PARIS — Fashion’s core problem is no longer a lack of solutions, but the need to change the model, industry speakers said at climate conference ChangeNow.
The three-day conference took over Paris’ Grand Palais, where Chanel traditionally holds its runway shows, turning the space into a hub for climate-focused fashion innovation with panels such as “Fashion’s Waste Problem” and Kering‘s new evening program “Fashion Our Future: Redesigning Fashion’s Value Chain.”
For decades, growth has been driven by the “take, make, waste” linear production system. That model delivered volume, but at the cost of value — environmental, social and increasingly, commercial. Now, as EU regulations tighten and the physical limits of waste become harder to ignore, brands are confronting the more fundamental challenge of how to grow without simply selling more.
Across ChangeNow, which had a dedicated fashion track for its 11th edition, speakers emphasized that the industry is searching for ways to extract value from what already exists — through resale, repair, data and services — rather than relying on constant newness and the ever-faster trend cycle.
But the shift is uneven. Some companies are doubling down on circular models and infrastructure, while others quietly scale back sustainability commitments amid economic headwinds.
Attendees buzzed about the immediate and potentially long-term impacts of the Iran war, with some noting that factories they work with are already cutting hours or temporarily closing due to power cuts, particularly in Bangladesh. The long-term fallout will put added pressure on the industry, both from a cost perspective and its dampening effect on consumer confidence.
Against that context, many of the solutions being explored — from digital product passports to industrial-scale recycling — are less about sustainability as a stand-alone goal and more about redefining where value sits in the fashion economy. The question is no longer how to produce responsibly at scale, but whether scale itself needs to be reduced.
Across the conference, ChangeNow panelists even took aim at the idea of “green growth,” the theory that fashion can continue expanding while reducing its environmental impact, including several speakers outside the fashion industry such as celebrity academic Kate Raworth, of “doughnut economics” fame, and Instagram economist Michael Mezzatesta.
Sustainability has to be reframed for shareholders and the C-suite to be seen less as compliance, more as a potential revenue driver, panelists agreed. Digital product passports are a case in point. Initially framed as a reporting method for the forthcoming European regulatory requirements, they are increasingly being treated as a sales tool.
“We really believe that this is the future,” said Vanessa Barboni Hallik, founder and chief executive officer of Another Tomorrow. “Once that infrastructure is built, it’s this amazing scaffolding that you can really innovate on very, very flexibly.”
By linking physical products to digital identities, brands can extend relationships beyond the point of sale, enable resale and capture customer data.
“The DPP is a CRM tool,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to create those first-party data relationships. There are a lot of next-generation consumers encountering brands for the first time [on] secondhand [platforms], not first hand. So for all of these reasons, the DPP has enormous power. It also has tremendous power from a lifetime value perspective.”
At scale, the infrastructure is already coming together. The Aura Blockchain Consortium, backed by luxury groups including LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Prada, has more than 80 million products registered on its platform, said CEO Marcel Härtlein. The focus is shifting to activation and how brands can layer services such as repair, extended warranties and personalized engagement on top of that data.
“What we see now is that brands are moving more and more into the service-level area,” he said. “The whole luxury industry is really at an inflection point, because trust, transparency, sustainability, customer engagement on an additional digital touchpoint are becoming super relevant.”
Execution, however, remains the biggest speed bump, as supply chains are fragmented, with key data dispersed across multiple tiers and geographies.
“It’s super complex, because the data actually exists, but it’s everywhere,” said Laure Dervaux, cofounder of Fairly Made.
Interior view of the Grand Palais during the ChangeNow event.
Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
After some hits and misses, the fashion industry is beginning to show early signs of industrial-scale textile-to-textile circularity. Speaking at Kering’s first evening side event, Circ CEO Peter Majeranowski discussed his start-up’s upcoming large-scale textile-to-textile recycling facility in Europe, under construction in eastern France and slated for a 2028 opening.
The plant will process 70,000 tons of textile waste annually — roughly one million garments a day — targeting cotton-poly blended materials that have historically been difficult to recycle. Built on the site of a former coal plant, the project represents an investment of around $500 million and is framed as a way to reindustrialize struggling regions and retrain workers.
“It’s a great illustration of how technology in the circular economy can rebuild old economies, sometimes dirty economies like coal,” he said.
“The bottleneck now is not technology — it’s coordination,” Majeranowski said. “How do we coordinate the solutions that are ready today, that are proven, with brands, with customers, with NGOs, and with regulators.”
That coordination challenge extends beyond infrastructure to the global reach of the industry itself. In Ghana, around 15 million items of used clothing are imported each week from the Global North.
These garments are considered “reused” or “recycled,” but in reality are a massive waste issue for those on the ground. Traders pay for every item, whether it can be resold or not, effectively absorbing the financial and environmental burden of overproduction.
“We should be considered at the table when decisions are being made,” said Yayra Agbofah, founder of The Revival at Kantamanto Market, who called for stronger EU export rules. “We actually carry the burden, and we need to be part of the decision-making.”
Transparency is also emerging as a commercial driver. Platforms such as Clear Fashion are building tools to make supply chain practices visible to consumers.
“What is crucial today is to make impact information really part of the shopping experience,” said Marguerite Dorangeon, cofounder and CEO of the scanning app. “When this transparency is trusted, when it’s clear, when it’s really actionable, it can be a very impactful way to support change.”
She added that social factors, including working conditions and safety, often drive more engagement and sales than environmental metrics, shaping how brands should position their products.
Beyond product and data innovation, industry groups are continuing to push for more fundamental shifts. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is working with brands on new financial action items.
“Fashion needs to decouple revenue from material use,” said Alice Bodreau, head of corporate partnerships at the foundation. Its research indicates that circular models such as resale, repair and rental could grow four times faster than traditional sales, but have the structural barriers.
Because of this, “we simply can’t make the case they are competitive compared to linear,” she said. For example, the rate of VAT tax is the same on a resale item as on a new item.
Policy is increasingly seen as critical. In France, coalition En Mode Climat has pushed for legislation targeting fast fashion. After passing the National Assembly unanimously in March 2024, France’s anti‑fast-fashion law was approved by the French Senate in June 2025, which would introduce restrictions on advertising and environmental penalties for ultra‑fast fashion. The law has since been elevated to the European Commission as part of its final review process before implementation.
Julia Faure, cofounder of sustainable brand Loom and president of the aforementioned EMC coalition, said cheap production based on low wages and a workforce primarily made up of women supports the business model of cheaply overproducing then dumping clothing.
“If clothes don’t fit or have a small flaw, it’s often more expensive to repair than to buy new,” she said.
The result is a system defined by overproduction. Fashion accounts for close to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while an estimated 30 percent of garments are never sold.
Lewis Akenji, CEO of the Hot or Cool Institute think tank, said addressing the problem will require stronger regulation. “There’s a very traditional, established, institutional camp in the fashion sector that wants very little to change,” he said.
Without coordinated action, companies investing in better practices risk losing their competitive advantage. Meanwhile, technological solutions such as automated sorting for recycling aim to reduce reliance on virgin materials, but require significant investment and building a collaborative ecosystem.