According to Aii, this approach aims to accelerate emission reductions, particularly in regions responsible for the sector’s highest greenhouse gas output.
Aii plans to connect selected facilities with financing designed for capital-intensive and technologically advanced projects. The organisation will also demonstrate a business case for decarbonising apparel production in areas with the most significant emissions, with the objective of replicating successful models across the industry.
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The non-profit made this announcement in its latest 2025 Impact Report, which emphasises that most greenhouse gases in the apparel sector come from manufacturing.
Aii has highlighted the importance of supplier engagement, noting that suppliers are frequently left to manage the costs and risks of decarbonisation independently.
Since 2018, the non-profit has collaborated with more than 1,500 supplier facilities in key production regions, resulting in emissions reductions of more than 1.1 million tonnes of CO2e and facilitating investment totalling nearly $188m.
In 2025, which marked the midpoint of its Roadmap to 2030, Aii shifted focus from expanding existing programmes to reinforcing the systems necessary for measurable and large-scale emission reductions.
Initiatives include the launch of the Carbon and Energy Benchmark, a framework that allows manufacturing sites to measure and compare their performance against both model processes and industry peers.
Aii also introduced the Deployment Gap Grant, which applies a rebate-based structure to encourage suppliers to adopt commercially available but capital-intensive technologies. Electrification grants and other implementation support measures are ongoing, aimed at testing high-cost solutions with the potential for greater emissions reductions.
In addition, Aii intends to focus on directing more investment towards advanced and capital-intensive solutions in order to achieve the emissions reductions required by 2030.
This emphasis aligns with recommendations from the “Roadmap to Net Zero” report, published in 2021 by Aii and the World Resources Institute, which aims to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050.
Aii president and CEO Lewis Perkins commented: “Our work to date has laid the groundwork for these higher impact projects, developing the collaborative ecosystem of brands, suppliers, and financial institutions needed to enable apparel decarbonization.
“We’ve proven that emissions can be reduced inside supplier facilities under real commercial conditions. The next phase is about scaling that work: taking on more capital-intensive, technically complex projects and building the financial pathways to deploy them across the industry.”
