The EU's efficiency-focused textile strategy is failing to deliver absolute reductions in environmental impacts, as growth in production and consumption volumes consistently outpaces circular gains. Global fibre production has risen sharply year on year, with projections warning of further acceleration by 2030. New research has identified four structural lock-ins sustaining fashion's overproduction and proposed a transformative sufficiency-based policy mix to address their root causes.
- Global fibre production reached a record 132 million tonnes in 2024, up from 125 million tonnes in 2023, with output projected to hit 169 million tonnes by 2030.
- Between 2005 and 2015 global textile production doubled while the global population grew by only 20%, with Europeans consuming an average of 19 kg of clothing, footwear and household textiles per person in 2022, up from 17 kg in 2019.
- Circular innovations in the textiles sector have produced a 155% backfire rebound effect, with efficiency gains more than offset by rising clothing consumption and a 55% increase in total environmental pressures.
- The findings have been published in Resizing the Fashion System: Policy Options for Addressing Overproduction and Overconsumption, by Hot or Cool Institute.
BEHIND THE RESEARCH: The Resizing the Fashion System policy brief is the culmination of a two-year research project led by the Hot or Cool Institute, in consultation with researchers, policymakers and civil society organisations. Authored by Hedda Roberts, Aimée Aguilar Jaber and Dr Luca Coscieme, the project applied participatory systems thinking methodology to co-create transformative pathways towards a fashion sector operating within planetary limits.
- The methodology involved three phases: Visioning, to align stakeholders around a shared vision; Understand, to map key dynamics driving overproduction and overconsumption; and Transform, to co-design policy interventions.
- The Understand phase drew on desk research and four expert workshops, each bringing together 15–20 domain experts to identify feedback loops and leverage points within the fashion system.
- The project built on findings from the Hot or Cool Institute's 2021 Unfit Unfair Unfashionable report, which defined a Fair Consumption Space between sufficiency levels and the environmental ceiling of the 1.5-degree Paris Agreement target.
- Alessandro Galli of the Hot or Cool Institute served as reviewer, with graphics by Sebastiano Renzetti and design and layout by Jalo Toivio Design.
THE SCALE OF HARM: Textile consumption in the EU carries a substantial environmental footprint: in 2020 it ranked fourth highest for environmental and climate impact from a global lifecycle perspective, after food, housing, and mobility. Per-person impacts span carbon, water, and raw material use, while social conditions across global garment supply chains remain unequal, with low wages and poor working conditions concentrated among the most vulnerable workers, and consumption inequalities between income groups and regions compounding the sector's overall harm.
- In 2022 textile consumption per person in the EU required 523 kg of raw materials, 323 m² of land, and 12 m³ of water, while generating an estimated 335 kg of CO₂ per person.
- Dyeing and finishing processes account for nearly 20% of all clean water pollution globally, and between 16% and 30% of microplastic pollution in oceans originates from textiles.
- The apparel industry generated 8.3 million tonnes of plastic pollution in 2019, corresponding to 14% of the estimated 60 million tonnes produced across all sectors globally.
- Between four and nine per cent of textiles produced and placed on the EU market are landfilled or incinerated before being used for their intended purpose, consuming scarce carbon and resource budgets to produce waste.
- European garment lifespans have dropped by 36% in two decades, with items now worn only seven to eight times on average, and an estimated 50% of clothes in EU wardrobes unused for at least a year.
- Between 1996 and 2012 the amount of clothes bought per person in the EU increased by 40%, while prices dropped by more than 30% in the same period.
- Exports of second-hand textiles from the EU increased from approximately 400,000 tonnes in 2003 to 1.4 million tonnes by 2023, creating downstream pollution in countries without adequate waste management infrastructure.
- In 2025 workers in 28 key garment-producing countries earned on average just 41% of a living wage, with women, who account for 80% of the global garment workforce, concentrated in the lowest-skilled and lowest-paid roles.
- The carbon footprint of the richest 20% of fashion consumers in the UK sits 83% above the 1.5-degree target, while 74% of people in Indonesia live below sufficiency consumption levels.
FOUR SHIFTS NEEDED: The research has mapped four structural drivers sustaining fashion's overproduction and proposed four corresponding systemic shifts, delivered through a policy framework operating across four levels of intervention. Extended Producer Responsibility schemes illustrate how a single policy lever can operate across all four shifts, influencing production and design decisions, labour standards, and marketing and advertising practices together. Addressing any single driver in isolation leaves existing lock-ins intact and cannot deliver the reductions required.
- Four structural drivers sustain the current system: the Stable Input, the Low-Cost Engine, the Aspiration Accelerator, and the Friction Remover, each reinforcing high-volume business models.
- The corresponding systemic shifts target each driver: reshaping the global fibre market, building fair and equitable value chains, reimagining fashion culture, and designing sustainable e-commerce.
- Policy interventions are mapped across four levels, from React and Anticipate through to Redesign and Disrupt, with the latter two carrying the highest transformative potential.
- Fair value chain policies and fibre market reforms are likely to have ripple effects across all four drivers, as they disrupt the logic and incentives sustaining high-volume business models.
- Without changes at the level of system design, goals, and mental models, incremental efficiency improvements will be consistently outpaced by growth in production and consumption, resulting in a net increase in environmental and social impacts.
THE RESALE PROBLEM: Growth in circular and resale markets has not translated into tangible environmental or social improvements. A 2025 study found that secondhand consumption is positively correlated with new clothing purchases, particularly among young consumers. Resale therefore operates as an additional growth market layered on top of linear production rather than displacing it, meaning overall production volumes continue to rise.
- Resale from H&M Group's second-hand platform Selpy accounted for just 0.6% of the group's total revenue in 2023, against a business otherwise built on linear production at scale.
- Investing in circular infrastructure without tackling overall production and consumption volumes risks locking in a system where recovering those investments depends on maintaining unsustainably high levels of throughput.
- The circular economy in its theoretical conception encompasses both efficiency and sufficiency, as encapsulated by the 9R framework, but its implementation in the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles has been reduced to efficiency measures only.
- Less than 1% of the global fibre market comes from pre- and post-consumer recycled textiles, with incineration and landfilling remaining the dominant waste management options across the sector.
