Earlier this year, two months into the second Trump administration, federal agencies in the US circulated an internal list of nearly 200 words that would be limited or avoided in the government’s clampdown on so-called “woke initiatives”, according to documents seen by The New York Times.
Among those words were: climate crisis, climate science, clean energy and pollution. Among the even more concerning broad sweeps: inequality, diversity, race and ethnicity, gender, women, men, disability, victim, bias, activists, and political.
While the words were not banned outright, the list sent shockwaves through the US. It also sent a message: for fashion brands with a sustainability focus, communicating their efforts across the political divide was about to get a whole lot harder.
In the time since, many have retreated; not just in fashion, but across industries. Major banks pulled out of the Net Zero Banking Alliance after Trump’s re-election, causing the programme to close down. In May, the US Plastics Pact also saw a mass exodus of its members: 25% of those from food and beverage businesses and 12.5% from consumer retail, per Harvard Business Review. And the sweeping cuts to USAID mean that non-profit initiatives from garment worker trade unions to refugee support and life-saving food programmes have also been forced to pull back.
At the Textile Exchange conference in Lisbon earlier this month, Jonathan Hall, managing partner of the Sustainable Transformation Practice at marketing data and analytics company Kantar, estimated that 12% of companies have deprioritized climate action in the past 12 months, while 73% remained neutral and 12% doubled down.
New York womenswear designer Maria McManus says she has noticed a shift in “more cynical” circles, where she is more likely to be met with “a lack of interest or a glazed eye” now. It’s made her more committed. “It’s a shame the current administration is not on board, but the sustainability movement is moving ahead with or without them,” she says.