Fashion’s Plastic Addiction in Four Charts
Cheap and versatile polyester has underpinned both the fashion industry’s growth and its worsening environmental footprint. Efforts to switch to recycled fibre are stalled, new data show.
Sustainability
How fashion can do better for people and the planet.
Highlights
Eileen Fisher’s Mindful Growth Model
After a pandemic contraction — and with a new CEO on board — the godmother of mindful consumption is gearing up to grow (mindfully).
Inside Luxury’s Italian Sweatshops Problem
An Italian probe linking luxury labels including Dior and Armani to labour exploitation — with the supply chains of up to a dozen more brands under the microscope — has exposed a seedy practice deeply embedded in the luxury system, creating an unpredictable PR crisis at a precarious time for the sector, a BoF investigation has found.
Latest News & Analysis
The BoF Podcast | What Happens When It’s Too Hot to Make Fashion?
At VOICES 2024, BoF sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent sits down with a panel of experts to discuss how fashion can operate under increasingly unsustainable climate conditions.
The Best of BoF 2024: Fashion’s Sustainability Pullback
This year offered up a jarring reality check for players seeking to improve the industry’s environmental and social impact, with brands deprioritising sustainability efforts even as the risks of inaction have become more apparent.
Sustainability: The Case for Collective Action
A fragmented fashion industry needs to cooperate in order to avoid falling further behind on decarbonisation efforts, according to the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2025.
Why Fashion Isn’t Making Climate Progress and What Needs to Change
Big brands are focused on buzzy, marketable ‘solutions’ and face little accountability for failing to deliver on decarbonisation targets, but there are ways to unlock more effective action, writes Kenneth P. Pucker.
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Textile Recycling: Big Opportunity or Risky Business?
French engineering giant Technip Energies builds oil refineries and liquefied natural gas platforms. Now, it’s aiming to establish a $2 billion business regenerating polyester.
The Debrief | Luxury’s Italian Sweatshops Problem
BoF senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and chief sustainability correspondent Sarah Kent unpack a scandal that has linked brands like Armani and Dior to Italian sweatshops.
What Will Happen to Fashion If the World Misses Its Climate Targets?
This year, average global temperatures surpassed 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. With action increasingly uncertain after a fractious UN climate summit, fashion is facing risks from overheated factories to consumer volatility.
What Will Happen to Fashion If the World Misses Its Climate Targets?
This year, average global temperatures surpassed 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. With action increasingly uncertain after a fractious UN climate summit, fashion is facing risks from overheated factories to consumer volatility.
Fur Industry Faces Challenges with Elevation Strategy and LVMH Support
Cultural shifts, geopolitical upheaval and health scares have shrunk the value of global fur exports from a peak of $14.7 billion in 2013 to just $3.4 billion last year.
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Fashion Faces Big Climate Questions Ahead of COP 29
The UN’s annual COP climate change conference kicking off in Baku, Azerbaijan next week comes at a precarious moment for the industry’s environmental efforts.
Unsustainable Fashion Is Pricing Out the Conscious Consumer
Brands that make products with little concern for environmental and social impact are benefitting from a ‘brown discount,’ undercutting industry efforts to operate more responsibly, writes Kenneth P. Pucker.
A Fashion Exec’s Guide to the UN’s Nature Summit
Efforts to protect and restore nature are becoming a more important part of the fashion industry’s climate conversation.
Is Fast Fashion Worth Recycling?
As the EU seeks to crack down on a growing glut of clothing waste, the rise of low-value ultra-fast-fashion, along with increased competition and geopolitical disruption, are putting pressure on the economics of collecting, sorting and recycling used textiles.
THE NEWS IN BRIEF
Model Rights Bill Signed into Law in New York
The new law will give models working in the state greater protection from exploitation, harassment and AI.
Models Push New York Governor to Sign Labour Rights Bill as Deadline Looms
More than 200 models and industry leaders have written an open letter to New York governor Kathy Hochul urging her to sign a bill designed to protect models from exploitation.
London Fashion Week to Ban Exotic Skins
Brands that want to appear on the city’s official fashion week schedule will not be allowed to use crocodile, snake or other wild animal leathers in the collections they show there, extending a ban on fur introduced last year.
UK Creative Industries’ Union Rings Alarm on Fashion Sector Work
Creatives are pressured to work for free and frequently face payment delays and toxic working environments, according to a survey by Bectu and Fashion UK.
Textile Recycler Circulose Appoints Former H&M Boss Helena Helmersson to board, Names CEO
McKinsey partner Jonatan Janmark will join as chief executive, tasked with restoring stability at the company as it emerges from bankruptcy.
H&M- and Vargas-Backed Recycling Venture to Hit Commercial Production by Mid-2025
Syre, a textile-to-textile recycler launched earlier this year, is partnering with polyester producer Selenis to build a 10,000 tonne ‘blueprint plant’ in North Carolina.
Europe’s Textile Recycling Sector Warns of ‘Unprecedented Crisis’
Geopolitical disruptions and a growing glut of low-value ultra-fast fashion are creating an unsustainable market dynamic, even as regulators are pushing to tackle clothing waste, according to two major lobby groups.
EU Moves to Delay Deforestation Rule After Huge Pushback
The commission suggested a 12-month delay to rules aimed at curbing forest clearance in nations that send products such as coffee, cocoa, soy and beef to the bloc.