This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker, Beauty Trend Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology, Beauty and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here.
2024 is due to be the biggest election year in history, with at least 60 countries — representing more than half of the world’s population — heading to the polls. The consequences for sustainable fashion could be seismic.
The jurisdictions bracing for change include the US, UK, France and the EU, which have been the drivers on sustainable fashion. The results could bring new movers and shakers, says George Harding-Rolls, who heads policy and advocacy for Eco-Age. “We take the leaders and laggers for granted, but the next four years could look very different. There will be a lot of new names to learn.”
Advocates are hoping that the elections will bring new energy to issues at hand, as incumbents seek to secure their legacies and hopefuls attempt to woo voters with new manifestos. But early polls suggest a swing to the right in the EU, mirroring concerns for the US presidential vote and western Europe. In the EU, this is unlikely to back-pedal progress, even if it limits future agendas. “There’s politics and then there’s policy,” says Lisa Lang, director of policy and EU affairs orchestrator at solution and innovation catalyst Climate-KIC. “The parliament is voting, but the commission has all the money and is the one actually developing policies and regulation. Of course, we are concerned things might get watered down, but a tight net of regulations has been knitted in the last year and once it’s set into law, it can’t be rolled back.”
In the US, legislative action is playing out on the state level. This month, Washington state introduced a new bill that would require any fashion manufacturer doing business there and exceeding $100 million in global sales annually to disclose its environmental due diligence policies, processes and outcome. House Bill 2068 cites the environmentally intensive production of cotton and the pervasive use of oil-based synthetics as reasons to crack down on fashion. Washington follows New York, which has a fashion-related bill in progress, and California, where extended producer responsibility is on the table, as well as the push for federal legislation with the Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change (Fabric) Act.
For the industry, this will be the year to implement existing policies and engage with policymakers to shape future proposals. “The fashion industry is being regulated in a way it never has before,” says Hilary Jochmans, founder of US advocacy organisation Politically in Fashion.
The year of implementation
With the European Parliament election looming in June, it is unlikely that the EU will introduce any new policies in 2024, experts say. Instead, policymakers will be rushing to confirm and clarify existing proposals, and companies will be focused on implementing changes. This mostly applies to Europe’s largest 50,000 companies; the deadline for compliance for most SMEs is 2026.
Within the Green New Deal mantle, there are several sustainable fashion policies waiting for final clarification, including digital product passports, the unintentional release of microplastics from synthetic clothing, and extended producer responsibility (EPR). By 2025 latest, policymakers plan to issue textile-specific amendments to two existing umbrella proposals: the Waste Framework Directive and the hotly disputed Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulations (ESPR), which includes a ban on the destruction of unsold goods that passed in December 2023.
Also in December, the EU’s co-legislators reached a provisional deal on its corporate sustainability due diligence directive (CSDDD), which will force large companies with more than 500 employees and a net worldwide turnover above €150 million to disclose and mitigate their impacts on the environment and human rights. Crucially, this includes upstream business partners as well as some downstream activities, such as distribution and recycling. There will be penalties and civil liability for companies that don’t comply or fail to bring their business model and strategy in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The provisional agreement now needs to be endorsed and formally adopted by both the EU Parliament and Council.
The EU isn’t alone in addressing due diligence: at the beginning of 2024, the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act entered its second phase of implementation, shifting the goalposts for compliance from companies with more than 3,000 employees to companies with more than 1,000 employees. The expanded scope takes the number of companies subject to the law from 600 to 2,900. There is also a “rare glimmer of hope” in the UK for something similar, notes Harding-Rolls.
Otherwise, the UK is largely silent on fashion-relevant legislation. In lieu of more concrete actions, think tank Fashion Roundtable has prepared its own manifesto, including calls for the government to add textiles to its existing EPR policies, reinstate VAT-free shopping for international tourists, and invest in research and initiatives to support a creative well-being economy. It amalgamates data from industry leaders and stakeholders, says founder and CEO Tamara Cincik. The result is more holistic than most sustainable fashion proposals. “Sustainability at its core means being able to thrive, not just survive. Our manifesto supports those longer-term ambitions in a more meaningful way than we have heard from many short-sighted politicians.”
In the US, two landmark policies could have a make-or-break year. The Fabric Act brought forward by New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand is hoping to pass this year, as is the New York Fashion Act. “In terms of mandating that garment workers receive their due wages, providing a means for them to go to court to get those wages, and requiring companies to reduce their company-wide emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, the Fashion Act is the most specific and accountable proposal in play,” says Maxine Bédat, director of “think-and-do tank” New Standard Institute and a key drafter of the Fashion Act. The first big rally for the New York Fashion Act will be on 24 January, with more events to follow throughout the year, she adds. Washington’s new bill marks the first state to follow New York’s lead. Massachusetts is also forming its own version of the act.
Elsewhere in the US, momentum is expected to continue for the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) as it enters its third year of implementation. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has stopped 1,093 apparel, footwear and textiles shipments worth $45.5 million since UFLPA came into play and denied 571 of those. There have also been calls to close the de minimis loophole that fast fashion giants such as Temu and Shein have been accused of using to avoid customs duties.
US brands should also keep an eye on more behind-the-scenes policies, says Jochmans. The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Green Guides are currently under review, which could dictate future crackdowns on greenwashing, the Farm Bill is up for renewal and several important trade bills have lapsed in recent years, making them prime for revival. This includes the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) trade preference programme and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, which temporarily reduces or suspends import tariffs on particular products imported into the US.
Deeper changes spurred by legislation
As brands begin to operationalise these legislative changes, a deeper transformation will need to take place, says Baptiste Carriere-Pradal, co-founder and director of consultancy 2B Policy. The key, he explains, is not to prepare for individual policies, but to create an infrastructure that streamlines transformation and compliance without too much additional investment each time a new law comes into play. “You need a flow of data from your value chain, implemented at scale, in an automated way, with all of your partners on board. The most-prepared businesses have already streamlined their processes and the relationships between relevant teams.” To manage the change, a director of transformation might be prudent.
Most brands are unequipped to deal with this level of change, says Climate-KIC’s Lang. “Sometimes it feels like every other industry has electricity and fashion just discovered fire.” While digitalisation is a key tenet of the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, few have prepared for this, meaning fashion lacks the legacy data that has helped other industries guide progress.
Legislation also calls global power dynamics into question. Experts say existing proposals have insufficient supply chain input, and there is a profound need for partners in the Global South to play a bigger role in future iterations. “If you look at the US and EU, the regulation is falling on fashion companies operating in those Global North contexts, but the pinch is being felt — and the investment is needed — from suppliers further up the supply chain, who are in a totally different context,” explains Harding-Rolls. “It’s almost like the brands are acting like the regulators, even though the countries they’re operating in might not have the same standards. In the effort for a just transition, you have to constantly ask who is paying for this?”
This is why the Fashion Act focuses on where products are sold, says Bédat. “If a manufacturing country increases their wages and becomes less competitive globally as a result, brands will move elsewhere and that country is disincentivised from accountability measures. So it’s vital that laws apply in the places where products are sold, to incentivise the entire system to change.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
