“How much is too much?” asks Lars Fogh Mortensen, circular economy expert at the European Environment Agency, in a video explainer posted on social media. A pile of clothes are flung at Mortensen to illustrate how the consumption of clothing, footwear and other textiles in the EU has reached a record high.
The EEA reported in March that the average EU citizen bought 19kg of textiles in 2022, up from 17kg in 2019. While the EU embarked on an ambitious sustainable and circular textiles strategy in 2022, climate experts warn that the transition away from fast fashion is too slow, as brands grapple with balancing growth and lowering their carbon footprint to meet the EU’s 2030 climate goals.
The EU’s circular economy action plan, adopted in 2020 as one of the main building blocks of the European Green Deal, aims to reduce pressure on natural resources and create sustainable growth and jobs. This means a shift from linear models — in which we create products that become waste — to circular models, in which materials never become waste because they are kept in the production cycle, causing less harm to nature.
A provisional deal announced in February aims to force textile producers — whether based in the EU or selling via ecommerce — to fund the collection, sorting and recycling of their products through extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes.
Fast fashion, Mortensen says, “is a whole system of production and consumption with millions and millions of employees, which has been operating for decades, and now we want to change that. And that is not an easy thing”.
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There is “at least an intention” among brands to trial and scale up circular business models that encompass sharing or leasing systems and take-back schemes, he says. But progress will be slow, he cautions, as long as synthetic fibres remain far cheaper than recycled ones.
“A 100 per cent sustainable brand right now does not exist,” says Maria Srivastava, chief impact officer at Pangaia, a B corp-certified clothing and materials science brand. Traceability and disclosure is key, she says, adding that tools brought in by EU legislation such as the digital product passport will help to “lift a lid on the notoriously opaque supply chain” across the fashion sector.
Customers expect more transparency from industry giants about their supply chains and processes, she says. Pangaia aims to switch totally from virgin cotton materials to recycled cotton by 2026.
The company, which specialises in tracksuits made from organic cotton and bio-based materials, rode the wave of pandemic-driven demand for loungewear, and aims to become net zero carbon by 2040, but Srivastava says it is larger brands that “really have the power to scale new and innovative materials”.
Decathlon, one of the world’s largest sports retailers, is strengthening its repair-and-recycle model. The French brand recently joined The Fashion ReModel, a circular-fashion initiative of brands such as H&M, eBay and Tapestry (owner of Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman). The project, launched in 2024, aims to demonstrate that circular business models such as rental, resale and repair can generate revenue.
“Sustainability is as equally important an attribute as quality and price to our consumers,” says John Thomas, global sustainability director at Decathlon. Of the retailer’s 1,800-plus stores worldwide, just over 1,700 offer repair workshops, and the aim is to move to “preferred” materials to prioritise durability over end-of-life solutions.
Decathlon says circular sales account for 3.2 per cent of its global turnover, primarily from bike recycling. The challenge is to integrate repairability across all its designs and produce less waste as it grows.
Following the EU’s decision last month to delay sustainability due diligence reporting, Thomas urges policymakers to “stay the course with ambitious, urgent, fair regulation” for the industry. He wants Decathlon to be able to compete on level terms with its peers, including ecommerce platforms such as Shein, Temu and Amazon, which, he says, “seek out loopholes” in the European market.
The legislation has further to go to shift brands towards sustainable consumption — creating garments fit for purpose and pursuing “a path of reduction”, says Tanja Gotthardsen, an activist and consultant who focuses on so-called greenwashing — when companies falsely claim their products or services are more environmentally friendly than they actually are.
The EEA found that up to 9 per cent of all textile products on the European market are destroyed without ever being used, a process responsible for up to 5.6mn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Marketing strategies increasingly use progressive, climate-focused language and claims of reducing CO₂. However, Gotthardsen urges scepticism, stressing that brands continue to overproduce and shift the burden from CO₂ to overusing other materials in production. “What I essentially see is businesses just becoming more and more advanced in their greenwashing,” she says.
Ensuring repair systems are in place to allow customers to return items for alteration is a crucial solution for Gotthardsen. This is a guiding principle of Netherlands-based sustainable denim brand Mud Jeans, which pioneered a “lease your jeans” system. Over the course of a year jeans can be rented and repaired, then the buyer has the choice of swapping, recycling or keeping the item.
The goal for Mud Jeans founder Bert van Son is to operate in a “closed-loop system from 100 per cent post-consumer waste”. This would mean all old jeans are made into new jeans — the brand says its jeans contain up to 40 per cent recycled denim.
Producing only what is necessary for market demand is key for van Son’s company, working with a small number of suppliers to avoid overproduction. Growth is a challenge as Mud Jeans needs volume to compete with other denim brands. “We don’t want to sell more jeans but more quality jeans,” explains van Son.
Tackling the fashion and textile industry’s climate crisis involves not only materials but entire business models. Rasmus Nordqvist, a Green MEP who has a background in the fashion industry, advocates for a systemic shift by the industry, consumers and legislation so that fast fashion does not overwhelm the market.
Some larger industry players have adopted circular strategies on a small scale, including swaps and second-hand sales, but Nordqvist says price points are still too low for substantial change. Low-price, low-quality items encourage a need for “people to keep on buying, buying, buying, and just throw it out when they want”, he says.
Nordqvist is continuing to push for transparency to be enshrined in textile legislation and hopes the fashion industry will play a more positive role in its future, “so it’s not the few small brands who are actually doing good that are competing with the big brands who don’t give a damn about it”.