Fashion. For a future.

Category: fashion

  • Fashion’s sustainability agenda must be shaped by frontline voices.

    Fashion’s sustainability agenda must be shaped by frontline voices.

    At this year’s Global Fashion Summit, the theme was Building Resilient Futures. But can we truly build resilience without including the voices of workers in global fashion supply chains? 

    At a time when sustainability is under threat, with budgets being slashed, brand commitments scaled back, and teams disbanded, events like the Global Fashion Summit offer a glimmer of hope. They unite industry leaders, policymakers, innovators, journalists and changemakers to evaluate where the industry stands and explore how we can collectively move the needle. 

    The world is facing unprecedented turmoil, from geopolitical tensions, to inflation, and the greatest challenge of our time: climate change. These global crises are reshaping industries today and now, more than ever, there is a pressing need to build resilience, ensuring the industries we have become reliant on in our everyday lives can adapt, survive and support the people within them. Recent years have made one thing abundantly clear: fashion supply chains sit on the frontlines of these crises, and business as usual is no longer an option. 

    Throughout the two-day Summit, panels covered pressing intersections of fashion, climate, policy, circularity and legislation. Discussions explored the discriminatory health impacts faced by women in fashion supply chains, the growing threat of heat stress in a warming world, the continued relevance of policy as a lever for change, and the successes and downfalls of initiatives like extended producer responsibility (EPR).

    But the overall tone was that sustainability is now a strategic business concern, and brands need to adapt and build resilience not for the sake of people, and the planet, but to reduce financial risks. The urgency was placed on how we can frame sustainability as attractive to investors, because, ultimately “if it’s only good for the planet, investors won’t be interested.” 

    On the stage, Ami Vitale, National Geographic Explorer, Photographer and Filmmaker, shared a much-needed grounding perspective on the vital role of nature, and our relationship to it. In just 50 years, humanity has wiped out 73% of the world’s wildlife, offering a stark reminder of the urgency to rethink our approach. Vitale emphasised the need for moving away from extractive practices toward relationships grounded in reciprocity and conservation, and the urgency to support frontline communities who are the land stewards, knowledge holders and true conservationists. Vitale challenged brands to look back at their supply chains and consider whether they create value for both people and the land at their point of origin, and if they don’t then something needs to change. 

    “Fashion is not just about materials, or carbon, or circular systems, though they matter,” said Vitale. “It’s about relationships and whether we see nature as a warehouse of resources, or as a living system to which we all belong…Unlike the other extinctions, this one has a designer. It runs through supply chains, it shows up in how cotton is grown, how leather is tanned, how forests are cleared, and how water is used and discarded.”

    Vitale’s presentation captured the sense of urgency that many of us in fashion are already feeling. As the climate crisis accelerates, its impacts are increasingly showing up across supply chains. In 2025 alone, more than 200 climate-related disasters affected more than 87.8 million people worldwide. Fashion’s role in the destruction of nature, our vital ecosystems,and biodiversity can no longer be ignored. “Fashion is not adjacent to the story. It is one of the systems shaping it,” said Vitale. 

    There are signs of progress, and this was evident throughout the Summit’s Innovation Showcase — from RE&UP’s textile-to-textile recycling technologies, to Haelixa’s DNA-based traceability platform, and Fibe’s natural fibres made from potato harvest waste.

    But, is innovation enough if the very structures and foundations the industry stands upon remain exploitative and extractive? Unfortunately, it seems the industry remains divisive as to whether these structures should shift or not. Panels made clear that, ultimately, the new paradigm needs to be profitable, and if it’s only good for the planet, investors won’t be interested. One investor in particular highlighted that they are specifically seeking innovations that are immediately ready to integrate into existing supply chain structures, “without overhauling the industry”. The problem with this is the innovation at hand then risks perpetuating the very same harms as current materials and production systems. Existing supply chains, shaped by a linear business model, reward profit and speed above all else. As a result, innovations introduced within these structures are likely to be pushed to scale rapidly, often at the expense of quality, responsible production, and fair labour conditions. 

    This concern was raised by Next-Gen Assembly member Kendall Ludwig. “Fashion is not adapting to circularity, circularity is trying to keep up with fashion,” said Ludwig. Currently the industry is not demanding new structures, instead it is asking next-gen materials to scale in existing fast fashion structures. Until we address the entire business model, rather than trying to gloss over it with innovation and circularity initiatives, little will change.

    This was echoed by Grace Forrest, Founding Director of Walk Free. “Without discussing a living wage and addressing mass overproduction, but talking about circularity, to me it’s like discussing if the tooth fairy is real. Because mass overproduction is the major issue. We can’t circulate our way out of the problem.” said Forrest. Too often, at sustainability-centred events, the focus is disproportionately placed on the environmental impact of the fashion industry, with the human and social costs still looked to as an afterthought, or treated as a simple tickbox exercise. But, sustainability requires an intersectional approach to tackle both environmental and social impacts; innovation and circularity initiatives that exist within supply chains rife with human suffering and exploitation are not truly sustainable. “You cannot squeeze suppliers on price and speed and still claim sustainability. Those pressures are direct drivers of exploitation. Real resilience comes from fair pricing, long-term supplier relationships and realistic production timelines.”

    We need the industry to move away from sustainability as a corporate ambition, and towards the people, communities, and ecosystems that sustain the industry itself.

    One message stood out the most at the Summit: those closest to the challenges are also closest to the solutions. Garment workers, farmers, and artisans are not passive participants within supply chains; they are land stewards, knowledge holders, and experts in what needs to change for fairer, more equitable systems. Those who sustain the industry through their labour and skills, are also those who bear the brunt of the industry’s impact, and so the frontline communities – who are both within and closest to the fashion supply chain – are the people who should be shaping the conversations around fashion’s future. 

    When it comes to decarbonisation strategies and emerging optimisation, this is imperative. Aarti Mohan, co-founder of Sattva, reinforced the importance of a “nothing for them without them” approach. Brands’ decarbonisation efforts must be implemented in a way that does not dehumanise workers through over-optimisation. Currently the industry is adopting heavily technical solutions to address human-centric problems. Meaningful progress requires active listening and collaboration with workers themselves, ensuring solutions are rooted in lived realities and adapted to local contexts. “Decarbonisation might solve the climate imperative, but it shouldn’t unlock another crisis in the form of people being left behind,” said Mohan.

    If fashion is serious about transformation, sustainability efforts must centre the voices of frontline communities, who the industry relies most heavily upon, yet too often remain excluded from the conversations shaping its future.

    Although this issue was raised across numerous panels, the voices of frontline communities and workers within the global fashion supply chain remained largely absent from the Summit. We need to move beyond simply talking about including workers’ voices and begin ensuring that workers are meaningfully represented in these conversations.”Knowledge has to flow up from workers from the front of supply chains, not just down from board rooms or sustainability teams in Europe.” said Forrest. The harsh reality is that giving space to brands like H&M and LVMH is a self-perpetuating cycle that rewards the bare minimum, when still we see continual evidence of supply chain abuses and worker exploitation. The conversation becomes one of who has access (which is largely determined by financial power), rather than who has the genuine answers and solutions. “What is lacking from events like the Global Fashion Summit is the voice of frontline workers and the voice of the people who make our clothes…sustainability isn’t real without the human rights of the people behind these products. I would like to see worker voices represented and the people behind these products at every level of the supply chain.” said Forrest.

