 facilities completed the SAC’s Higg FEM self-assessment. In 2022(2021), 8%(7%) of polyester and 7%(2%) of polyamide bought was recycled material. It is low and there are no goals for more. Nothing for sustainably-sourced cotton.
VS states considering sustainable sourcing for packaging without any goals and has 0 environmental footprint data.
Low score of 19/100 in the 2023 Fashion Transparency Index. VS has committed to eliminating Chinese cotton from its supply chains, but as links with suppliers are known to be blurry, traceability within supply chains is key, which VS fails to follow. Links of VS to Uyghur’s forced labor were mentioned in the news in 2022.
Accusations of transgender backlash, sexual assault allegations, bullying, harassment and a culture of misogyny surfaced in a 2020 NYT investigation. Since 2020, VS is trying to rebrand its image.
Product/Service Impact
(Negative, Neutral or Positive)
Assessment: Negative
Since a few years, VS changed its strategy and started working on speeding up its design and restocking processes, like Zara, known for low stocks and regular collection updates.
Considered fast fashion due to the speed of production and scale of clothes that it sells.
Clothes can be a necessity, but abundance encouraged through fast fashion is excessive.Historically criticized for promoting unrealistic beauty standards. At last, in 2021, VS started promoting more inclusivity in its communications.
VS uses a % of recycled materials but has no strategy on doing more, nor provides additional disclosures on the topic. Â
SDG Alignment:
A downloadable version of the Double Materiality Analysis of Victoria’s Secret is available in the pdf attached.
