Clothing

The global fashion system today is twice the size that it should be if we are to reach the 1.5° target of the Paris agreement by 2030. According to a report by Hot or Cool Institute (2022), efficiency measures alone, such as material innovation or improvements in production processes, cannot bring the industry to this goal.

There is an urgent need for sufficiency measures -drastic reductions in the production of new garments, especially cuts in the use of synthetic materials, such as polyester. However, translating science to policy is not an easy endeavour considering that there is little understanding of how sufficiency policies could look like.

With legislation emerging to regulate fashion in Europe and the US, now is a perfect moment to deliberate, based on solid scientific evidence, on how to interpret normative targets for reductions into specific policy efforts.