    If the industry genuinely wants to learn from workers, then workers must also be present in the rooms where decisions are being made, this includes at events like the Global Fashion Summit.

    The fashion industry is at a critical turning point. We need conversations to lead to commitments, and commitment to lead to action. These conversations cannot belong solely to brands, CEOs, and innovators. The future of fashion must be shaped by the workers in the global fashion supply chain whose labour, skill, knowledge, and craftsmanship underpin the entire system. Without them in the room, little changes. 

    Fashion industry summits and conferences shaping the future of the sector should commit to measurable targets: at least half of all speakers and panellists should come from frontline worker communities, with funded participation for workers across all stages of the supply chain and dedicated sessions on critical issues such as fair wages, heat stress, and creating safe and healthy working environments. Workers, not brands, should be setting the agenda and leading the conversation. Resilience cannot be built in rooms that exclude the very people the industry depends on most.

    Sacha Daly is the Digital Editor at Eco Age.

  • What fashion is missing: endings, and everything that comes after.

    What fashion is missing: endings, and everything that comes after.

    Every material will eventually return to the biosphere, and whether it does so as a resource or as a pollutant is a design choice.

    Start with a forest floor.

    A leaf falls. Within hours, it crunches under the feet of adorable mammals like deer and raccoons. Tiny invertebrates begin fragmenting it, bacteria colonise its surface. Fungi begins threading into it. Microbes metabolise what remains. In a matter of weeks if not days in some parts of the world, what was once a leaf has been transformed into nutrients that feed the very tree that dropped it. Nothing is lost. Everything is continuously becoming something else, sharing and rearranging. The forest doesn’t have a waste problem because it has decomposers: the patient, invisible architects of renewal that sit at the heart of every healthy natural system.

    Now consider the fashion industry. In 2021, The Biomimicry Institute published a report that started from a deceptively simple question: what would fashion look like if it actually operated like a natural ecosystem? We looked at how natural materials cycle, and why. We went back to the first of all principles: the fundamental rules that run our physical world.

    What we found is something the industry has been quietly avoiding. It is a truth rooted not in opinion but in the laws of physics.

    The Law No Circular Economy Can Escape

    The second law of thermodynamics is non-negotiable. Materials trend towards dispersal. Industrial loops leak. No matter how elegantly we design a recycling system, no matter how tightly we imagine our circular loops, the biosphere is always the outermost container. Everything we make is ultimately inside nature, not alongside it.

    If materials are going to escape our industrial systems regardless, then the question isn’t how to stop them from leaking — it’s what they become when they do.

    In nature, this is entirely solved. What disperses from one organism becomes nutrients for another. The fallen leaf fuels the forest. This works because natural systems are built around three interlocking actors: primary producers, consumers, and decomposers. Producers concentrate energy and matter into useful forms. Consumers extract that value. And decomposers break everything back down into the building blocks that producers need to begin again.

    Fashion has built extraordinary infrastructure around the first two. We grow fibres, spin yarn, weave cloth, design garments, and recirculate them through increasingly sophisticated resale and recycling channels. But we have largely forgotten the third actor. We have built a system with no decomposers, and the consequences are everywhere.

    When textiles escape our industrial loops, as they inevitably do, there is nothing waiting to receive them. Polyester fibres shed into oceans as microplastics. Blended, dyed, chemically-treated garments pile up on the banks of sacred waterways. The link between decomposition and primary production — the link that makes natural systems endlessly generative — is broken in the systems we have built. Waste becomes pollution; not because we have been careless, but because we have been incomplete.

    The Missing Engine

    This is the central insight that drives the Nature of Fashion: Design for Transformation initiative, led by The Biomimicry Institute and funded by Laudes Foundation. Decomposition is not a niche concern, a technical footnote, or the last resort after recycling fails. It is the missing engine of true circularity. And without it, every circular economy model we build is solving only part of the problem.

    This is not an argument against recycling. Recycling is vital where existing infrastructure is hard-won and must be preserved. But recycling, alone, cannot address a system that exceeds planetary boundaries by design, produces materials that have no safe decomposition pathway, and concentrates its failures in the communities least responsible for creating them. Decomposition begins where recycling reaches its limits, receiving what remains. It is the phase that transforms spent materials back into the building blocks of new life. It is, in nature, how abundance perpetuates itself.

    The Nature of Fashion initiative is now in its second phase, working with three pilot partners across three very different contexts to test what it actually looks like to bring decomposition back into the textile industrial system. Each pilot is locally adapted, ecologically grounded, and asks a different version of the same fundamental question: how do we learn to design endings well?

    Three Pilots, Three Answers

    In the Netherlands, Circle Economy and partners including EV Biotech, BioFashionTech, and TNO are building a system of partnerships that resembles a forest floor at industrial scale. Instead of waiting for a single technology to solve everything, they asked what happens if you link enzymatic hydrolysis, bacterial fermentation, and gasification together — each processing a different fraction of mixed textile waste, each feeding its outputs into the next phase, each performing the role of a different decomposer in a natural ecosystem. The discovery is already significant: these processes can work synergistically. A tangle of unsellable, unsortable mixed textiles that would otherwise be incinerated becomes glucose, biodegradable polymers, and syngas. Waste becomes feedstock. The Netherlands becomes, quietly, a proof of concept for industrial symbiosis at the systems level.

    In Germany, the Beneficial Design Institute and partners at the Fraunhofer Institutes are extending this logic further. Polyester-rich textile waste is hydrolysed and fermented into PHB, a biodegradable biopolymer with promising medical applications. And in a process that feels almost improbable, CO2 from the syngas of gasified textile waste is fed to microalgae, which process it via photosynthesis to produce beta-glucan for agriculture and biomaterials. Carbon cycling back into living systems. The Berlin-Brandenburg region is positioned to become a textile bioeconomy hub where discards from one process become the input for another, exactly as nature has always operated.

    These two European pilots are pursuing commercial viability, technical innovation, and systems integration. They are essential. And they tell part of the story.

    The other part of the story is in Accra.

    Where the System Ends Up

    Kantamanto Market in Ghana processes around 15 million used garments every week, imported from the UK, the EU, the US, Canada, and China. It is one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing hubs, providing an extraordinary service of keeping garments in use within a broken system built on overproduction. As fashion novelty accelerates and garments are designed to be disposable, the task becomes impossible to complete. What cannot be sold accumulates. And it accumulates in Korle Lagoon — Naa Korle, a sacred waterway behind the market that has absorbed decades of the world’s textile waste.

    And yet, underneath the ecological devastation, life is innovating. The lagoon’s microbial communities are evolving to metabolise polymers once considered indestructible. Korle is not just a site of crisis. It is an evolution hotspot.

    What the Or Foundation has discovered at Korle is something that reframes the entire conversation. The lagoon’s microbial communities are evolving under the evolutionary pressure of extreme synthetic pollution to metabolise polymers once considered indestructible. Korle is not just a site of crisis. It is a Living Lab, the most concentrated ecosystem on earth for synthetic textiles. Developed not in a laboratory, but in direct response to what the fashion industry sent there.

