Fashion’s Current ‘Pace of Change’ Cannot Meet Collective Climate Goals

Fashion’s 2022 climate emissions may have ebbed by a modest 1.2 percent from the year before, according to a new analysis, but the industry still has a long way to go to stay within the 1.5-degree Celsius trajectory and avoid the worst effects of climate change. In fact, assuming a business-as-usual scenario, the sector is projected to generate 1.2 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases by 2030, a nearly 40 percent surge from the 0.9 metric gigatons it emitted two years ago.

And while the Apparel Impact Institute, which published the report, has set its sights on eliminating 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the apparel and footwear supply chain by decade’s end, graduates of its factory efficiency programs have so far wiped out only 5.6 million metric tons, or 5.6 percent of the target.

Meanwhile, with record-level heatwaves in Bangladesh, India and Thailand and catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and Brazil, the “negative effects predicted by scientists decades ago are upon us,” Aii president Lewis Perkins and advisor Michael Sadowski wrote in the paper’s introduction. And though fashion doesn’t account for 10 percent of global emissions—a figure that is often but erroneously repeated—the 1.9 percent that Cascale, Textile Exchange and Worldly data suggests is still a significant driver of this.

All of which is to say, for all of the industry’s positive developments—setting science-based targets, for instance, or transitioning to lower-impact materials and processes—it is also “becoming clear that the pace of change is far from sufficient to achieve our collective climate targets,” said Leonie Schmid, Aii’s director of sustainability reporting. Without urgent intervention, a runaway “climate catastrophe” could see the world’s top garment-producing countries, including Bangladesh, lose $65 billion in export earnings—the equivalent of a 22 percent contraction—and 1 million new jobs by 2030.

It’s also worth noting that the year-over-year decline in overall emissions is “primarily” the result of an improvement in the raw material greenhouse-gas emissions intensity for polyester and nylon, meaning it’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Without this caveat, the 1.2 percent figure can be somewhat misleading.

Perkins and Sadowski said that brands, manufacturers and producers have a “solid understanding” of where emissions hotspots lie and are investing technical and financial resources to reduce their contributions. The most recent breakdown of emissions across the value chain is similar to the previous two reports. Material processing, or Tier 2, remains the highest source of emissions leakage at 55 percent of total greenhouse gases. It’s followed by raw material extraction (Tier 4) at 21 percent, raw material processing (Tier 3) at 15 percent and finished goods assembly (Tier 1) at 9 percent.

This is why Aii has set the “ambitious goal” of zeroing out 100 million metric tons, which corresponds to 11 percent of the industry’s 2022 emissions, Schmid said. “We will enable this by doing what we believe the industry needs most: offering proven, impactful solutions, including technical assistance, sustainable financing options, and access to the best available technologies and supporting multi-stakeholder collaboration.”

Even so, the terrain ahead is rocky. To achieve a 45 percent reduction by 2030, fashion would need to slash emissions from 0.9 metric gigatons in 2022 to 0.5 metric gigatons by 2030—even more if net zero by 2050 is still the goal. Considering that climate legislation—if it survives lobbying interests and legal challenges—continues to move at a glacial pace, sector alignment on the issue is more critical than ever.

Aii is pulling for the team. The organization plans to engage with 2,000 suppliers in the 30-plus countries where its programs are active to offer technical assistance, technology access and sustainable finance options. It’s also trying to cobble together $250 million in so-called “catalytic capital” to identify, fund and scale the most promising climate solutions. (The nonprofit has secured $70 million, or 28 percent, of the amount from the likes of H&M Foundation, HSBC, Lululemon and Target so far.) In 2023, Aii initiatives like Clean by Design and the Supplier Climate Action Program, saved nearly 195,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which it says is tantamount to 42,000 cars being taken off the road. Still, this is not enough.

“While we firmly believe in the importance of our work, we acknowledge that achieving net zero requires a collaborative effort beyond a single organization,” the report said. “We call upon all stakeholders across the value chain to unite with us by committing resources to scale and implement impactful solutions that drive tangible emissions reductions.”