Urban Outfitters is owned by URBN, which also owns Free People, Anthropologie and Nuuly. For more details on URBN’s social and environmental commitments, see the Remake Brand Directory.
#PAYUP
URBN never agreed to #PayUp to its garment makers for clothing orders manufactured prior to the pandemic, jeopardizing the livelihoods and wellbeing of its makers. What’s more, months after dozens of other retailers agreed to protect their suppliers and garment workers and #PayUp,URBN announced the decision to cancel a significant volumeof additional orders and demand discounts on orders that have already shipped. As garment factories already operate on razor-thin margins, this likely pushed factories to produce clothing at below cost.
GO TRANSPARENT
While URBN publicly discloses a list of some activetier 1 cut-and-sew garment factories, the company has neither committed to, nor does it publicly provide the level of detail necessary to align withthe Transparency Pledgeor that reflects best practice, such as listing addresses and type of products manufactured. Tier 1 transparency is the absolute lowest bar of compliance in fashion and since URBN has yet to meet it, we have given them a “NO” for Go Transparent.
END STARVATION WAGES
URBN has made no public commitment to pay living wages in its supply chain, nor can it demonstrate that the workers in its supply chain earn above poverty wages.
HELP PASS LAWS
URBN was named one of the top violators of wage theft in California garment factories. And yet the company failed to endorse the Garment Worker Protection Act, a precedent-setting bill passed in 2021 that holds brands accountable for sub-minimum wages in their factories in the state of California.