    The Or Foundation’s pilot does not seek to out-engineer this. The team seeks to learn from it, support it, and ultimately restore the lagoon and the community surrounding it. Community members are co-investigators. The science being developed through field-deployable DNA analysis tools, bioreactor designs informed by the lagoon’s own microbial logic, is grounded in a principle of democratised knowledge. And the work holds a truth that no amount of industrial biotech can circumvent: the communities at the end of the line are also the communities with the most intimate knowledge of what the system has produced. Justice and ecological intelligence are not separate conversations. They belong together and are inextricably linked.

    What This Asks of Us

    The Nature of Fashion initiative does not offer a silver bullet. That framing is precisely what we are trying to move beyond. What it offers is a paradigm upgrade: a way of thinking about the fashion industry as nested within natural systems, constrained by the same physical laws, and therefore capable of learning from the same biological genius that has sustained life on earth for billions of years.

    This means designing textiles as nutrients from the very beginning, understanding that every material will eventually return to the biosphere, and that whether it does so as a resource or as a pollutant is a design choice. It means investing in decomposition infrastructure alongside recycling infrastructure, understanding that these are complementary, not competing. It means confronting the fact that the places where textile waste accumulates most intensely are not peripheral to this story but in fact central to it.

    And it means approaching this work with the humility that nature itself models and accepting that transformation takes time. On the forest floor, decomposition happens not through force but through collaborations: the right organisms, the right environment, the right sequence. 3.8 billion years of evolution have refined those conditions to extraordinary efficiency. 

    We are at the beginning of understanding how to do the same. The pilots in the Netherlands, Berlin-Brandenburg, and Ghana are showing us that it is possible, and that it is already underway — in laboratories, in living lagoons, and in the communities who have been waiting for the rest of the system to catch up.

    In nature, every ending is the beginning of something new…

    Everything we make will come back to the earth. The question has always been what it becomes when it does.

    Asha Singhal is Director of the Nature of Fashion: Design for Transformation initiative at The Biomimicry Institute. The initiative is funded by Laudes Foundation and works with pilot partners The Or Foundation (Ghana), Circle Economy (Netherlands), and Beneficial Design Institute (Germany). Learn more at biomimicry.org . Case studies from all three pilot partners are published and can be viewed here. 

  • High intensity shoppers are causing a returns problem.

    High intensity shoppers are causing a returns problem.

    If you are on the sustainability track, chances are you are curbing your consumerism. However for 27% of UK clothing shoppers, over consumption is becoming a chronic problem. A survey commissioned by WEFT identifies ‘high intensity shoppers’ (defined as shoppers who buy at least two items of clothing/shoes per month): this cohort makes up 27% of UK shoppers and they are responsible for half of all clothing purchases. The average number of purchases per month for this cohort is 5.5 (and 7 items for luxury customers).

    What’s more, these shoppers have become problematic for brands and retailers, particularly in the luxury segment. High intensity shoppers are known to frequently engage in “free rental” by wearing and returning items: a third of high-intensity shoppers surveyed admitted to purchasing, wearing once, and returning clothing for a full refund; this behavior is twice as high among luxury brand customers. 

    The ability to resell items efficiently through preloved platforms may also be part of the reason why over-consumptive behaviour is on the rise: the WEFT research found a fall in repair and rental use in line with a rise in second hand sales. The gamification of shopping, either through advertising that encourages purchasing behaviour (‘get it before it goes’, ‘one time only discounts’, countdown timers) or through the addictive nature of resale apps, is creating a form of shopping addiction. In February, the European Union opened an investigation into fast fashion giants Shein and Temu over concerns about their allegedly addictive design. Recently, a jury found Meta and Google liable for harm caused by the addictive qualities of their platforms’ social media platforms. It’s not hard to imagine the same logic applying to retailers. “I know I should just stop, but I can’t,” says Amy, 31. “I worry if I don’t buy it I will regret it later.” Amy admits to buying up to 25 items per month, but sees rental and resale platforms as a way to excuse her behaviour, “even though I know it’s all got a bit out of control.” 

    While Amy says she is not one of the shoppers who engage in ‘free rental’, there is anecdotal evidence that luxury consumers, tired of high prices and labouring under the assumption that big brands can afford it, see buying, wearing without removing the tags, and then returning product under the premise of ‘it didn’t fit’ as fair game. One multi-brand shopping site admitted the behaviour has been on the rise for several years now. For customers looking to create fashion content, this ruse has become increasingly popular. Net-a-Porter have taken to publishing the following statement as a form of discouragement: “We monitor the number of returns made by customers in order to check whether the purchase of products is pursued for consumer purposes and is not, on the contrary, pursued for commercial, entrepreneurial or professional purposes, and/or is otherwise related to fraudulent intent.”

    The rise in online shopping has made the returns problem more acute, as shoppers resort to ‘bracketing’ – buying clothes in multiple sizes, with the intention of returning what does not fit. A report from the British Fashion Council in 2023 which surveyed a wide range of retailers from Jimmy Choo to John Lewis, found 30 per cent of online purchases are returned, versus 10 per cent of those bought in physical stores. Fashion’s returns challenge has been exacerbated by the rise of the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) model, which has enabled consumers to purchase items without the immediate payment – streamlining the ability to purchase, wear and return without ever having to pay a penny.

    Returns are estimated to have cost the UK fashion industry at least £7 billion in 2022, generating approximately 750,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Processing returns is costly, as the brand has to pay for reverse shipping (often subsidized), inspection & repackaging, restocking or liquidation, customer service and lost resale value (especially for seasonal fashion). Many brands have shortened the window for returns from a month to 14 days, and begun charging for the process. Two years ago ASOS launched a £3.95 returns fee after it admitted the behaviour of 6% of high intensity shoppers was in part responsible for a £100m hit to profits: shoppers who were frequently ordering, then returning ‘a high proportion’.

    So what happens to all these returned items? The BFC report found that half of all returns are resold at an average discount of 40 per cent; three per cent of returns remain unsold, of which half are sent to landfill, a quarter are recycled and a further quarter incinerated. The EU has now banned the incineration of unsold clothing, but it is still allowed in the UK. For high street brands, the cost of processing returns can be a barrier. “One Spanish retailer is well known for sending returns to a UK warehouse for donation or destruction – the cost of sending it back to Spain to be repackaged and reprocessed is not worth the time and money,” revealed one operations insider. 

    Over 30% of manufactured clothing is never actually sold for wear and needs a circular solution. Separate research by WEFT (undertaken to prepare the UK government for Extended Producer Responsibility regulation) has indicated that a significant number of clothes shoppers would be happy to pay a 50p tax per item on clothing to contribute to circularity initiatives – and some happy to pay up to £5. “We went to nearly 3,000 shoppers and our analysis showed that up to 50p, it makes almost no difference in their choice of what they buy, both with higher and lower priced items,” says Gerrard Fisher. “Once you get over 50p, the purchase level goes down and they start swapping to items that are cheaper or are more expensive but have a lower fee.”

    If the fee is introduced, it would only be charged to the customer the first time that product is placed on the market. “If it’s a reused item the fee isn’t charged, so it will be interesting to see what happens with returns,” says Fisher. “As brands are trying to reprocess [returned] products, we might see a choice for a brand new product, or one that’s been returned that’s cheaper because there’s no fee.”

