View our 2021 Sustainability & Social Impact Report here.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework for our environmental sustainability and social impact strategy. We support all 17 SDGs, which help guide our priorities and programs, and which will guide our future goal setting and reporting.
We are a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and support the ten principles focused on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
Empowering Entrepreneurs
As a large, global business, we have the opportunity to create transformational change in the fashion industry and open the door for others. SHEIN invests in technology, training and financial resources to support the business development and growth of manufacturers, small and medium businesses, illustrators and designers.
Supporting emerging designers and illustrators:
In 2021, we launched SHEIN X, an incubator program that provides independent designers and artists with tools, marketing, manufacturing, operational and financial support. SHEIN X allows designers to focus on what they love – creating fashion – while SHEIN helps them turn their designs into a business. In 2021, nearly 1,500 independent designers launched their brands and businesses through SHEIN X. We expect this number to grow another 3,000 in 2022.
Supporting the Community
Given SHEIN’s global reach and diverse customer base, we understand our responsibility to impact change, and we partner with organizations advancing some of the world’s most urgent causes. We have supported a number of charitable causes in the communities in which we live and work. We know this is just a start, and there is much more to be done.
SHEIN Cares, the philanthropic arm of the company’s greater social impact agenda, makes monetary and in-kind contributions to organizations aligned with the company’s mission: empowering entrepreneurs, helping communities thrive and protecting the environment. Through activations, monetary grants and product donations, SHEIN has raised over $1M for important philanthropic causes:
- The annual SHEIN Together event, which first took place in May of 2020, is a virtual concert bringing together the biggest names in music, to celebrate the SHEIN community’s awareness-raising efforts. It earned over 4 million impressions to date.
- When COVID-19 hit, SHEIN donated to the UN COVID-19 solidarity response fund, to support the work of the World Health Organization in containing the pandemic. The company also donated over 1 million masks and other PPE to medical and frontline workers around the world. In 2021, SHEIN donated nearly one million dollars to help the people impacted by severe flooding in the Henan Province, an area which many of our partners call home.
- SHEIN’s Light-a-Wish campaign called upon customers to make their voices heard and vote for which organizations would receive a significant donation; they chose to direct that funding to organizations supporting racial justice, at-risk children and the environment, such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Together We Rise, Ecologi and multiple animal welfare groups.
- In celebration of Chinese New Year, we distribute gifts to our manufacturers’ frontline workers and their families every spring. In addition, our ongoing “Spotlight” program allocates CNY ¥1 million per year to support the education of frontline workers’ children and SHEIN sponsors summer camps to provide summertime childcare.
- SHEIN has an active in-kind donation program where the company donates clothing and accessories to non-profit organizations that support underserved people and communities:
Protecting the Environment
Environmental sustainability is one of the sectors where the fashion industry needs urgent transformation. We believe that reducing supply chain waste and investing in modern production techniques are key starting points to building an environmentally sustainable industry. At SHEIN, we harness our fully integrated digital supply chain to limit excess inventory, reducing the possibility of production waste. In addition, we attempt to sell unsold or returned inventory at wholesale pricing before donating it to populations in need.
We have invested in costlier thermal digital transfer and digital direct printing technologies in an effort to reduce water use throughout the production process of SHEIN-branded items.