The report, produced with DIRT Charity, finds fashion has influence over 30 per cent of global farmland – 1.45 billion hectares – once leather and wool are counted alongside textile crops such as cotton, hemp and flax. Earlier estimates, which counted textile crops alone, produced a far smaller figure.
It also finds that the environmental impact of a textile is usually decided by how it is produced, not by which fibre it is. The variation within a single material can be wider than the gap between two different materials, meaning a garment’s fibre content tells a buyer very little about its real impact.
Report author and Director of the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Sam Fankauser said: “Once leather and wool are counted alongside textile crops, roughly a third of the world’s agricultural land is linked to what this industry buys. That is the scale of the opportunity, and our review suggests it is currently underestimated. A brand changing how it sources is changing how land is farmed.”
DIRT Charity founder and report co-author Arizona Muse said: ”Brands have spent a decade arguing about which natural fibre is more sustainable, many with little idea about how these fibres are farmed. DIRT Charity sees that fashion– as a sourcing power– has the opportunity to regenerate up to 30% of earth’s agricultural land through transitioning to regeneratively farmed biodynamic fibre. Healing the surface of the earth from toxic pollution while clothing humans.”
The findings land six days before the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive takes effect on 27 September, after which generic environmental claims are restricted and sustainability labels shown to EU consumers must rest on an independently verified, certified scheme.
The report shows how far impact can vary within a single material. Life-cycle studies put leather anywhere from 8.5 to 152 kg CO2e per square metre. Two mycelium “leathers” assessed in the report sit twenty times apart on emissions, despite both potentially appearing as “mycelium” on a label: one comes in as low as 2.76 kg CO2e per square metre, a 92 per cent reduction on the roughly 33 kg CO2e for bovine leather, while the other, made on a coal-heavy grid, is assessed at 57kg CO2e — worse than the leather it replaces. Wood-based fibres follow the same pattern, with one analysis putting viscose emissions between 0.20 and 8.30 tonnes of CO2e per tonne, a fortyfold spread driven by production and energy rather than by the fibre.
The report also finds that farming method can sharply reduce the impact of textile agriculture. Organic and biodynamic systems are associated with higher species richness than conventional agriculture across beneficial insects, soil fauna and farmland birds. In Egypt, biodynamic insect control cut pesticide use to less than 10 per cent while cotton yields rose by almost 30 per cent, and twelve-year trials in Indian cotton rotations found biodynamic systems improved soil quality and supported microbial communities.
Across multiple long-term studies, biodynamic agriculture shows superior soil-health outcomes compared with both organic and conventional systems. The lead authors Megan Siyu Liu and Clara Cecil note that this remains an area for further study, including the trade-offs around total land use and long-term viability.
Arizona Muse said: “Every brand has a contract coming up for renewal with a supplier. They have the opportunity to ask how the fibre was farmed, to demand– contractually– that the fibre be sourced from biodynamic or organic farms, and pay for the necessary transition.
DIRT Charity works globally to advance biodynamic agriculture and the farming systems that rebuild soils, protect biodiversity and support farming communities.
With Biodynamic Federation Demeter International, the charity is developing the Demeter Textile Standard, one of the most comprehensive textile certifications ever created. Holistic in both directions, it requires the entire farm organism to meet the highest standards for soil health, biodiversity, ecological regeneration, animal welfare and human wellbeing. In the biodynamic approach, these are inseparable.
And beyond the farm gate, the Demeter Textile Standard verifies every element of the processing and manufacturing journey, from fair pay and safe, toxin free working conditions throughout the supply chain to full compostability of the finished garment at the end of its life. Covering eleven raw material categories from dyestuff to cotton and silk, Demeter brings the same rigour it applies to food and wine certification to the textile industry through this partnership with DIRT Charity.
DIRT Charity is calling on the industry to set sourcing targets on farming method and verified outcome rather than on fibre type; to audit every environmental claim and sustainability label; to fund the transition to regenerative agriculture and processing, tier by tier; to move the textile supply chain to regenerative, biodynamic agriculture and processing certified by Demeter; and to drive soil regeneration globally by sourcing from regenerative farms.
Arizona Muse presents the findings at Eco Age’s Convening the Next-Generation Materials Transition Forum at the Fashion Institute of Technology for Climate Week NYC on Tuesday 22 September.