    If this regulation goes ahead in the UK, and the hope amongst circularity advocates is that it will, the cost will be driven by the high intensity shopping cohort, but born by all of us.

    Tiffanie is an author, activist and founder of the Rule of Five campaign and the sustainable luxury concept @agora-ibiza. You can read more of her work on Substack at It’s Not Sustainable

  • The Forever Label

    The Forever Label

    PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of synthetic chemicals used across the textile industry for water resistance, stain resistance, and durability.

    They are commonly known as “forever chemicals” for a reason: they do not break down in the environment and accumulate in the human body over time.

    But this information on chemical ingredients does not reach the consumer at point of purchase.

    Our solution is simple.

    If it lasts forever, label it.

    Join us as we demand transparency with the Forever Label.

    What is the Forever Label?

    Consumers are unable to make informed choices about the clothing they buy without access to transparent information.

    The Forever Label will provide consumers with the information they need to understand the chemical ingredients in their clothing.

    We are asking for transparency.

    The same basic standard of disclosure that already exists for allergens in food, financial risk in investment products and ingredients in cosmetics.

    We are calling for mandatory disclosure of PFAS on all clothing and textile products sold in the EU.

    • On a physical hang tag.
    • On the website listing.

    Everywhere a consumer encounters a product they should clearly see whether PFAS has been used.

    The label forces brands to take accountability for harmful chemicals while encouraging consumers to consider the environmental impact before purchase.

    Why now?

    France and Denmark are at the forefront of regulating toxic chemicals in the fashion and textile industry with targeted bans on clothing, footwear and cosmetic products.

    In Denmark, from July 1st 2026, the import and sale of clothing, footwear and waterproofing agents containing PFAS are prohibited.

    In February 2026, the UK released its first ever PFAS Plan to protect people and the environment from harmful “forever chemicals”.

    But consumers still cannot identify the presence of these chemicals in their garments because brands do not disclose them.

    While regulation continues to develop, disclosure is still necessary so consumers understand where PFAS is present.

    Consumers deserve to know what’s in their clothes.

    Sign the petition

  • People First, Planet First at United Repair Centre

    People First, Planet First at United Repair Centre

    Not too long ago, the idea of throwing away a garment simply because it was well-worn or needed a bit of mending was as ludicrous as disposing of a diamond ring because it needed a good polish. Over the last fifty years, however, the rise of throwaway culture and fast fashion have conditioned consumers to forgo mending in favour of binning.

    Globally, 120 million tonnes of clothing were discarded in 2024. The EU alone generates 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste annually, including 5.2 million tonnes of clothing and footwear, and roughly 78% of it winds up in a landfill site or is incinerated.

    But on a tree-lined street in Amsterdam, a few dozen men and women are working to reduce the amount of clothing that is tossed – one garment at a time. They are tailors at United Repair Centre (URC), a B2B clothing repair company that is equally dedicated to helping clothing and people reach their full potential “Our mission is to repair the clothing industry by putting people first,” says Thami Schweichler, the founder and CEO of URC.

    Though the company was founded in 2022, its ethos and mission can be traced back to 2015, when Schweichler founded Makers Unite. That year, over 800,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Greece via the Aegean Sea, leaving hundreds of thousands of life vests on Greek beaches. Schweichler, together with a collective, gave the bright orange vests and some of those who wore them a second chance by employing refugees in the Netherlands to create upcycled travel products.

    Ultimately, nearly 10,000 vests were turned into tote bags, laptop covers and travel pouches by 71 refugees who went through a coaching programme to help them train for employment in the Netherlands. The products were sold online and in museum shops throughout Europe. By 2017, companies such as Tommy Hilfiger and C&A were asking for bespoke upcycled goods for the European market.

    In 2020, the City of Amsterdam organised a series of working groups to discuss various government initiatives, one of which is for the city to become fully circular by 2050. Representing Makers Unite, Schweichler joined the textile working group, which also included Patagonia, whose European headquarters is in Amsterdam. When the luxury outdoor brand suggested creating a shared repair service to reduce the amount of textile waste, the idea immediately resonated with Schweichler, who says that migration brings deep and diverse skillsets to Europe, particularly in the textile industry, which has declined over the past decades.

    “I realised that there was a lot of possible job creation in the sector and wanted to connect it with the skillset of migrants. It was a gigantic economic opportunity actually,” Schweichler says. 

    Brands needed to provide repair services – for warranty, as part of their business model and in anticipation of EPR legislation – but there was a fragmented, outdated and decreasing repairability sector in Europe.

    Schweichler went back to Patagonia and said he wanted to become a repair provider for them under two conditions: that he could share their group lens with other brands and use their expertise to help repair products at large scale; and that he could connect the repair programme with a social inclusion programme.

    Two years later, URC was launched as a collaborative partnership between the Amsterdam Economic Board, Makers Unite and Patagonia, funded by private investment. 

    Schweichler applied his proven model of training migrants and refugees to the new venture and Patagonia provided its technical expertise and network. Schweichler’s mentor Paul Kerssens became a co-founder, bringing expertise in commercial scalability.

    Today URC works with more than 30 global brands including Patagonia, Lululemon, Levi’s, The North Face, Arc’teryx and Jansport, handling repairs for Europe and the UK. 

    Roughly two-thirds of the brands use URC’s streamlined platform, so customers requesting repairs communicate directly with the repair centre, which has workrooms in Amsterdam and London (with Paris and Germany coming in 2026). URC’s operations in Amsterdam and London are already profitable and to date, have repaired more than 75,000 garments, reducing 404 tonnes of CO2.

    Equally importantly, the Certified B Corporation employs 60 refugees and migrants representing 21 nationalities. Though the majority were already trained tailors in their home countries, many have gone through URC’s training academy. Those who complete the free one year course and achieve the required productivity level are guaranteed a job at URC, but the job is really the beginning.

    Many of the tailors come from terrible backgrounds, having lost their homes and families. United Repair Centre focuses on creating an inclusive community to build a new future together. Schweichler says “It’s amazing. People say, ‘I didn’t know I could do anything. Now I know I can be a tailor and I have value’,” adding that it’s not about integrating people into societies. “It’s making sure that they are included, and I think there’s a big difference. They’re part of something bigger.”

    Jaimie Seaton has been a journalist and writer for more than 20 years.

  • Is London Fashion Week Ready for Mandatory Sustainability?

    Is London Fashion Week Ready for Mandatory Sustainability?

    From Autumn/Winter 2026, London Fashion Week will formally adopt Copenhagen Fashion Week’s Sustainability Requirements, starting with the season running from Thursday 19 to Monday 23 February 2026. 

    The UK capital continues to be a source of experimental and forward-thinking design with initiatives such as the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN programme, which has launched the likes of Jonathan Anderson and Alexander McQueen, giving young designers resources to scale innovation and tap into new audiences.  

    From this season, participation comes with conditions, not pledges, with NEWGEN designers incorporating the full stipulations of Copenhagen Fashion Week’s (CPHFW) sustainability requirements.  

    The BFC announced the roll-out in January 2025, requiring all NEWGEN brands to meet 18 minimum criteria across six areas of the value chain.  

    Yvie Hutton, Director of Membership & Designer Relations, BFC says: “Together with CPHFW, we are adopting a framework that empowers emerging designer fashion businesses to lead the way and contribute tangibly to a more sustainable and responsible industry.” 

