For Textile Exchange, the first half of 2025 has been about taking stock. The second half will be about taking action, says CEO Claire Bergkamp.
The global non-profit, which works with brands, manufacturers and farmers to promote more sustainable and responsible fibre and materials production, is now five years into its Climate+ strategy. Meanwhile, the fashion industry it was designed to disrupt is five years away from major climate tipping points and fast-looming targets. When it comes to raw materials — the primary field Textile Exchange plays in — the industry’s overarching goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent before 2030, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. That goal remains out of reach, explains Bergkamp, so it’s time to switch things up.
“If we want to drive meaningful change and measurable impact, we have to really sharpen our focus,” she says. “There is so much pressure on fashion businesses today: pressure from a business point of view, pressure to align with climate and nature, and human rights goals. People feel overwhelmed and stuck. We want to be in a position to offer clarity and coordination, to cut through all that confusion and fragmentation.”
As part of this “reprioritisation”, Textile Exchange has been streamlining its work, readying its 138-strong workforce and 90,000 certified producers to go “faster and deeper”. Its sprawling programme of events, certifications and initiatives has been edited down to three pillars: engagement and partnership, climate and nature impact, and a more unified standards system. There’s a new mission statement to boot: “Transform how we produce, choose and reuse materials to benefit people and places at the source.”
So how exactly does Textile Exchange plan to achieve its lofty goals, when so much hinges on the efforts of external stakeholders?
In its latest report, the non-profit takes on one of sustainable fashion’s most contentious topics and asks what a post-growth fashion industry might look like. There is still a long way to go.
From reactive to proactive
Since its founding in 2002, Textile Exchange has grown in reaction to industry needs. The non-profit was initially called Organic Exchange, and focused on growing the percentage of organic cotton in the global fibre basket. Things changed in 2011 when it took on ownership of the Global Recycled Standard (GRS) from Control Union, and co-founded Cotton Connect to train and educate farmers. From there, things began to spiral. Suddenly, there were databases, benchmarks, reports and matrixes, as well as global conferences and five further standards (addressing chain of custody, organic content, responsible down, responsible wool and responsible alpaca).
Now, it’s time to settle into what works. “We have always done a lot. Honestly, we are still doing a lot,” says Bergkamp. “As our organisation grew, we had to be very reactive to the needs of the industry. We had to test and pilot a lot of things, but we’re past that now. We’re in a phase of really needing to focus and apply those learnings at scale.”
The benchmarking has been rolled into the climate and nature team, the raw materials producer programmes now sit under engagement and partnerships, and the standards have been harmonised under the new Materials Matter System, the final criteria for which will hit the market early next year. This is possibly the biggest change. “The new standards are not unified in every way — obviously animal welfare is not going to show up the same way in recycled content — but we have tried to amend the criteria to produce more unified outcomes. It’s about future-proofing the system to better support shifts like textile-to-textile recycling and making sure that best practice continues to evolve,” says Bergkamp.
She adds that, outside of Textile Exchange’s own standards, there will be more collaboration with other existing certifications, to align criteria and minimise the administrative burden on producers. This would be a stark departure from the past decade, when new certifications seemed to pop up constantly, each demanding different data points and fragmenting progress. “Everything needs to be done in partnership. There’s no point in us trying to do it alone, so how can we leverage each other’s strengths? How can we build off different organisations and initiatives to create a more unified view of what ‘preferred’ or ‘good’ looks like across the industry?”
It’s an interesting time to double down on certification. Despite the need for standards, high-profile scandals have rocked the industry’s confidence in the current system of auditing and certification, exposing the limitations of a sector that once promised certainty. This is all the more reason to make them a priority, says Bergkamp. “There is so much regulatory uncertainty, the industry needs clarity, which is why standards are more and more important,” she says. “How our standards are used is one of our most direct impacts on the producer community.”
Standards cannot — and should not be expected to — fix everything, she continues. “Standards need to be used for what they can do, which is offering a mechanism to verify very specific things at a very specific moment. You can’t outsource everything to standards. There will always be a need for fashion businesses to know their supply chains and create partnerships throughout if they really want to claim meaningful change.”
Putting raw materials producers at the centre
Partnerships with producers will be another priority moving forward. Textile Exchange has always focused on Tier 4 — raw materials sourcing — so the focus on producers is nothing new, but the methods will be evolving, says Bergkamp. “We have always tried to make sure that Tier 4 producers feel seen, but we have had a lot of feedback that the producer community needs to be more visible in our work,” she says. “We have spent a lot of time asking: how can we learn from you? How can we bring your voice to the table? Those feedback loops are one of the most critical strengths we have, but it’s a delicate balance.”
Bringing brands into the feedback loop will be another priority, starting with ramping up supply chain field trips, which have been an add-on to the annual Textile Exchange conference for several years now. “We are really focusing on how to put producers at the centre of all of this, to build connection points between brands and producers,” says Bergkamp. “That means getting people out into the fields to understand what the decisions they make thousands of miles away look and feel like on the ground.”
Another crucial part of this work is addressing the financial mechanisms at play in fashion supply chains, which often disempower raw materials producers. “The thing we’re really trying to achieve is for raw materials producers to be paid fairly — for the value they bring to the industry to be adequately rewarded,” says Bergkamp. “Calling it a premium or an incentive doesn’t do it justice. In my opinion, you should simply pay for what you’re getting when you choose a preferred fibre or material.”
That change won’t happen on its own. “The risk of making changes to production is almost always carried by those with the least margin to invest. The reality is that there are financial barriers and investments needed,” says Bergkamp. “That’s a tricky conversation to have right now because so many fashion businesses are feeling the pressure financially, but these are the conversations we need to have.”
Making sense of mass uncertainty
Whether others will get on board with Textile Exchange’s vision remains to be seen. While the non-profit is refocusing on sustainable change and pushing for collective action, much of the broader fashion industry is shying away from public commitments and conversations of this ilk, spooked by a rollback in European regulations, growing anti-ESG sentiment in the US and geopolitical instability, which has thrown supply chains around the world into chaos.
“Five years ago, when we launched the Climate+ strategy, we were in the midst of a global pandemic. We felt the pressure of that and saw how it laid bare the challenges in fashion supply chains,” says Bergkamp. “We saw a rise in ESG and then we saw a backlash. We saw an increase in investment and innovation, which then faltered. Things can move very quickly, so we need to be steady and offer a guiding hand, to show the industry where to focus and how to think about the change it wants to see.”
To do this, sustainability needs to escape from its echo chambers, she continues. “There’s a burden of proof on sustainability that doesn’t seem to be required of other transformations — if you look at technology and artificial intelligence, you will see that businesses aren’t afraid to gamble. But there is a hesitancy to gamble on investing in supply chains. So we need to sharpen our language and make it easier to act. We have to reframe this work and show that it does make business sense.”
For the broader industry, Bergkamp is unequivocal in her demands: “Stop delaying action and prioritising short-term thinking. Stop treating sustainability as a marketing function. If you want to claim something, you have to pay for it and make sure you’re actually doing it. Stop expecting farmers and suppliers to transition without sharing the costs. And stop duplicating tools and efforts, because that doesn’t help anything.”
So what should businesses do? “Start investing at the source. Make sure that producers are actually getting some investment back into their businesses. Align on shared data and goals. Start viewing climate and nature as an investment opportunity that helps build business resilience. Do more true cost accounting. Start designing for durability, reuse and end-of-life instead of just talking about doing it. Collaborate and push for collective action.”
“Fashion is a big system and we have a lot to change,” she adds. “But there’s nothing like a five-year deadline to really get you going.”
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