Photograph by Carmen Colombo / Connected Archives
Words by Daphne Chouliaraki Milner
From waste reduction to policy that centers workers, the Global Fashion Summit offered real-world empathy-led strategies to make sustainability equitable at every stage.
At this year’s Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, the climate crisis loomed large, but so did the question of who gets to define sustainability. With new European Union textile regulations on the horizon and mounting pressure to reduce waste and emissions, the industry faces a pivotal moment. Panels explored everything from repair economies and end-of-life innovation to the role of legislation in shaping circular supply chains. But amid discussions about technical fixes, labor organizers and researchers called attention to what’s often missing: equity.
Without protections for garment workers, support for agricultural communities, reparations for waste pickers, and accountability across all stages of the supply chain, even the most ambitious reforms risk reinforcing the very inequalities they aim to address. Sustainability, speakers argued, must start from the margins. Below, Atmos outlines four solutions shared at the Global Fashion Summit that could bring the industry one step closer to rebalancing power.
In 2023, thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh took to the streets with a modest, straightforward demand: a minimum wage of $208 a month. At least four people were killed by police during the protests. Thousands more were injured, many too afraid to seek medical help, knowing that visible wounds might expose them as protesters and cost them their jobs.
Climate change is compounding the crisis. Soaring temperatures bring new illnesses and higher medical costs. Flash floods force workers to stay home without pay. “There’s a knowledge gap about why this is happening,” former child worker and founder of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity Kalpona Akter said on the first day of the Summit. “Brands and factories should share information and money. But [currently,] there’s no adaptation fund. And the state must step in to ensure workers are protected.”
For too long, global climate agreements have privileged corporations, NGOs, and policymakers in the Global North, while sidelining the frontline communities whose lives and livelihoods are most at stake. And now, the European Union is scaling back some of its sustainability commitments, including its sustainability reporting and due diligence directives, potentially further weakening the protection of garment workers’ rights. “Either have a good agreement or no agreement,” said Akter. “[A] toothless directive isn’t going to make a difference to workers’ lives back home.”
Akter’s talk was nothing short of a call to action: Bring garment workers into the conversation. Climate and labor policies must be designed with workers, not for them. That means embedding worker voices into every stage of decision-making, directing adaptation funds to frontline communities, and creating legally binding frameworks that hold brands and manufacturers accountable—for poverty wages, unsafe conditions, sudden layoffs, climate-related disruptions, and the failure to provide meaningful redress when harm is done.
“When you are talking about the climate, talking about these policies, that must include workers’ voices,” Akter said. “You don’t know what the policies should look like. In all the conversations in this part of the world, there’s always a piece missing.” Workers.
Every year, each EU citizen throws away an average 16 kilos of textiles. Meanwhile, in a recipient country, a truckload of textiles is landfill or incinerated every second.
This is why “a circular economy is the key to the future,” proclaimed Jessika Roswall, European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy. “We need to make this [happen] right now. Today we only use 12% of recycled materials, and we need to change this.”
Roswall named a number of EU policies currently in the works, including the Circular Economy Act and mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility legislation as well as the introduction of digital produce passports, which will show consumers and waste processors what a garment is made of, where it comes from, and how to handle it after use. She also called out the need to strengthen information flow across the value chain, so that data can drive manufacturing decisions that can help products last longer.
“We have the talent, we have the innovation, we have the values to lead,” said Roswall. “If we act together on this mission [and with] this purpose, we can shape the future of fashion and textiles in Europe.”
“When you are talking about the climate, talking about these policies, that must include workers’ voices.”
Kalpona Akter
Founder, Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity
It’s true that regulation is accelerating—that’s especially the case in the EU, which has positioned itself as a leader in circular economic policy. But for a truly circular economy to take hold, legislators in the Global North must integrate empathy into solutions by collaborating with people at every stage of fashion’s value chain. That includes garment workers and kayayei, the mostly women and girls in Ghana who carry 120-pound bales of textile waste between market stalls and disposal sites.
What was notably missing from Roswall’s talk was any mention of how Europe’s shopping habits are impacting the Global South. Organizations such as The Or Foundation have been pushing for EPR that’s globally accountable, which would force producers to pay not only for waste generated within their own borders, but also pay for what’s exported to countries dealing with its consequences. These fees, The Or Foundation suggests, should begin at $0.50 (€0.46) and in many instances exceed $2.50 (€2.18). Meanwhile, in her talk a day earlier, labor activist Kalpona Akter shared a scathing critique of the EU’s regulatory gaps, and the danger this poses to fashion’s frontline workers.