    As part of the requirements brands must have a formally approved sustainability strategy in place, covering both environmental and social factors, and guidelines and structures in place to provide equal opportunities and hiring processes to promote diversity.  

    They must also agree that they do not destroy unsold clothes and samples from previous collections, instead following a process in place for leftovers and waste.  

    According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 73% of collected textile apparel waste is landfilled or incinerated globally. Meanwhile Textile Exchange has uncovered that of the 124 million metric tonnes of textiles produced in 2023, less than 1% consisted of recycled textile fibres.  

    CPHFW’s sustainable requirements most notably state at least 60% of a collection is to be certified, made of preferred materials or deadstock fabric, and for the collection to be free of fur, wild animal skins and feathers. 

    LFW is the first of the ‘big four’ fashion capitals to implement the framework, supported by BFC mentoring and training. 

    Hutton adds: “We (LFW) are the first Fashion Week to ban fur and exotic animal skins.” 

    “Sustainability works best when it grows alongside the brand, not as a marketing layer placed on top of it,” says Liza Keane, a London-based designer showcasing at LFW FW26 as part of the NEWGEN cohort. 

    Keane adopts a multi-level approach to material management. At pattern-cutting stage she “actively designs to minimise waste”. Additionally, her brand up-cycles when possible and treats offcuts as surplus, “often letting the up-cycled pieces inform the shape and logic of the garment”. 

    Keane’s works with predominantly natural and recycled fibres across her whole product range and plastics used are either recycled or are biodegradable.  

    Ruined SS25 LIZA KEANE

    “Most of our range is manufactured locally with technicians we’ve worked with for years and we pay fairly for their high-level expertise. That continuity allows us to invest in quality and longevity at the construction level as well as in materials.” 

    In addition to material requirements CPHFW’s sustainability framework includes: 

    • Consumer education on the critical discussions in the fashion industry around the fast consumption of fashion, clothing, footwear and accessories 

    • Actively working to reduce the environmental impact of packaging  

    • No use of single-use props or plastic packaging used in the production of a showcase 

    LUEDER will also be showcasing at LFW FW26 within the NEWGEN cohort. The London-based label founded by Marie Lueder in 2019 creates garments with organic denim, recycled jersey and regenerated nylon. Lueder also participated in Cambridge University’s accelerator programme for sustainable leadership and has been reported to use fashion design software CLO 3D, which reduces textile waste and fabric consumption throughout the design and production process. 

    Elsewhere, Tolu Coker, also based in London, creates unisex designs focusing on deconstruction and sustainability. Coker is a British-Nigerian fashion and textile designer and uses her work to influence social change. Aware that much textile waste ends up in the global south, pushed by the industry’s desire of “newness”, Coker likewise uses upcycled and recycled materials, for example, she featured reworked Ugg boots and clogs at LFW FW25.  

    Tolu Coker photographed by Ade Coker

    BFC is committed to driving change, through the adoption of not only CPHFW’s sustainability requirements, but also through several other initiatives such as its Institute of Positive Fashion (IPF) and its Low Carbon Transition Programme. However, these initiatives only go so far and the scale of circularity in the UK is far from where it currently needs to be. It is only NEWGEN designers, for example, who must adopt the sustainability requirements in full. 

    Although there is a persuading case for more considered material in the UK’s fashion and textile sector, with some brands focussing on recycling, re-distributing, repairing and renting, there is no tangible incentive for them to do so. With high costs coming from supply chain changes, recycling and next-generation materials, brands must consider the bottom line.  

    Incoming regulation such as Extended Producer Responsibility, which will add environmental costs to the market price of products, plus the introducing of Digital Product Passports (DPP) requiring brands and retailers to display transparent and traceable information on products, incentivises BFC to further support its fashion community and ensure the widespread implication of sustainability initiatives.  

    There is opportunity for BFC to go further in its efforts to educate and provide support for UK designers, brands and retailers. Durability, repairability and recyclability are core aspects of the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, and so brands and businesses need to begin their journey towards compliance now.  

    CPHFW sustainability requirements go somewhere to bringing sustainable practices, reflecting EU regulation, into focus. London has huge opportunity to showcase this to the wider global fashion industry as the first of the fashion capitals to implement the requirements in full.  

    Cecile Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week said: “With the British Fashion Council, as an influential player in the global fashion landscape, we see a lot of potential to further amplify the impact of our collective commitment to sustainability.” 

    Hutton adds: “A key part of our ongoing support for designers through the BFC NEWGEN initiative is the Sustainability Standards, which form part of the application process and focus on circular design principles, diversity and inclusion and ESG strategies.” 

    Elsewhere, London Councils One World Living programme, the Greater London Authority, ReLondon and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation announced the launch of ‘London Textiles Action Plan’, in March 2025, supporting the UK’s compliance with sustainability initiatives and like BFC building circular economies by instigating reuse and recycling of textile waste.  

    Abi Turner is a fashion and business journalist. She is Features Editor at World Textile Information Network (WTiN), having previously worked at publications including Reach PLC and Daily Mail. She started her career at fashion and beauty directory, DIARY directory after completing her MA at London College of Fashion. 

  • New Year health kick? Time to ditch your toxic activewear.

    New Year health kick? Time to ditch your toxic activewear.

    January – time to get your sweat on. But if it’s a health kick you’re after, you may want to re-examine your wardrobe. A recent study by the University of Birmingham proved for the first time that PFAS – the forever chemicals building up in our environment with links to cancer, hormone disruption and low infant birth weight – can be absorbed from clothing through the skin. On top of that, the new, shorter chain PFAS the chemicals industry is switching to following bans on longer chain fluorocarbons, are more effective at crossing the skin barrier.

    For sportswear, this raises flags. PFAS are present in many of the dyes and invisible finishes we expect of performance materials. Sportswear is often tight, we sweat in it, creating better conditions for osmosis, and the abrasive nature of workouts means the textiles rub against the skin. But when it comes to performance wear, those great synthetic textile revolutions of the 20th century – waterproof Goretex, stretchy Lycra and Spandex, ‘odour, sweat resistant’ nylons – still win out. No one wants a sports bra without support, or a running vest you can’t sweat in. So what are the options?

    There are twin evils when it comes to synthetic materials – the microplastics that these textiles shed, which we know are building up everywhere from the Arctic ice sheet to your mother’s placenta, and the chemical dyes and finishes that are used to increase their performance. “The cheaper the product, the cheaper the chemistry, and that’s where you have concerns about toxicity,” says Matthias Foessel, of Beyond Surface Technologies. Consumers have two options – going natural and regenerative, or sticking around for cleaner, alternative biomaterials.

    Let’s take the latter first – Nanoloom is one of the great hopes to replace the stretch we expect from Lycra and Spandex. Created out of the Nobel prize winning graphene discovery, Nanoloom claims to have a bonding process that allows a high percentage of graphene to be incorporated into yarn. With exceptional moisture wicking, water resistance, durability and stretch, Nanoloom is a non toxic, biodegradable alternative to Elastene. “Stretch and recovery is 100%” says co-founder Victoria Mataczynski, triumphant from a recent trial with Gymshark. The company begins commercial production next year and presents a PFAs free solution to the industry. But competition is tough: “Elastene was innovated in the 70s, so we’re expected to meet a similar standard of production and performance as something that’s been around for decades – and is super cheap.”

