3 Sustainable Fashion Stocks to Buy Now The fashion industry faces many sustainability challenges, and it has been financially sucker-punched by COVID lockdowns in China and surging inflation. So investors with environmental, social and corporate governance issues in mind face a host of hurdles when it comes to trying on fashion stocks. But we found a handful of companies that stand to outperform the industry on both financial and ESG measures. Apparel makers have long come under fire for being environmentally unsound. A 2020 report by McKinsey Co. and the Global Fashion Agenda, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving sustainability in the apparel industry, found that the industry was responsible for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. That amount is on par with the annual emissions of France, Germany and the U.K. combined. Moreover, much of the industry hews to the “fast fashion” business model, which designs and markets styles in rapid cycles to increase consumption and demand. As a result, any improvements made in fashion sustainability may be erased quickly by growing consumption.