Updates

Why is depolymerisation of post-consumer textile waste in Europe not scaling up? A report discusses the issue at length and suggests coordinated action by policy and industry on ten interdependent levers that should be activated together to reach a tipping point.

A new report from Cotton Campaign pulls no punches: despite minor cosmetic changes, Turkmenistan’s cotton industry continues to thrive on state-imposed forced labour. The 2024 harvest, as documented in a forensic 30-page investigation, lays bare the coercive machinery that feeds global textile supply chains—right from the fields of Central Asia to factory floors in Türkiye, Pakistan, Italy, and beyond.

Nonprofit WRAP has warned that if the UK’s used textiles sector goes under, charities, local authorities and consumers will have to pay the cost of dealing with unwanted used textiles.

The Cotton Association of India has joined the nationwide call to boycott Türkiye and urged the cotton trading community “to consider stopping” all trade with Türkiye and explore alternative options to suit “our nation's interest.”

A bunch of 10 innovators, with the shared mission of decarbonising the textile and fashion industry, has won the Global Change Award for 2025 for their bold and pioneering ideas, who, as changemakers, are tackling some of fashion’s most urgent challenges: from reducing emissions and energy use, to enabling circularity and cleaner materials.

The European Commission has enforced the much-awaited Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) for apparel and footwear thus giving this industry segment a standard methodology to calculate product environmental footprints, with specific category requirements.

An evidence-based comprehensive study that explores the future of Kenya’s clothing industry and creates a blueprint for uniquely African growth, concludes that the country’s second-hand clothing trade (Mitumba) and its local apparel manufacturing can coexist and complement each other.

The Circular Fashion Innovation Network (CFIN) has come out with a landmark report detailing two years of industry-led collaboration to accelerate the UK’s transition to a circular fashion ecosystem.

At a critical crossroad, the apparel and textiles industry in Bangladesh could lead global decarbonisation efforts while unlocking substantial economic and social benefits, including the creation of green jobs, says an Apparel Impact Institute (AII) report which also outlines proactive, actionable strategies to further decarbonisation efforts, foster collaboration, and enable meaningful progress for the industry.

The future of sourcing and circularity in the UK holds promise, contends a UKFT report that explores opportunities for growing domestic fashion manufacturing along with a comprehensive analysis of current sourcing trends as also future prospects for apparel manufacturing.