    “Some of the new bio-based materials coming to market now are simply better: they outperform legacy (fossil fuel based) materials, they’re cheaper at scale, they’re non toxic, and they’re carbon-negative,” says Nic Gorini, of venture capital firm, Spin Ventures. “Awareness of toxicity of existing materials is going to be a big driver in their uptake in the next decade.”

    Green chemistry pioneers Beyond Surface Technologies have two 100% plant-based water repellency products coming out this year. They also have two 100% biocarbon based moisture wicking finishes already in market: “They are state of the art,” says Foessel, “with performance and durability equal to petroleum finishes,” name checking Patagonia, Lululemon, adidas, PUMA and Fabletics, as brands trialling their cleaner approach.

    While we wait to see if these materials will reach scale, your current best option is to go natural. Don’t be fooled by the ‘benefits’ of recycled polyester – a recent Changing Markets study found recycled polyester sheds more microplastics than virgin. “We are oversold the benefits of specialist performance wear,” says Ed Brial, founder of regenerative cotton solution, Materra, now used by Mango and Ecoalf. “You can go for a run in t-shirt and joggers.” Cotton absorbs water “and can be quite heavy if not woven in the right way, but it doesn’t pick up smells like plastics do, is durable and biodegradable.” Community Clothing’s Patrick Grant agrees: “The men’s 100m record before synthetics stood at 9.95 seconds. Only very few people have run faster. Synthetic sports clothing gives only a slight performance edge.” Grant has developed Community Clothing Organic, a 100% natural, biodegradable sportswear collection, from waistband to stitching thread. Five years of innovation has produced lightweight, fast-drying cotton fabrics, a woven natural rubber and cotton elastic. What’s more it’s affordable – from £30 for a racer back vest.

    Image courtesy of Community Clothing

    Less affordable is merino sportswear, but undoubtedly wool offers incredible benefits in terms of thermo regulation, as well as superior technical advances in weaving, enabling brands like Icebreaker to achieve a 97% merino wool collection. Even more impressive is Mover, a mountaineering company whose range of Ventile cotton and 100% wool outerwear promise superior performance in extreme conditions.

    Brands like Pangaia and BAM offer semi-synthetics in the form of bamboo and corn, which derive their polymers from natural sources, not petrochemicals. Any polymer-based fibre will shed microfibres through wear and washing, but “the important question is what happens to the particles: if a material is biodegradable or compostable, shed fibres can break down under the right environmental conditions,” say Pangaia, whose 365 Seamless Activewear collection is PFAS-free, and certified under OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100. If you are looking for a good stretch legging and sports bra, they offer better options than anything petrochemical derived, and what’s more are finished with the brand’s trademark natural PPRMINT™ oil for odour resistance. 

    Image courtesy of PANGAIA

    When it comes to footwear, the matrix gets more complicated. Shoes often contain up to 20 component parts, and durability is the priority. No one wants a mushroom leather running shoe that falls apart in a few months. At barefoot health brand Vivobarefoot, durability is the priority. “With all the effort and resources it takes putting shoes together, they need to last a long time,” says Charlotte Pumford, Vivobarefoot’s sustainability lead. Instead, shoes are designed for disassembly and repair.

    That said, the company is constantly trialling new materials, working with NFW’s natural rubber Pliant and leather alternatives Mirum and Hyphalite, as well as algae derived leather alternative, Algenesis. But until those biomaterials compete on durability, recycled polyester wins. “Everything is tested robustly against European and California specific legislation, which is pretty strict,” says Pumford, “although we go beyond just legal limits.” Prioritising foot health and limiting impact is a constant balance: “Our mission is to reconnect people back to nature: we enable feet to biomechanically do what they are meant to do.” Professional athletes, personal trainers and fitness experts agree, and while there are now over 90 barefoot brands following in Vivo’s wake, “using less certified and cheaper materials, we remain stoic in our mission.”

    “People do not react well to wearing shoddy plastic on our bodies. We should be worried and concerned,” says Brial, “for human health, planetary health, and the health of workers.”

    “Polyester took 50 years to get there, with a really big oil lobby behind them and lots of evil marketing to get people to use it,” says Vivo design consultant Aisha Kuijk. “We have to form a rebellion – our own lobby – to push it through. We have something to fight for!”

    Tiffanie is an author, activist and founder of the Rule of Five campaign and the sustainable luxury concept @agora-ibiza. You can read more of her work on Substack at It’s Not Sustainable

  • Landmark rulings in Bangladesh.

    Landmark rulings in Bangladesh.

    For the fashion industry, out of sight too often means out of mind. This means that certain indiscretions can easily fly under the radar. This is true when it comes to emissions and even more so when it comes to the human element of the global supply chain. 

    A fresh chain of landmark rulings in Bangladesh, however, could soon change all that for the better – and not only in the cradle of the world’s garment manufacturing industry, but globally. 

    With the country supplying $7.4 billion USD of clothing to the United States and €4.3 billion EUR to the European Union each year – their second- and third-largest suppliers, respectively – it is no exaggeration to say that when the pendulum swings in Bangladesh, it also begins to swing worldwide. 

    First, the nation’s new interim government officially dropped a cache of criminal cases numbering almost 50,000 – charges which had been levied against garment workers demonstrating egregiously low wages.

    Now, that pivot has also ushered in a broader swathe of pro-worker legislation. Rulings which, in making it easier for workers to unionise in smaller numbers, could not only test the garment industry’s opacity but also loosen its once-iron grip on the governments and citizens of manufacturing-driven countries worldwide. 

    Yes, in Bangladesh it’s a major victory for all those directly involved – the human impact which would have likely accompanied such a reckless slew of prosecutions cannot be understated.

    But, crucially, it has become the springboard for something much bigger. 

    With the cases now dismissed as the acts of a corrupt government in league with (or in thrall to) its largest source of revenue and members of that government facing indictments,  manufacturers in Bangladesh will likely think twice before pursuing similar anti-collectivist action again. Particularly with pro-union legislation, making it easier for workers to take action following in the wake of those dropped charges. 

    Companies elsewhere may well draw a sharp breath and think to steady their own hands: a win for workers in a nation as instrumental to the industry as Bangladesh should, therefore, mean a win for workers worldwide – a positive change in terms of fairer pay and better conditions. Or, at least, in their ability to demand those things. 

    The world’s eighth-most populous country; not only does Bangladesh’s garment sector account for 60% of the nation’s exports, it also produces nearly 8% of all clothing manufactured worldwide. A figure that puts the developing nation behind only China in those stakes. Those statistics put Bangladesh firmly in a position to set precedent for the entire fashion industry. 

    It’s a tipping point – one you could argue ought never to have been reached in the first place.

    Given that garment workers typically receive less than 1% of the price of each T-shirt they make, €0.18 on a €29 product sold in Europe, the initial protests were no surprise; that the factories themselves only take 4% in the same transaction also means it’s hardly surprising that they would take action against anything – or anyone – impacting their already scant margins. 

    Organisations like the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), however, alleged foul play: that the filing of mass criminal charges against demonstrators asking for just BDT 23,000 ($196) per month were not based on the nature of those protests, but were made (often without evidence) in order to discourage further collective action en masse and with a heavy hand. 

