On the occasion of an IPO, Shein revealed a carbon footprint of 25.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2025, up by 20% compared to a reference year. For an equivalent sales level, the fast fashion company emitted twice as much greenhouse gas as its closest competitor, Inditex, which managed to decouple between volumes and CO2 impact. Rémy Gérin, Professor at Essec, and Anne-Cécile Violland, French MP and Rapporteur of the fast fashion bill, shared their insights with mind Retail.
According to the IPO documents of Shein, which raised US$1.74 billion during a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange on September 1, 2026, the fast-fashion company emitted 25.57 million tonnes of CO2 last year, up by 20.2% from 2023, the reference year. This figure relates to a volume of 1.078 billion orders, up by 51% in 2 years, and to total annual revenue of US$41.85 billion, up by 30.3% over the same period. Scope 3, which includes indirect greenhouse gas emissions linked to supply, raw material production and processing, product manufacturing by suppliers, transport, logistics and end-of-life management, accounted for 96.1% of Shein’s total emissions last year, compared to 99.8% in 2023.
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Article authors
Sophie Baqué
Chief Editor of mind Retail