From the Sector

The textile industry continues to face growing regulatory and market pressures to shift toward more sustainable and inclusive production models.

Launched at the June Global Fashion Summit: Copenhagen Edition 2025, the Fashion Impact Toolkit provides an impact inventory and framework to help textile companies navigate sustainability  challenges. This interactive resource is designed for companies across the complex textile value chain, from raw material producers and retailers to recyclers and remanufacturers, and is applicable across major sub-sectors, including high-street fashion, luxury, footwear, sportswear, and textile manufacturing. It can serve as a starting point to help companies map their areas of influence based on parameters such as materials, processes, and geographies.

“We hope that the Fashion Impact Toolkit will be a valuable resource for the textile industry as it navigates increasing regulatory and stakeholder pressure,” says Federica Marchionni, CEO of the Global Fashion Agenda. “By identifying and acting upon the most critical sustainability implications across the value chain, companies can foster greater resilience, trust, and long-term transformation. We are proud to collaborate with Deloitte to support this much-needed shift.”

Developing an impact inventory
The Fashion Impact Toolkit outlines nearly 3,000 potential impacts across value chain stages, including challenges and opportunities, to help inform leaders’ decision-making. Geographical scoping was applied to serve as the basis for identifying potential impacts across the main stages of the textile lifecycle.

The resulting value chain mapping and impact inventory highlight key hotspots and pressure points across six distinct stages: production of materials, garments manufacturing, product distribution and use, end-of-life management, material recycling, and high-value recovery activities.

A framework to help drive transformation
The interactive Fashion Impact Toolkit is structured according to the current European Financial Reporting Advisory Group’s (EFRAG) European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). To help organizations navigate the toolkit and turn insights into action, the toolkit follows a seven-step framework: 

1. Identify the position in the value chain
2. Generate material- and geography-specific insights
3. Translate potential sector-wide impacts to company-specific ones
4. Quantify the identified potential impacts
5. Define the risks and opportunities
6. Shape the ambition and strategy
7. Collaborate for systemic change

A stepping stone to circular transition
The Fashion Impact Toolkit can serve as a stepping stone toward a circular economy. Circular strategies can help reduce a wide range of identified environmental impacts and can be effective in building resilience across the value chain.