There is a lot riding on the myriad sustainable fashion events and conferences that will convene decision-makers and activists in 2025. With just five years to go until 2030 — the date by which fashion needs to have cut its carbon footprint in half to align with the Paris Climate Agreement — the need for urgent action is clearer than ever, but so is the lack of progress.
Deciding which dates to mark and events to attend can be difficult. Large-scale conferences tend to “focus more on high-level discussions without driving the systemic changes needed on the ground” and often lack the essential voice of garment workers, says Katrina Caspelich, CMO at advocacy organisation Remake. They can feel like “a lot of noise and little action”, agrees Reformation chief sustainability officer and VP of operations Kathleen Talbot.
Many sustainability professionals express a growing preference for smaller, closed-door events that are more targeted to solving specific issues, such as the meetings and strategy sessions hosted by Amsterdam-based innovation platform Fashion For Good.
Elections! Bankruptcies! Scandals! It’s been an eventful year for sustainable fashion.
Dr Hakan Karaosman, associate professor at Cardiff University and co-founder of Fashion’s Responsible Supply Chain Hub (FReSCH), says he will be prioritising “more inclusive” events that allow audience questions, rather than “forcing the audience to become passive listeners”. “I will gladly lend my platform to the silenced voices that can teach us how to formulate more inclusive social dialogues for the many, not the few,” he says. “There is an urgent need to listen to these communities rather than impose ideas, solutions and feelings about how things should change.”
That doesn’t mean the industry is discounting large-scale sustainable fashion events entirely; just being more selective about which ones they attend. With that in mind, here is our round-up of the key dates and events to note for sustainable fashion professionals — and what to expect from them — in 2025.
International Day of Zero Waste
When: 30 March
Where: Global
The International Day of Zero Waste does exactly what it says on the tin: it highlights zero-waste initiatives around the world, with the intention of raising awareness and driving action. It began in 2022, coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the urban development branch UN-Habitat. Fashion has had a piecemeal presence in previous years, but the 2025 edition will focus on fashion and textiles for the first time ever. It’s a timely choice. Awareness around textile waste has been growing, thanks in part to activism from countries that are most affected by it, from Ghana to Chile (where textile waste is visible from space). In Europe, regulators are cracking down on the brands producing waste, while the US published its first federal report on textile waste in December.
Biofabricate
When: 1 to 3 April
Where: Paris
Biofabricate is by no means small — previous exhibitors include Nike collaborator Living Ink and leather alternative TômTex, and the last edition was sponsored by Kering — but it might satisfy the industry’s craving for more targeted events with actionable takeaways. “Everyone who is involved in next-gen materials and pigments is there,” says Circuthon Consulting founder Paul Foulkes-Arellano, who has been a vocal proponent of industry events that fall outside of the typical sustainable fashion merry-go-round online. “It feels like the future of textiles and fashion all under one roof.”
The Global Fashion Summit
When: 3 to 5 June
Where: Copenhagen, Denmark
Organised by non-profit Global Fashion Agenda (GFA), this annual convening of industry leaders celebrated its 15th year in 2024. This year’s theme is ‘Barriers and Bridges’, which the GFA says highlights “the dualities of this moment, where traditional barriers have the possibility to transform into bridges for tangible change”.
In recent years, the event has become a microcosm of frustrations with the industry’s commitment to talking rather than doing, resulting in a lack of tangible change. Some feel there needs to be better representation of certain global stakeholder groups at the event to drive progress. The GFA says it is keenly aware of this, and is taking steps to improve representation, hosting events in manufacturing countries, supporting its Next Gen Assembly members to attend the Copenhagen summit in person, and making speaker diversity and stakeholder representation a “paramount priority”. Dounia Wone, chief impact officer at Vestiaire Collective, says the Global Fashion Summit remains an important convening space for the industry and she plans to attend again this year, calling it “a leading platform for sustainable fashion dialogue”.