“The [European Union] cannot regulate what happens outside the EU,” said Roswall. “But we can lead by example and we can partner [with other producing countries] through cooperation, trade, and international arrangements.” What that leadership looks like in practice, especially for communities already bearing the brunt of fashion’s excess, remained an open question.
The shift to clean energy in fashion isn’t just a climate imperative, it’s a human one. “If it’s too hot, it’s too hot,” said Jason Judd of Cornell’s Global Labor Institute. In garment factories across Cambodia, thousands of workers have gotten sick, vomiting or collapsing from heat stress and exhaustion. In parts of India, extreme heat causes food to spoil quickly, forcing many women to skip meals and work long hours on empty stomachs.
True decarbonization must start with equity. That means not just cutting emissions, but protecting workers from the heat, guaranteeing paid sick leave, and ensuring that homes—not just factories—are habitable. “It shouldn’t be the workers who are bearing all the risk and cost,” Judd said.
Some manufacturers are stepping up. Arvind Limited’s Future Forward Factories India in Gujarat cuts emissions by 93% and chemical use by up to 40% without raising production costs. “There’s a strong business case,” said Head of Sustainability Abhishek Bansal. But without broader investment and policy support, such examples remain outliers.
But where investment does flow, it must also account for the needs of local agricultural communities. Clean energy choices have direct consequences for land use, food security, and rural employment, particularly in regions where garment production overlaps with agricultural livelihoods. When renewable energy sources displace farmland, it risks cutting off communities from their primary sources of food and income.
Still, equitable solutions exist: agrivoltaics that allow crops to grow beneath solar panels, land-use policies that safeguard food production, and incentives for manufacturers who decarbonize without dispossessing local communities. “There are ways to pursue renewables that reduce emissions in ways that can cater to [both garment workers and agricultural communities],” said Dr Rohini Kamal, professor and research fellow at BRAC Institute of Governance and Development. “But the solution has to [always properly] account for the problem.”
Ninety-two million tonnes. That’s how much textile waste is produced around the world every year. This waste is overwhelmingly consumed and discarded in the Global North, and shipped to countries in the Global South where communities are forced to absorb the environmental and economic burden. Today, Ghana alone imports around 15 million items of used clothing each week, with around 40% going straight to landfill.
For Yayra Agbofah, who is based in Accra, doing nothing about a problem of such scale was not an option. That’s why, in 2018, he founded upcycling studio The Revival, which aimed to divert textile waste out of landfills and give it a new lease of life. “I entered fashion, not in the traditional way, but through community,” he said. “I wasn’t the only one at the receiving end of the fashion industry’s [waste]. [The Revival] started out of this frustration; out of pain.”
It was injustice that fueled innovation—sending the waste back to the Global North was never an option—and by collaborating with artisans, discarded items were once again transformed into something meaningful. But while The Revival is addressing the crisis in Ghana, the larger problem remains: a global system that profits from excess.
“The only place in the world that practices practical circularity at scale is Kantamanto Market. It needs to be protected and the people need to be celebrated.”
Yayra Agbofah
Founder and Creative Director, The Revival
It’s imperative that brands learn to “design with less waste,” said Brad Boren, director of innovation and sustainability at Norrøna. But in today’s hyper-competitive market, brands routinely overproduce to avoid stockouts. “There’s a massive disconnect between what we make and what we sell,” said Ghost founder Josh Kaplan, noting that $8 billion worth of inventory is destroyed or dumped every year. To break the cycle, many argue that government action is no longer optional. It’s the only way to force transparency, cap overproduction, and stop brands from externalizing the cost of their waste.
But solving this crisis doesn’t just mean rethinking design and cutting production. It also means investing in the infrastructures that already exist, and supporting highly skilled communities like those in Ghana who are doing the hard, daily work of circularity. That includes recognizing their expertise, paying fair and dignified wages, ensuring safe working conditions, access to healthcare, and other formal protections. “The only place in the world that practices practical circularity at scale is Kantamanto Market,” said Agbofah. “People are taking care of their families, of their businesses; it’s a place that creates value. It needs to be protected and the people need to be celebrated.”
Agbofah’s closing words cut through the summit’s polished optimism with a sharp clarity. “You all have the power to change your thinking process—to think of us in Ghana,” he said, turning to a room full of fashion executives, policymakers, technologists, and journalists. “You consume so much here. That is why we have this problem. We feel like no one cares about us. That needs to change.”
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