Shein’s Emissions Rise 23% by End of 2024, Despite Sustainability Claims

Shein fails on sustainable goals. The Asian ecommerce platform ended last year with a double-digit increase in its greenhouse gas emissions, outpacing the company's sales growth for the same period, which stood at a 19% increase.

Emissions from the giant's business, meanwhile, rose to 26.2 million metric tons, up 23.1% from the previous year. Shein is using 2023 emissions as its baseline year, aiming to reduce both its direct and indirect emissions by 90% by 2050.

A large part of the Asian company's emissions are accumulated in its value chain, that is, in indirect or Scope 3 emissions. This type alone accounted for the emission of 26.17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, concentrated mainly in two categories, production and transportation.

Shein aims to reduce all its emissions by 90% by 2050.

Goods manufacturing accumulated the emission of 11.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, being the category in which the figure is the highest, and 9.7% more at the close of 2024 than the previous year. Through transportation, on the other hand, the company has increased its emissions by 13.7%, to 8.5 million metric tons.

Although with a lesser weight, the Asian giant has also increased emissions in other categories of the value chain, such as waste generation (37.7%) or transportation of workers (52%), reaching 8,322 metric tons and 12,273 tons, respectively.

The company, which has shared these data through the publication of its sustainability report, has also explained some of its commitments for the coming years and the changes it has implemented in the period. Specifically, Shein plans to reduce its direct and indirect emissions by 42% and 25%, respectively, over the next five years. Despite the increase noted in 2024 across the board, the company has increased the weight of sea and road transport compared to air transport, so it claims to have saved 502,273 metric tons over the entire year.