Climate

Fragmented pilot projects have long defined regenerative agriculture efforts in Pakistan's cotton sector, but mounting climate and market pressures are exposing the limits of that approach. Drawing on a recent industry roundtable, Abou Bakar, Country Representative – Pakistan, CottonConnect, explains what a coordinated national framework would look like, and why farmer incentives and traceability now sit at the centre of that conversation.

A proposed $2 billion carbon-neutral textile city in Egypt's Suez Canal Economic Zone is the largest single expression of a structural shift that has been accumulating since at least 2019. Chinese manufacturers under mounting pressure to demonstrate lower-carbon supply chains have been moving into Egyptian industrial zones in accelerating volume. The announcement makes that movement legible for the first time at scale.

Breakthrough textile materials have received $34 million in new Bezos Earth Fund grants, backing research into bacterial fibres, spider-silk-inspired biodegradable materials, coloured cotton and cotton seedbank restoration. The funding targets materials that can match rayon, silk and cotton while improving cost, performance and environmental outcomes across fashion and textile supply chains.

Organic cotton grown by smallholders in Tanzania under the Cotton made in Africa Organic standard has recorded one of the lowest environmental footprints in global cotton production, new research has confirmed. The findings, drawn from a comprehensive lifecycle analysis, showed that the absence of synthetic pesticides, artificial fertilisers, and irrigation kept emissions well below industry norms.

Climate resilience, productivity and workplace safety are being advanced across Ethiopia's leather, textile and garment sector through a new ILO-Japan joint initiative. The one-year programme targets 40 factories across five cities, integrating Japanese expertise, digitalised safety tools and a women's leadership development programme to drive sustainable and inclusive industrial growth.

H&M Foundation has launched an open-access workshop toolkit enabling brands, suppliers, policymakers and investors to apply its System Map across the textiles industry. Developed with Accenture, the toolkit identifies leverage points to halve greenhouse gas emissions every decade until 2050, while supporting a just transition that avoids shifting costs onto the most vulnerable.

The Apparel Impact Institute (AII) has launched the Energy and Carbon Benchmark, a new tool designed to measure energy use and emissions across textile manufacturing processes. Developed with industry partners, it establishes process-level metrics to compare facilities, track performance over time, and guide collective decarbonisation efforts across the global fashion supply chain.

China’s textile and apparel industry emissions were driven largely by household consumption and exports between 2000 and 2018, according to new modelling research. The study found that integrating renewable energy adoption with expanded clothing recycling could curb long-term emissions growth across interconnected supply chains while supporting continued industrial development.

Climate risk is increasingly being modelled not as a reputational concern but as a margin-level financial exposure. New analysis suggests operating profits in apparel could shrink sharply under accelerated net-zero transitions. Kristina Elinder Liljas, Senior Director of Sustainable Finance and Engagement at Apparel Impact Institute, argues that carbon exposure now belongs inside capital allocation models, not sustainability reports.

The apparel sector now produces more climate data than at any earlier point. Fifty companies under the STICA initiative disclosed emissions inventories, transition plans, and targets in 2025. Yet sector-wide emissions continue to rise, and nearly half of signatories report they are behind on primary climate targets. The distance between disclosure capability and actual decarbonisation performance is not closing.