Emissions

The textile industry has spent years producing pilot-scale sustainability successes that rarely translate into supply chain-wide adoption. The constraint is purchasing behaviour, not available technology. Eva Baumann, Chief Executive Officer of CHT Group, draws on CHT's foundation-owned structure and portfolio depth to make a case that is less about ambition than about where industrial reality and procurement logic continue to diverge.

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.

Fabric production emerged as the dominant source of both emissions and data uncertainty in a cradle-to-gate assessment of a 150 g cotton T-shirt. The physical-based carbon accounting analysis estimated a total footprint of 1.3706 kg CO2e, with an overall uncertainty of ±13.81% across defined manufacturing stages and processes.

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.

Locally produced circular sportswear could have a smaller environmental footprint than a conventional polyester garment reference, a new lifecycle and microfibre assessment has modelled. Renewable-energy use, shorter transport routes, and circular design choices together could reduce climate impacts and microplastic emissions, the researchers have contended.

The new report Now or Never from Collective Fashion Justice claims to present fashion’s first methane footprint. Promoting a phase-out of animal-derived materials, it casts the industry as a major climate offender. Yet scrutiny suggests its arguments rely on ideology rather than robust analysis, raising concerns about credibility, methodology, and overlooked mitigation pathways.

Cascale and Worldly have developed a standardised methodology for apparel and footwear companies using the Higg MSI to calculate FLAG emissions. The method separates FLAG from aggregated GHG data, integrates land use change figures, and applies base and conservative assumptions. It delivers consistent baselines, enabling compliance with Science-Based Targets initiative requirements and alignment with forthcoming GHG Protocol FLAG reporting guidance.

Textile Exchange’s latest guidance sets out principles for applying lifecycle assessment data in textiles, focusing on appropriate use cases, dataset documentation, and transparency. It outlines limits on fibre comparisons, warns against overreliance on averaged figures, and stresses the importance of collecting high-quality, representative primary data to improve the reliability of reported environmental impacts.

For every fashion brand aligned with Paris Agreement benchmarks, nearly six are increasing their pollution, says a new analysis by environmental advocacy group Stand.earth, whose 2025 Fossil Free Fashion Scorecard assesses the top apparel and footwear brands on several climate indicators.