Fashion is a USD 1.7 trillion global industry ripe for transformation: environmental harm is growing, business models and supply chains are under pressure, and policy is starting to bite. EPR schemes, ecomodulation requirements, and incoming ecodesign standards are turning design decisions into financial ones. The conditions for systems change are both compelling and urgent.
The Foundation has been central to shaping the fashion and textiles circular economycircular economyA systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. for nearly a decade. Our New Textiles Economy report became a key reference point for the industry. The Jeans Redesign put more than 1.5 million pairs of jeans made in line with circular economy principles on the market. The Fashion ReModel is building the commercial case for how circular business models like resale, rental, repairrepairOperation by which a faulty or broken product or component is returned back to a usable state to fulfil its intended use., and remaking can work at scale for brands, retailers, and platforms.
But at a system level, fundamental change has not yet happened. Global fibre production continues to rise, textile-to-textile recycling remains below 1%, and more than 80% of the textile waste stream is still incinerated, landfilled, or lost to the environment.
What the industry now needs is a shared direction specific enough to change what gets built, funded, and prioritised. That is what the Foundation is developing: the 2040 Agenda for Fashion and Textiles.
The Agenda is bringing together brands, retailers, platforms, manufacturers, fabric mills, policymakers, investors, and innovators to define the future system and diagnose, with precision, the systemic barriers standing in the way. It will be specific enough to inform capital allocation and strategy, and differentiated enough to reflect the regional realities of a truly global supply chain. A cross-industry workshop in Paris earlier this year stress-tested the direction and cross-value chain input sessions are ongoing, including voices from manufacturing economies and the Global South. The Agenda will be published in early 2027.
Three interconnected barriers are in focus. First, materials: investment in safe, recycled, and regenerative materials is scattered and insufficient to shift the market. Work is already underway in Latin America, where the feedstock base, innovation ecosystem, and investment conditions converge, but capital remains significantly underdeployed. Second, circular business models: resale, rental, repair, and remaking are growing faster than new product sales, but thin margins, complex operations, and fragmented logistics make profitable scale elusive. The Fashion ReModel is building the commercial case and the advocacy groundwork to change those economics, with a study on European and North American policy interventions published earlier this year. Third, infrastructure: collection, sorting, and recycling capacity sits far below what the system requires. Addressing the deficit needs combined public and private finance, EPR frameworks that cover the true cost of end-to-end recycling, and policy-backed demand signals to bridge the gap between brand purchasing cycles and facility investment timelines.
These barriers are connected and systemic — no single actor can tackle them alone. Material choices shape what can be repaired or recycled, business model economics determine what gets collected, and infrastructure determines access to circular feedstocks. Progress across all three has to move in a coherent direction, with collaboration across the value chain. That is what the 2040 Agenda is designed to deliver.
The same creativity that defines this industry is what will transform it. If you are a business with operational knowledge and market weight, a philanthropic or institutional funder ready to back early-stage work that commercial capital won't yet fund, or an organisation with specialised expertise across this supply chain, now is the time. Partnership is not peripheral to the work — it is the work.
Find out more about our work and how to get involved
The work ahead: Our strategy for scaling the circular economy
