2024 marked a major moment for Good On You as we expanded into beauty ratings—but we’ve reached many more milestones, too. Here’s what the Good On You team achieved this year.
Good On You evolved in 2024
Anyone in the sustainability space will tell you that 2024 has been a tough year. Challenging economies and uncertainty about what new governments and legislation will mean for the climate and sustainable business in 2025 have made for a tumultuous period—and McKinsey’s annual State of Fashion report predicts it’s not going to get easier, at least in the short term. But through it all, Good On You has remained steadfast in its mission to help you make better choices, and support brands in working more sustainably. Here are our milestones from 2024.
Good On You launched beauty brand ratings
The headline this year? In October 2024, we issued an urgent call for improvement in beauty sustainability with the launch of beauty brand ratings and the first industry-wide study into brand sustainability initiatives.
Its findings revealed that brands are lagging in their efforts to minimise impacts on people, the planet, and animals, and to provide the transparency that consumers have a right to. Even when beauty brands are transparent, “there’s a shocking amount of information that’s not disclosed about where all of our products come from—and even the specific ingredients that go in them,” writes editor-at-large JD Shadel. The industry took notice, too, and you might’ve seen coverage by the Financial Times, Vogue Business, and Business of Fashion, among other outlets that reported on the news.
We made waves in physical retail with the launch of the Sustainable Retail Index in partnership with URW
Our partnership with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW)—the operators of Westfield in the EU and US—reached new heights in 2024 as we co-created the Sustainable Retail Index (SRI), an industry-pioneering tool powered by Good On You’s rich brand sustainability data. The SRI will provide URW with a unified way to support its retailer tenants in their sustainability transitions and track their performances, and to meet consumer expectations for more responsible choices throughout its destinations. In creating the SRI, our analysts rated more than 1,000 fashion brands in just eight weeks, we launched beauty ratings, and are working on three new retail verticals.
Our monthly industry newsletter is bringing insights to a new audience
In November, we launched a new monthly digest to bring retailers, innovative brands, and industry insiders access to new ratings data, thought leadership from voices in fashion and beauty, actionable tips, and the latest industry news. We kicked off with an essay from our co-founder Sandra Capponi, who shared her experience with the ongoing transparency crisis and what brands can do to avoid it. Want to get these insights in your inbox? Sign up here.
We’re mentoring the next generation of designers in partnership with the British Fashion Council
Helping the industry do better is the heart of our mission, and we’ve partnered with the British Fashion Council to guide emerging fashion brands as part of the organisation’s NEWGEN programme. We’ll be helping NEWGEN recipients finesse their sustainability approaches by offering access to our team of experts and our Good Measures hub, providing a 360-degree view of their impacts and tailored tips for improvement.
Our reporting asked big questions
We published 193 articles in 2024 and partnered with some of the industry’s most prominent voices to bring you original reporting. Writer Maggie Zhou quizzed SHEIN and Temu directly about their alleged copyright infringement, while journalist Sophie Benson investigated why it’s so hard to find out what ingredients are in our beauty products, journalist Megan Doyle interviewed those spearheading physical retail’s transformation into a place for circularity, and activist Emma Håkansson examined what cruelty-free claims in the beauty industry really mean. And we harnessed our ratings analysts’ expertise to help you understand why cultural sustainability is so important and what good—and bad—sustainability reporting looks like.
We released our annual climate change report, the largest survey of its kind in the industry
For the past two years, we’ve collaborated with journalist Sophie Benson on our deep data reports for the world’s annual climate conference, COP. For COP29, Benson looked at new data on more than 5,800 brands’ environmental track records and highlighted the fashion industry’s ongoing lack of urgency regarding the climate emergency.
We scaled up our business tools to help more brands do better
This year, we did a full redesign of the Good On You Ratings Dashboard to give our enterprise partners instant access to a credible assessment of the fashion and beauty brands they work with on the most critical sustainability issues. It includes the Ratings API, too, so developers can incorporate our ratings easily into existing platforms and websites to power decision-making and help consumers make better choices. Alongside that, our network of “Good” and “Great” affiliate brands continues to thrive, and we grew our publisher network to over 100 members, helping them to share top-rated brands with their audiences and scaling up our collective impact.
We contributed to the most important conferences and forums
Every year, Good On You’s founders actively participate in crucial industry forums, to further our commitment to transparency and accountability. From the Marie Claire Awards to the Textile Exchange board, our involvement affirmed our role as thought leaders, advocates, and champions of change in fashion and beauty.
2024 in numbers
Most searched brands in 2024
All in all, it’s been another fantastic year for Good On You, and it’s all down to you.
So thank you. Thank you for your support and for helping us change the fashion—and now beauty—industries for the better, even when times are tough. We couldn’t do what we do without you, and we can’t wait to see what next year has in store for us and the sustainability movement as a whole. We’re so glad to have you here as we head into 2025—our decade anniversary!
Want to learn more about Good On You’s milestones? Check out our 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 highlights.
