The Tamesis
Materials are the most important issue
To guide Reformation’s strategy, Talbot identified four key drivers of emissions in its supply chain: material sourcing, transportation, energy use during production and the lack of circular practices throughout the process.
Talbot said that material sourcing accounts for about 66% of Reformation’s total footprint, which is also the starting point for the brand’s transformation. Some materials have a higher carbon footprint than others, so Reformation has set a sub-goal to completely eliminate virgin cashmere and silk materials, which have the highest carbon footprint.
Talbot explained that cashmere accounts for less than 1% of Reformation’s total materials volume, but accounts for 20% of its material footprint. Reformation says it has reduced cashmere’s carbon footprint by 55% over the past five years, largely by developing regenerated cashmere yarn and phasing out much of its traditional cashmere (for the remaining percentage, Reformation says it will explore cashmere grown using regenerative agriculture).
Likewise, the brand set out to eliminate virgin silk entirely, but was only halfway there. The company blames the lack of viable non-synthetic alternatives on a commercial scale and says it is currently pursuing organic silk as a potential low-impact alternative. (Reformation notes that customer demand for silk has grown during this period. Silk’s share of total material purchases jumped from 1.5% in 2021 to 4.7% in 2023, before stabilizing at 3.8% in 2025.)
This work is ongoing. Reformation said that by the end of 2025, 97.5% of its fiber will come from recycled, recycled or renewable raw materials. “I can’t stress this enough,” Talbot said. “We won’t reach our emissions reduction targets without making some of the material transformations we love. Even if we consider future carbon reduction plans, there is no clear path to achieving our targets if we don’t continue to reduce our use of virgin silk and cashmere.”
Sustainable transport and overproduction
Transportation is another pain point. Reformation makes extensive use of air freight, which is said to be 31 times more carbon intensive than cargo ships. The trade-off, however, is that air freight allows Reformation to produce smaller batches of product, only replenishing what is sold, and avoid overproduction—mainly because air freight is faster and therefore requires less forward planning. Reformation said it would reduce the proportion of air freight from 40% to 33%, increase the proportion of truck freight from 60% to 63%, and increase the proportion of ocean freight from zero to 3.5% between 2021 and 2025. To avoid overproduction, Reformation said it prioritized producing “predictable, repeat best-selling items” and heavier styles such as sweaters, denim and outerwear at slower ocean shipping speeds.
That involves another change that Talbot says is fundamental to the entire venture. Over the past few years, Reformation has moved toward a data-driven, on-demand production model, not unlike ultrafast fashion giant Shein or luxury disruptor Rise & Fall. The most effective change, she says, is not technological innovation but organizational infrastructure. Reformation has invested heavily in internal education, developed team-specific scorecards tied to meeting carbon targets, and tied executive bonuses to sustainability performance.
“Our team now uses carbon models and carbon intensity to inform many decisions, from transportation to low-impact materials and budgeting,” Talbot said. “That’s not in the original framework because it didn’t exist before, but it does facilitate a shift that we can collectively make trade-offs on. It’s more of a change management framework than anything else and we’ll take that into the next phase as we work towards being fully circular in 2030.”
