What: Fashion's climate emissions rose almost 14% over two years, driven by increased production of fiber, especially polyester.

Why it is important: With profits at risk absent faster decarbonization, the findings raise the stakes for retailers relying on apparel vendors slow to shift away from virgin polyester.

Apparel-sector emissions rose 6.3% in 2024, following a 7.5% increase in 2023, according to a new report from the Apparel Impact Institute. Emissions in 2024 totaled roughly 1 gigaton, comparable to the entire climate footprint of Japan. The rise is tied to growing global production of fiber, particularly polyester, which remains cheaper and more available than recycled material — a cost gap the institute's chief impact officer, Kurt Kipka, cites as a central barrier to decarbonization.

Energy-price volatility linked to the Iran war is adding pressure, pushing producers toward renewable energy and onsite battery storage as alternatives to oil and gas. Separately, the institute has found the sector faces a 34% drop in profits by 2030 unless companies move faster to cut carbon emissions, citing supply-chain disruption and rising operating costs as consequences of inaction.

The industry can point to some progress: the number of apparel companies with approved or committed science-based climate targets rose from about 100 at the end of 2021 to over 700 as of June 2026, and several major brands have reported double-digit emissions cuts alongside higher recycled-fiber use. Even so, some businesses have scaled back green commitments amid inflation and political pressure — Burberry delayed its net-zero target by a decade earlier this year, from 2040 to 2050.

IADS Notes: The pattern documented in the Apparel Impact Institute's findings — rising emissions despite years of stated commitments — echoes across recent retail reporting. Brand-level decarbonisation efforts remain constrained by the difficulty of tracking supplier emissions and the slow pace of industry-wide change, as detailed by Vogue Business in April 2026. The underlying materials problem is structural: BCG reported in September 2025 that the fashion industry discards 120 million metric tons of textile waste annually, with less than 1% recycled into new fibers, a dynamic tied to the same cost gap between virgin and recycled materials driving fiber-production emissions upward. Even retailers actively cutting operational emissions face this gap between direct and supply-chain footprints — WWD noted in August 2026 that Walmart reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 7.5% year-on-year, yet its Scope 3 emissions still rose roughly 3%, reinforcing that upstream supply-chain and materials pressure is the harder problem to solve.

Fashion's climate emissions increased almost 14% over two years