    Not just in Bangladesh, but as a model for the garment industry as a whole. 

    With the change in governance, however, there is a change in the prevailing winds. Where the previous, scandal-beleaguered Hasina administration had clearly picked the side of manufacturers and of the fashion industry which near-singlehandedly props up the country’s economy, its successor has now ruled in favour of the workers who hold the entire operation together. 

    Speaking to Eco Age, Bogu Gojdź, campaign and outreach co-ordinator for the Clean Clothes Campaign says: “Filing of mass criminal cases is a common repression method aimed to freeze protest and intimidate workers away from any form of organising. This victory means that 48,000 workers and families can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they won’t be facing prosecution for exercising their legal right to protest.”

    Kalpona Akhter – union leader and executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity – echoed Gojdź’s sentiment, positioning the legal win as a precedent for reshaping the wider industry: “This is a massive victory for workers in Bangladesh, for trade unions anywhere in the world and for international solidarity. It shows the strength of workers, of organising and of international solidarity work.”

    Gojdź, too, sees the potential for this victory to expand outward and begin a fresh wave of change for workers: “Trade unions and partners in the CCC Network are continuing their collaboration with the interim government.

    “A much-needed labour law reform is currently underway, including provisions on the right to organise and the right to strike, as well as several provisions on an improved wage-setting machinery.

    “Through the enforcement of these reforms, and the implementation of fair pricing and responsible purchasing practices by international brands, we can break the endless cycle of poverty wages, followed by repression and worker unrest and look towards a brighter turn for the fashion industry in Bangladesh.”

    In fact, in the short space of time since Gojdź first made comment to Eco Age, fairer proposals have already come to light: most notably a reported decree to lower the number of required signatories for forming trade unions within Bangladeshi companies – a move which has made significant waves, disquieting garment manufacturers who rely on low wages to keep their profits in line. 

    The pendulum is indeed swaying.

    Karl Smith-Eloise is Features Director for Eco Age. He has worked as the EMEA Editorial Lead for HYPEBEAST and Editorial Director of FUTUREVVORLD, as a contributing editor to Highsnobiety, and for the fashion house FENDI. He now focuses exclusively on Earth-forward and ethical avenues in fashion, footwear and the broader culture.

  • COP30 didn’t deliver on a fossil fuel phase out.

    COP30 didn’t deliver on a fossil fuel phase out.

    COP30 was punctuated by a heavy presence from fossil fuel lobbyists, protests led by Indigenous groups and the breakout of a fire, with heavy symbolism of what is to come, if countries and corporates continue to drag their heels on climate action. 

    Although no deal on a plan to phase out fossil fuel made it to the final draft, several themes emerged from Belem that were particularly pertinent for the fashion industry, including the just energy transition, stewarding oceans and biodiversity, as well as accelerating finance and capacity building for decarbonisation and climate adaptation.  

    With industry emissions increasing steadily, what can fashion’s stakeholders take away from COP30?  

    Removing barriers to the energy transition  

    Prior to the convention, the UNFCCC Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action released an open letter, setting out clear priorities for a fossil fuel phase-out. It encouraged governments in key sourcing regions to remove legal and fiscal barriers hindering renewable energy procurement and electrification.  

    However, fashion campaigners Action Speak Louder, Fashion Revolution and Stand.earth wanted the Charter to go further, particularly in spurring targeted policy advocacy in manufacturing hubs and brand investment in decarbonisation and adaptation.  

    Ruth MacGilp, fashion campaign manager for Action Speaks Louder, emphasised the responsibility of the Charter. “It has a significant role to play in convening brands on adaptation because it is essential, but expensive.” 

     Indeed, the costs are high, given that by 2035, developing countries will need somewhere between $310 billion and $365 billion annually for targeted adaptation projects.  

    Scaling financing for decarbonisation 

    COP30 saw the launch of the Global Climate Finance Accountability Framework to enhance transparency and credibility for climate finance. This has the potential to set parameters for good governance for fashion’s financing too.  

    Currently, the industry is falling short on financing decarbonisation projects. Fashion Revolution’s ‘What Fuels Fashion’ report identified that a mere 6% of 200 companies disclosed how much upfront investment support had been provided to suppliers for decarbonisation.  

    Organisations such as the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii) are working to bridge the financing gap. Aii’s climate portfolio director, Pauline Op de Beeck, observed that “At COP30, we saw much wider traction around electrification within the energy transition, along with increased availability of renewable electricity.”  

    Recently, the Aii has launched the Deployment Gap Grant, co-created with Indian suppliers, focused on tackling barriers to implementation and is consulting with stakeholders on the Energy and Carbon Benchmark, intended to strengthen the business case for supplier decarbonisation and align sourcing with an accessible KPI.  

    Op de Beek made it clear that financing the transition is also about supporting optimisation and changing the way factories are heated, be that related to low-temperature dyeing or new processing machinery. “Suppliers are being asked to do a lot. We need to ensure the technical support is there and that brands co-finance it.”  

    Amplifying policy advocacy  

    Reaching fashion’s climate goals depends on system-wide infrastructure that can only be enhanced by policy changes. MacGilp explained: “Policy advocacy, particularly for those with a large export value in a given market, can demonstrate to governments that they want to continue doing business but require the availability of more renewable energy in the grid, better procurement options and better incentives for suppliers.” she commented.  

    MacGilp referenced the successful engagement of brands, including H&M Group, with the Vietnamese government to advance Power Purchase Agreements in the country for it to become a manufacturing hub for heat pump technologies. 

    “COP30 provided an opportunity for momentum for our company.” said Henrik Sundberg, climate impact lead for H&M Group. The Swedish retailer co-hosted an event with WWF Vietnam and IKEA on the role of public–private sector collaboration to implement renewable electrification in Vietnam. 

    Sundberg caveated that “None of this can be achieved by one brand alone. All of these actions will only be successful with the support of national political ambitions and legal frameworks, carried out in close dialogue with policymakers.”  

      

    Putting fashion workers at the centre  

    Incorporating worker voices, often in the most climate-vulnerable countries, became another focal point at COP30. The launch of the Belém Action Mechanism set out a plan for a just transition that does not leave workers or communities behind.  

    “Imposing a top-down energy transition without consulting the people who work in this sector is unjust” said MacGilp adding: They know what works best in their country context. This means co-creating strategies and incorporating feedback on infrastructure, technicalities and working environments.”  

    Methane – Fashion’s emissions blind spot?  

    Methane was high on the agenda as UNEP and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition released a global assessment reviewing nations’ efforts under the Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Bloomberg Philanthropies also announced a $100 million investment to accelerate global efforts to cut methane emissions.  

    Methane remains a priority for countries aiming to reach their NDCs, given that it is one of the most potent GHGs, with a global warming potential that is 86 times greater per mass unit than carbon dioxide on a 20-year timescale.  

    At COP30, much of the focus on methane was related to waste, agriculture and food systems, but fashion’s supply chain is yet to be put to scrutiny as a contributor to the world’s rising methane emissions. Few brands publicly disclose a methane-emissions footprint accrued from animal-derived fibres as well as coal, gas or textile waste. According to Collective Fashion Justice, unabated action across the industry could result in an estimated 8.13 million tonnes of methane emitted annually.  

