The report, The Climate and Agricultural Impact of Textile Production, was produced in collaboration with DIRT Charity and co-authored by Arizona Muse.
Its publication comes just ahead of the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, which takes effect on 27 September 2026.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
According to the study, once livestock-derived fibres such as wool and leather are included alongside traditional textile crops like cotton, hemp, and flax, approximately 1.45 billion hectares, about 30% of global agricultural land, can be linked to the fashion industry. Leather accounts for 876 million hectares of the total, wool 528 million and cotton 34.7 million.
Earlier assessments, which focused solely on crops used for textiles, had produced significantly lower figures.
The University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment director and report author Sam Fankhauser 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.”
The report also challenges assumptions about garment sustainability, specifically the notion that a product’s fibre content offers a reliable guide to environmental impact.
The researchers found that production processes and farming methods have a far greater bearing on environmental outcomes, with impacts varying dramatically within the same material category.
For example, the report notes that life-cycle analyses have placed leather’s carbon footprint anywhere between 8.5kg and 152kg of CO₂ equivalent per square metre, depending on how it is produced.
Alternatives to animal-based leather also vary widely. Two types of mycelium “leathers” reviewed had emissions differing by a factor of 20, ranging from as low as 2.76kg CO₂e to as high as 57kg CO₂e per square metre, driven largely by energy sources and manufacturing processes.
Wood-based fibres such as viscose show similar variability, with emissions spanning from 0.2 to 8.3 tonnes of CO₂e per tonne of fibre.
The researchers concluded that fibre content on clothing labels gives consumers “very little” indication of real environmental impact.
The way fashion raw materials are farmed emerged as a significant determinant. Organic and biodynamic agricultural systems were found to support greater biodiversity compared to conventional approaches.
Trials cited in the report show that, in Egypt, biologically-based pest control reduced pesticide use by more than 90% while cotton yields rose, and long-term studies in India demonstrated that biodynamic cotton systems improved soil health.
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.”
DIRT Charity, together with Biodynamic Federation Demeter International, is currently developing the “Demeter Textile Standard.”
This certification will cover all elements of fibre farming, processing, and manufacturing, with requirements addressing soil health, ecological regeneration, animal welfare, and social standards throughout the textile supply chain.
The standard is intended to provide a rigorous foundation for environmental claims on clothing.
The report urges fashion companies to set targets based on farming methods and verified environmental outcomes, rather than fibre type alone, and to invest in the transition to regenerative agricultural practices at all levels of the supply chain.
“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,” Muse said.
