Full Breakdown
Shein Scores Higher Than Many Australian Retailers in Baptist World Aid Ethical Fashion Review
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Findings
The Baptist World Aid ethical fashion report, released on Tuesday, evaluated 138 Australian and international fashion companies representing 543 brands. Shein, the Chinese ultra-fast-fashion platform, received a score of 28 out of 100, placing it above several well-known Australian retailers such as Myer, Boardriders, and the swimwear label Seafolly. The report noted that only 13 % of all companies surveyed could demonstrate payment of a living wage to any workers in their supply chains.
Methodology & Scoring
Researchers examined more than 15,000 data points covering company policies, practices and performance across five supply-chain topics, including worker empowerment and environmental sustainability. Over a 13-month engagement period, companies were contacted roughly 16 times by email, regardless of their level of participation. About 58 % of the firms were assessed solely on publicly available information, while 42 % supplied additional data. The Baptist World Aid ethical fashion lead, Katherine Halliday, explained that the scoring system is intended to measure how robust a company’s systems are for preventing worker exploitation throughout the supply chain.
Company Rankings
- Shein – 28
- Myer (retail arm) – 20
- Boardriders (owner of Roxy, Billabong) – 3
- Bec and Bridge (formal wear) – 3
- 2XU (activewear) – 2
- Seafolly (swimwear) – 1
- Ghanda and Windsor Smith – 0 (tied for lowest)
- Temu (Chinese competitor) – 0
The report highlighted that Shein supplied additional information to Baptist World Aid, whereas many lower-scoring companies did not, which may have contributed to their poorer results.
Official Responses
A spokesperson for Baptist World Aid said the engagement process involved bulk communications to all assessed companies, ensuring each was aware of its inclusion and the project timeline. Halliday expressed that she was “heartened” by Shein’s modest improvement from previous years, attributing the change to heightened public scrutiny. She also warned that a modern-slavery statement alone does not move the needle on actual working-conditions improvements and called for stronger government action to compel industry-wide change.
Implications for Australian Fashion
Australia ranks as the world’s highest per-capita consumer of textiles, with more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing ending up in landfill annually. The report’s findings suggest that many domestic retailers lag behind even controversial ultra-fast-fashion platforms on ethical metrics, underscoring a gap between corporate commitments and tangible outcomes for workers and the environment. Halliday’s call for increased regulatory pressure points to a potential shift toward stricter oversight of supply-chain practices in the Australian fashion sector.