Future Fabrics Expo
When: 24 to 25 June
Where: London
The Sustainable Angle’s annual trade show of innovative and alternative materials with lower environmental impacts, which launched in 2011, is becoming all the more relevant. Many brands have impending sustainability target deadlines to switch up their fabric mix, and the lack of industry support for next-gen materials became a hot topic in 2024, when former sustainable fashion darling Renewcell went bankrupt (it was later acquired, and former H&M Group CEO Helena Helmersson took up the mantle as chairperson to drive it forward). Future Fabrics Expo’s accompanying talk programme also provides an opportunity for brands to hear directly from material innovation founders about the challenges they face in scaling, and how brands can step up to help.
Walk Your Values
When: 11 to 16 September
Where: New York
For the last three years, Remake has staged its own events during New York Fashion Week (NYFW), most notably the Walk Your Values runway show, which promotes secondhand fashion and advocates for workers’ rights. Whether this year’s event takes the form of another runway show or a broader programme, remains up for debate, but Remake is intent on using high-footfall fashion moments as a Trojan horse for sustainability. “For us, NYFW is a platform for elevating local activists, creatives and changemakers who use fashion as a means to challenge overconsumption and address the injustices faced by garment workers,” says Caspelich. “It serves as a powerful reminder that the values we champion — ethical production, fair wages and sustainability — must be reflected in every facet of the industry.”
2025 Textile Exchange Conference
When: 13 to 17 October
Where: Lisbon, Portugal
One conference Reformation’s Talbot will be attending is the annual Textile Exchange gathering towards the end of the year. “We get the chance to meet with trusted raw materials suppliers (both innovators like Kintra or Circulose and incumbents like Nativa or Eastman), most of our cross-industry partners (like Fashion For Good), as well as circularity solution providers (like Supercircle). It always feels like we get a lot accomplished because so many of these folks we otherwise only see on calls,” she says. In recent years, the event has expanded beyond the typical conference format to also include “field trips” to parts of the supply chain. This year, the main event will take place in Lisbon, Portugal. The non-profit’s CEO Claire Bergkamp says 2025 will be about “aligning the needs and perspectives of all players in the system [so we can] drive sustainable fashion forward in a way that is both impactful and enduring”.
Obroni Wawu October
When: 26 October
Where: Accra, Ghana
Much of the industry’s frustration with conferences stems from their Global North-centric perspective and audience. In stark contrast to this is Obroni Wawu October, an annual celebration of Kantamanto Market in Accra, Ghana, which began in 2022. Hosted by non-profit The Or Foundation, the event puts the focus on textile waste exactly where its impacts are being felt most. The intention is to produce an event for the Global South, by the Global South, so there is a focus on those at the very top and bottom of fashion supply chains.
The 2023 edition featured a runway show that merged traditional artistry with modern design using textile waste from the local Kantamanto Market. The 2024 edition included a Kantamanto Market talent show, a beach clean-up and stories from the kayayei (female porters who carry bales of secondhand clothes).
The Or Foundation confirmed its intention to go ahead with Obroni Wawu October in the wake of a devastating fire on 2 January, which destroyed approximately 60 per cent of the market.
COP30
When: 10 to 21 November
Where: Belém, Brazil
The annual UN climate change conference brings member states together to tackle the climate crisis. Fashion has had limited engagement over the past year, either participating on the surface level, or skipping it altogether. But the implications for fashion are huge: negotiations touch on many of the industry’s most pressing challenges — from fossil fuel extraction and renewable energy, to loss and damages finance and the need for a just transition.
Recent COPs have been heavily criticised by activists, and this year’s event is already tarnished by fears that US President-elect Donald Trump will remove the country from the Paris Agreement for a second time. Still, many are hoping that COP30 — held on the frontlines of the climate crisis, at the gateway to the Amazon River and poised to attract broader participation than previous years — will deliver decisive action.
In a LinkedIn post following COP29, Christiana Figueres, former UN Climate Change executive secretary and chief negotiator of the Paris Agreement, said: “It has become clear that the constructive, supportive ideas developed some time ago on the international climate negotiations have been misinterpreted in today’s context — so I want to make our conviction unequivocal: the COP process is an essential and irreplaceable vehicle for supporting the multilateral, multisectoral, systemic change we urgently need. Now more than ever.”
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