    I asked Emma Håkansson, founding director of Collective Fashion Justice, why this has been so overlooked. She puts it down to a lack of understanding related to how different GHGs function.  

     Håkansson set out what she would like to see from brands to align actions with the Global Methane Pledge. “It is critical that brands start to measure and publish data on their methane emissions in isolation, not just as part of their overall CO2e emissions calculations. 

    “We want to see brands developing and enacting serious methane mitigation strategies based on the methane hotspots in fashion.”  

    A nature-positive pathway  

    Taking place at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest, the nexus of the biodiversity crisis with the climate crisis was another pressing issue. Yet, with the binding roadmap to end deforestation dropped, alongside further delays to the EU Deforestation Regulation, brands must take action into their own hands as links to deforestation in supply chains for leather, cotton and viscose fall increasingly under scrutiny from investigators.  

    Initial progress on disclosure is taking shape. Luxury players Kering and LVMH report to the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), identifying dependencies and impacts on nature as well as nature-related risks. Brands are also seeking certified regenerative sourcing approaches for cotton, wool and leather in a bid to bolster biodiversity strategies and minimise the nature-related impacts of raw material production. But despite these efforts, the World Benchmarking Alliance assessed that the industry’s action towards nature-positive transitions, soil health and water quality are still lagging.  

    The roadmap to 2030 

    Progress now depends on action outside of the COP arena. That means closing the financing gap stalling decarbonisation and ensuring money flows to climate-vulnerable manufacturing hubs bearing much of the industry’s risk.  

    Enshrining workers’ rights throughout the transition will be paramount between now and 2030.  

    “Fashion is past its data collection phase.” MacGilp asserted. “We don’t have a perfect roadmap, but suppliers are ready to decarbonise. By 2030, we want the industry to have a real proof of concept for fully renewable, electrified production across multiple geographies. I’m hopeful that brands that are motivated to reach their targets will meet them.” she concluded.   

    Amy Nguyen is a strategist, researcher and writer focusing on sustainability, climate and nature. She works as a consultant for a variety of organisations, ranging from environmental think tanks, NGOs and research advisory firms, as well as early-stage companies in the energy, tech and fashion space.  

    Her writing and research have been featured in the Times and Sunday Times, Bloomberg, Vogue, the Guardian and global news outlets.  

  • Don’t Feed the Black Friday Beast

    Don’t Feed the Black Friday Beast

    On Friday November 29 last year, consumers in the United States spent $11.3 million USD per minute between the hours of 10am and 2pm. With a 5% year-on-year increase, global sales reached $74.4 billion USD. As a category, versus daily average, apparel sales saw a 374% increase. 

    In every sense of the word, the Black Friday binge is unsustainable. But it didn’t happen overnight.

    So, how did we get here? Despite the phrase first being used to describe the US gold market crash of 1869, now more than a century ago, it was most recently hijacked by corporations – companies who, off the back of the United States’ holiday weekend, claimed it as the day they ‘went into the black’ and made a profit.

    Back in 2020, etailer ASOS sold a black dress every single second of Black Friday trading. Five years ago, those numbers seemed astronomical. They still should. But, half a decade down the line, festivities for the Christmas of consumerism have only escalated further. 

    We now have not only Black Friday, but what’s come – somewhat unimaginatively – to be called Black Week: an extension of the sales that span the week before and end, more or less, with Cyber Monday. For consumers, whose wallets are thinner than ever in a dire economic landscape, this feels like a boon: a reward. 

    But Black Friday isn’t an act of generosity for loyalty to your favourite brand over the past year.

    “Black Friday is just one way for brands to artificially stimulate demand for excess inventory that, in many cases, already exists,” says Elizabeth Pulos, Program Director, M.S. in Business for Social Impact & Sustainability at IE New York College and former Director of Global Sustainability at Nike-owned footwear brand Converse.

    Pulos continues: “Most retailers overproduce by 10-40% as a matter of course, and with tariffs hitting earlier this year, they stockpiled even more inventory than usual to avoid the additional costs. Demand planning is notoriously difficult, so most companies simply use previous years’ sales to project forward, adding that additional 10-40% in as an inventory buffer.”

    Black Friday, then, is built into the system: to move the kind of units that are sold, more products are manufactured than otherwise would be. And herein lies the problem: especially where apparel, footwear and accessories are concerned, extra volume doesn’t often add up to high-quality merchandise.

    The frantic, first-come-first-served nature of Black Friday, too – where the illusion of scarcity drives sales even higher – pushes consumers to make choices they’d otherwise likely spend more time on and ultimately decide against. 

    It’s no wonder that 80% of Black Friday purchases make their way to landfill after only minimal use, generating an extra 1.5 million tonnes of waste in the UK alone. 

    And then, of course, there’s the question of logistics: those products that “fly off the shelves” neither get there by magic nor appear on consumer doorsteps by some act of sorcery. Last year, 1.2 million tonnes CO2 were released from transport during Black Friday week in Europe. In the UK, deliveries from Black Friday sales created 435 London to New York flight’s worth of CO2 emissions. 

    It doesn’t have to be this way, though: supply and demand relies heavily on the latter for justification. Consumers may feel powerless, held to ransom by corporations who know budgets are stretched to the point of breaking and peddle false economy as an answer, but that isn’t entirely true. 

    The success of Black Friday is taken by the fast-consumption industries as an endorsement – licence to not only keep doing what they’re doing, but to keep escalating. But consumers aren’t voting with their wallets in favour of that system, they’re voting by default; for lack of choice, for lack of an alternative. 

    Times are hard. Deals are good. What choice is there? 

    The Black Friday model relies on participation; margins rely on volume – withdraw that, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. 

    “Consumers absolutely have the ability to slow over-consumption, and brands will listen,” Pulos agrees. “Prioritising quality over quantity, seeking out natural materials and handcrafted products, buying second hand, developing their own person style. While brands won’t immediately register the shift, they will eventually see the results and shift their production behaviour.”

    It’s understandable that rallying against something like Black Friday, which is really just an extension of a system entirely unfit for purpose, might feel futile. But it isn’t – and we shouldn’t let ourselves be browbeaten into believing things can’t change for the better. 

    Consumers aren’t to blame for the environmental havoc that Black Friday wreaks on our planet any more than they’re to blame for the astronomical emissions pumped out by corporations all year round just because someone accidentally left a light on or the fridge door open.

    The blame lies, as it should, with the companies who pollute and profit from practices they know to be harmful to the Earth. 

    Black Friday, though, presents a rare opportunity: a chance to stand up and stand against spiralling rates of consumption, of profligacy and of waste. A chance to opt out – to shop from local, independent, sustainable and ethical businesses who prioritise better ways of working. A chance to show brands who work with rather than against the planet that what they do matters. 

    Black Friday has become a beast. By that logic, it may seem best to simply give it what it wants and watch it slink away until next year. But feeding the beast only brings it back – earlier, more ravenous, more demanding than ever.

    Do not capitulate. Hold out. Let the monster starve.

    Karl Smith-Eloise is Features Director for Eco Age. He has worked as the EMEA Editorial Lead for HYPEBEAST and Editorial Director of FUTUREVVORLD, as a contributing editor to Highsnobiety, and for the fashion house FENDI. He now focuses exclusively on Earth-forward and ethical avenues in fashion, footwear and the broader culture.