While many global fashion brands weaken climate commitments and sector emissions rise, manufacturers in Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and elsewhere are investing in energy efficiency, solar and low‑carbon facilities — but smaller suppliers lack access to green finance and regulatory rollbacks risk fragmenting standards.
The fashion industry’s public climate commitments are fraying just as the sector’s emissions are rising. Analysis by advocacy group Stand.earth finds that 40 per cent of assessed brands increased their emissions last year, while the Apparel Impact Institute reports a 7.5 per cent jump in sector‑wide emissions in 2023 — a reversal of earlier progress that Aii links to overproduction and heavier reliance on virgin polyester. According to those assessments, the bulk of the problem sits in supply chains: manufacturing and materials account for most of fashion’s greenhouse‑gas footprint, and progress at brand level has been uneven or regressive.
That backslide is occurring against a shifting political backdrop that, industry observers say, is making sustained action harder. Policy shifts and trade measures in major markets have raised costs for brands and encouraged a retreat from ambitious regulation: the Associated Press reports the European Union has suspended plans for a Green Claims Directive intended to curb greenwashing, and industry sources point to US tariff pressures that inflate sourcing costs and complicate longer‑term decarbonisation planning. Campaigners warn that weakening regulatory oversight risks fragmenting standards and reduces the leverage brands need to force change down the chain.
Yet, amid those headwinds, a different momentum is building in factories and supplier networks. Some large manufacturers in Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and elsewhere have been investing directly in energy efficiency, renewables and low‑carbon facilities — often without prompting from buyers. “Manufacturers have been [decarbonising] without an incentive from the brands anyway for the last decade or so,” Saqib Sohail, head of engagement at the Microfibre Consortium and a former head of responsible business projects at Artistic Milliners, told Vogue Business. That long‑term perspective is, he said, why many suppliers are continuing to invest even as some brands scale back.
Epic Group offers a tangible example. The company says it secured a US$100 million financing package from the International Finance Corporation — a US$70 million sustainability‑linked loan alongside a US$30 million green loan — to expand operations in Bangladesh and build a new facility in India. The IFC’s press release states the funds will support upgrades to washing and wastewater treatment and finance energy‑ and water‑saving technologies, with parts of the financing tied to measurable corporate sustainability performance targets such as reduced greenhouse‑gas intensity and increased female representation in management. Dr Vidhura Ralapanawe, Epic’s executive vice‑president, told Vogue Business the group expects the first phase of the India factory to open in December and says it will run on biomass and solar, and that the facility is being designed to shield workers from extreme heat while running air conditioning powered by renewables. The company describes the plant as aiming for net‑zero emissions; such claims are being made by manufacturers and should be judged against independent verification and science‑based targets.
The divergence between brand behaviour and supplier action underlines a changing centre of gravity in the sustainability debate. Industry reporting highlights suppliers that have set Science Based Targets for their own operations or their immediate suppliers, driven partly by the business case for energy savings and partly by access to green finance. Vogue Business and other industry observers note that energy efficiency and rooftop solar remain two of the clearest, short‑term wins for manufacturers — a switch that has been enabled by steep falls in solar costs. Analysis from Our World in Data shows photovoltaic panel prices have tumbled by roughly 90 per cent over the past decade as global capacity has grown, following a learning curve in which costs typically fall about 20 per cent each time cumulative capacity doubles. That structural decline makes on‑site solar increasingly viable for factories in low‑cost manufacturing economies.
But deeper decarbonisation — phasing out coal in energy‑intensive processes, shifting away from fossil‑derived fibres, and redesigning production models to reduce overproduction — will require far greater investment and co‑ordination. Stand.earth’s analysis argues that many brands remain off track for a 1.5°C pathway, citing slow coal phase‑out, limited renewable adoption and uneven transparency. The Apparel Impact Institute similarly warns that overproduction and polyester’s growing share of fibre production are key drivers of the renewed emissions trend. For suppliers, these are costly, system‑wide challenges that cannot be solved by individual factories alone.
The finance that can bridge that gap remains unevenly distributed. Large manufacturers with established ESG reporting and global buyers can access sustainability‑linked loans or concessional green finance, while smaller suppliers — which make up the bulk of garment manufacturing in countries such as Bangladesh and parts of India — struggle to meet lenders’ underwriting criteria or to fund capital‑intensive retrofits. Industry voices have been pushing for collaborative financing models, pooled investment vehicles and buyer‑led advance purchasing to de‑risk supplier transitions; Vogue Business describes such initiatives as critical if supplier‑led progress is to scale beyond a cohort of larger, better capitalised players.
There is also a governance question. Campaigners and regulators argue that without robust brand accountability and harmonised rules — the very measures being weakened in some jurisdictions — supplier action could remain piecemeal and vulnerable to shifting market incentives. “We haven’t had any reason to scale down what we’re doing,” Dr Ralapanawe said, emphasising suppliers’ readiness. But Stand.earth and other watchdogs warn that voluntary supplier commitments will not be sufficient to drive the just, rapid transitions Paris Agreement pathways require unless brands, buyers and governments align incentives and enforce clear timelines to eliminate fossil fuels from manufacturing.
The current picture is therefore mixed. Suppliers in several production hubs are proving that decarbonisation is feasible and, in many cases, profitable at facility level; falling renewable costs and targeted finance have accelerated uptake. At the same time, systemic drivers of emissions — overproduction models, fossil‑heavy inputs and lax regulatory frameworks — have not been fully tackled, and the backsliding of brand commitments threatens to hollow out demand‑side pressure just when it is most needed.
If the industry’s stated climate ambition is to be salvaged, experts say, the immediate task is twofold: preserve and strengthen policy and regulatory mechanisms that enforce transparency and limit greenwashing, and scale collaborative financing and technical assistance to bring smaller suppliers into the low‑carbon transition. As Mr Sohail put it to Vogue Business, “These changes are temporary … we look at the forecasts and the trends of the past and know that governments will change. Their policies will change.” The hope among manufacturers is to be ready when that policy impetus returns. Whether the rest of the fashion economy will follow — and how fast — remains the critical question.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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