Fast Retailing, the Japanese retail giant that owns Uniqlo, is having a record year.
The first half of 2026 saw the company’s revenue exceed $10.5 billion, a nearly 15% year-over-year increase. Profitability also increased, rising by nearly 30% based on strong global demand.
But Fast Retailing is also reaching milestones in other ways. This year, the company hit its 20% emissions reduction goal set in 2019. Now, Fast Retailing is increasing its emissions goals to achieve a 30% reduction from 2019 levels by 2030.
“We’ve made some really good progress on our emission reduction goals,” said Seneiya Navajas, director of sustainability for Fast Retailing across North America. “We’ve already increased our renewable energy use in our stores and offices to over 90%, and our new goal is to reach 100% by 2030.”
Kazumi Yanai, a senior executive at Fast Retailing and the son of the company’s founder and president, Tadashi Yanai, said the company’s long, stable relationships with its suppliers have been key to its financial and sustainability success.
“A unique setup that we have is very long relationships with factories,” Yanai said. “Around 30-40% of the factories we work with have been with us for 10-20 years. Another 30-40% for over 30 years, and a few for over 40 years. This has enabled us to think ahead in the long term rather than jump around to new partners and start over.”
Yanai said Fast Retailing holds annual meetings with each of its partner factories to review production and sustainability goals and forecast production needs for the next 12 months. Fast Retailing offers factories insight into which product categories it’s looking to invest in that year, as well as its longer-term plans, so both parties can plan ahead.
“This enables us to reduce inefficiencies, or in other words, waste,” Yanai said. “By doing this, we can make just the right amount at the right time.”
Fast Retailing’s success, both financially and in meeting its sustainability goals, is notable at a time when fashion brands are regularly failing to meet either. The non-profit Cascale, which analyzes sustainability efforts in the apparel business, recently found that many fashion brands have quietly reduced their sustainability ambitions, missed goals and pushed deadlines. Adidas and Inditex, for example, have only reduced their emissions by single-digit percentages despite promising reductions of up to 50%.
At the same time, Fast Retailing’s competitors are experiencing slowdowns in revenue growth, as well. Zara’s sales growth last year stalled at 1% and declined in the valuable Indian market, for example.
And the long-standing relationship with factories and suppliers does more than just help reach sustainability goals. It also helps keep Uniqlo’s product flowing into the U.S. as it opens stores and increases its American marketing investment with campaigns like its recent collaboration with Los Angeles Dodgers player Shohei Ohtani.
“We get thousands of data points from suppliers and factories, and we ask them, ‘What do you think about your brand partners? What do you want from them?'” said Kaley Roshitsh, the editorial director at Cascale. “The No. 1 thing they want is commercial predictability. That comes from long-term relationships where you know what order volume is coming.”
