Methodology

Retail IQ assesses a brand on what it has published, across nine categories and more than 500 data points. An analyst reads the evidence and chooses the answer. This page sets out what is weighed, where it comes from and what the scores mean.

What is assessed

Nine categories, one framework.

Retail IQ covers the sustainability topics that can be checked from public sources, drawn from the wider Brand IQ framework. Each category holds a set of topics, and each topic has a fixed set of answers.

POLCommitment to sustainability & policies: Strategy, targets, alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the content of the Supplier Code of Conduct and production volume strategy.
SUPTransparent supply chain: Traceability from assembly back to raw material production, risk country analysis, auditing systems and social responsibility measures.
MATSustainable materials: Chemical management in textile manufacturing, animal-derived material practices, and material strategy and targets.
FIBMaterials & fibres breakdown: Fibre volumes, the share of preferred fibres, and how well composition is disclosed across the collection.
ENVEnvironmental impact: How emissions are calculated and reported, what reduction targets exist, and current performance against them.
SOSDecent working conditions & wages: Who has signed the Supplier Code of Conduct, how wages are defined in it, and what is actually paid at each tier.
DEIInclusivity & community: Representation in marketing material, availability of size charts, and size range across product categories.
CIRDesign for circular economy: Circular services such as repair, resale and take-back, product warranties and estimated resale value.
ONLResponsible e-commerce: Product information quality, supply chain transparency at product level, certificate disclosure and green claim consistency.

The categories do not carry equal weight. Living wages, responsible material sourcing, production volume and emission reduction targets aligned with the Paris Agreement count for the most, because they are where a brand's decisions show up.

Where the evidence comes from

Published documents, and the person who reads them.

Nothing is taken from a marketing page alone. An assessment goes looking for a specific set of documents, and every answer stands on the document behind it.

What is read

Sustainability and impact reports
Chemical management policies and Restricted Substances Lists
Modern slavery statements
Supplier Codes of Conduct
Factory and supplier lists
Publicly available audit reports
Animal welfare policies
Sizing information and body measurement tables
Product pages and product-level information
Third-party certificates and verified emissions data
Resale values on second-hand platforms
Press releases on sustainability practices and services

01Find the documentsA brand's own site, e-commerce pages and published reports are read for sustainability content, in the language they were written in.
02An analyst reads themAI narrows the search. A person reads the evidence and chooses the answer, against a fixed set of options per topic.
03Record the sourceEvery answer carries the document it came from and the date it was read.
04The brand can add to itA brand may submit evidence that is not public. The result is updated and the new source recorded.

How it is scored

Three scores, three different questions.

The category read, the quality read and the IQx factor are layers of one method rather than competing scores. Each is there for something the other two cannot tell you.

The score, by category

What has the brand disclosed?

Every topic a brand answers earns against the category it belongs to, and the result is reported per category as well as overall. This is the read that finds a gap running across a whole assortment - the categories where nobody you buy has much to show.

Category scores

One brand

Sustainability & policies

Working conditions & wages

Transparent supply chain

Materials & fibres

Sustainable materials

Environmental impact

Inclusivity & community

Responsible e-commerce

Design for circular economy

Quality of sustainability work

How ambitious is that work?

Coverage alone flatters the brands with the biggest reporting teams. So every answer is also placed in one of five tiers by how advanced the practice behind it is, and ambition is weighted above breadth.

Two brands can land in the same place and have got there very differently: one answering a great many topics adequately, the other answering fewer at the highest level. This is the layer that tells them apart.

Great - The most advanced practice the topic allows.
Good - Strong practice, one step below the most advanced.
Fair - Partial or moderate practice.
Weak - Minimal practice.
Poor - The lowest practice above nothing at all.
No data - Nothing published. Recorded as a gap, not as a bad answer.

Quality of sustainability work

One brand

Answers, by quality

Points earned

Number of answers

The IQx factor

How good is it for what the brand produces?

Most frameworks favour large brands, because scale brings documentation and the people to publish it. The IQx factor scales the quality-weighted result against the brand's size and production volume, taken from Scope 1-3 greenhouse gas emissions and estimated where a brand has not reported them.

A large brand is therefore held to a higher standard, and a small one is not penalised for having fewer resources. The factor compares assessed brands with one another. It is not a measurement of a garment's footprint and it is not a certification.

IQx factor

One brand

000IQx factor

Standards & certifications

The frameworks the questions are built on.

Retail IQ takes its topics from the UN Global Compact, GRI, the Science Based Targets initiative, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, EU regulation and textile industry certification. A certificate counts once it has been matched to the brand and confirmed current.