Big Closets Small Planet

A few years ago Professor Jason Hickel was invited to speak during an annual Textile Exchange conference. Why was that invitation noteworthy? Because Jason is an advocate for degrowth in fashion. Fast forward to 2024 and Textile Exchange released the report Reimagining Growth Landscape Analysis. Perhaps Jason's intervention struck a chord? In this conversation, Michael speaks with Beth Jensen from Textile Exchange and Rachel Arthur, the report's lead author, to explore the reasoning behind and the conclusions drawn in the report. In short, the report concludes that the industry's current trajectory is incompatible with achieving key climate, nature, and human rights goals, because impacts will only increase while growth remains a business imperative. Michael, Beth and Rachel explore what an alternative approach could look like, including the challenging concepts and terminology needed to frame the discussion, whether apparel business leaders are or can ever be receptive to this analysis, and what possible pathways they see for moving this agenda forward.

"Focusing on business as usual is not really an option. If we don't address this, we won't meet our sustainability goals or the Paris Agreement."

"Today's CEOs have a fiduciary duty to report growth—that's the reality we're working within. It's why this conversation is both sensitive and necessary."

"Green growth hasn't yet been proven possible — not in the short timeframe we have, and not on a continuous basis."

For more information about this podcast and our guest experts, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

Ken Pucker, former COO at Timberland and now Professor of Practice at Tufts University, sustainable industry analyst, opinion columnist and critic, views himself as a completely independent voice when it comes to issues concerning fashion and sustainability. During last year's Climate Action Week, Michael and Ken discussed a number of topics, including his views regarding the rise and negative impacts of instant fashion and why voluntary sustainability initiatives do not work and thus why we need smart legislation. We invited Ken back to comment on what has happened in the past year regarding instant fashion, including the continuing saga involving Shein's IPO and its newly approved science-based target, the status of the New York and California Fashion Acts, how congestion pricing could be a model climate action in the apparel industry, circular fantasies and myth busting, and whether he thinks his work is having an impact. Ken is always very insightful and thought provoking.

"Shein's emissions are now the biggest in the industry. They've grown 3x in the last three years."

"Congestion pricing worked in New York and London. Why not apply similar thinking to fashion?"

"I recognise that I am in a special place, I am gifted the opportunity to be independent and most people cannot be. So I don't take that responsibility or gift lightly."

For more information about this podcast and our guest experts, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

The idea that the fashion and apparel industry can continue to grow by employing a green-growth model has been questioned by many leading thinkers. It is argued that for the industry to reduce its emissions at the pace and scale required and to operate within the planetary boundaries, overproduction and overconsumption must stop. This is especially challenging because, as critics explain, the dominant economic business model relies on growth, and business growth often neutralizes gains in emission reductions. During Climate Action Week 2024, Katia Dayan Vladimirova, Chief Executive Officer at the Post Growth Fashion Agency, and Luca Boniolo from ECOS, presented their argument on why a sufficiency approach is the best way forward. In this conversation they go a step further explaining the concrete steps that the EU and the industry should take to implement this approach.

"The logic of sufficiency forces us to ask: how much is enough?"

"We propose limiting the number of fashion collections per year and introducing binding targets on production volumes."

For more information about this podcast and our guest experts, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

The Kappahl Group is a signatory in STICA's Company Climate Action Program. That is why we invited Elisabeth Peregi, CEO of the Kappahl Group, for a conversation about how a CEO from a midsized, privately owned apparel brand understands the challenges and opportunities with climate action. Michael and Elisabeth discuss if it's possible to achieve financial growth and reduce emissions simultaneously, if legislation and financial incentives are necessary to enable the Kappahl Group and the industry overall to achieve their climate targets, how long term relationships and authentic engagement are the keys to ensuring success in decarbonization, and even the role of business in society.

"We've decided that the growth we want to achieve must be both profitable and sustainable at the same time."

"Reducing or transforming to renewable energy is good — but it's even better if you reduce the energy needed in the first place."

"The transformation will not be done only on a voluntary basis… we need legislation and supervision to help businesses change."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

During STICA's 2024 Climate Action Week, Maxine Bédat and her colleagues from the NRDC and the New York State Assembly updated us on the arguments for and status of the New York Fashion Act. Since then more has happened. Similar bills have been introduced in California and Massachusetts. In this conversation, Michael asks Maxine to provide an update on the status of the bills, including how they address climate action specifically, if and how the bills align or differ, why she thinks they will be effective, and why there are no major industry organizations and only a few global brands officially supporting these bills.

"This is not counter to industry. This is a pro-industry bill. It sets the basic guardrails so the industry can thrive in the future."

"What doesn't make sense to me is that the industry created these standards—and now they're opposing them when asked to follow through."

"If you're not in favor of this bill and not actively promoting it, that is the position of the industry today. That's a shocking and sad state of affairs."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

According to a recent report by the European Environment Agency, the greenhouse gas emissions from textile consumption in the EU was 355kg CO2e per person (based on 2022 data). So how does the EU Commission, which is responsible for developing and implementing the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, think about climate action and textiles? Michael invited Matjaž Malgaj, the Coordinator of the cross-Directorate General team (DG ENV, DG GROW, and DG ENER) that works on making sustainable products the norm in the EU, and Head of Unit for Sustainable Products in DG ENV, to weigh in. Michael asked Matjaž about the EU Commission's view on climate action in the context of apparel and textiles, whether the commission wants the industry to align itself with science-based targets and whether the EU apparel industry and its citizens should reduce its emissions inline with the 1.5C pathway. Michael and Matjaž discuss whether the current and coming legislation will enable decarbonisation at the pace and scale science says is required, which particular pieces of legislation will be most effective and how the Commission thinks about addressing the fact that a significant amount of the industry's emissions are created in countries outside of the EU. Michael pushed the conversation even further by asking Matjaž to weigh in on the tension between economic growth and competitiveness and environmental targets, ultra-fast fashion and overconsumption, financial rewards and penalties and what the EU can and cannot do. If you want to know how the EU Commission currently thinks about climate action in the context of the apparel industry, then you should definitely listen to this!

"Everything we do should be seen in the context of becoming a decarbonised net society by 2050."

"Just the regulations on their own will not do everything… we know there is an issue of overconsumption."

"We heard time and time again that we should be ambitious, but we also have to be sure that we're designing something that can actually be rolled out in real life."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

During the past few years, a number of NGO campaign organizations, sometimes referred to as watchdogs, have set their sights on accelerating climate action in the apparel industry. Michael sat down Ruth MacGilp from Action Speaks Louder and Liv Simpliciano from Fashion Revolution to discuss what they want brands and other stakeholders to be doing, their complementary methods for getting them to do it, and how they assess progress to date. Their conversation explored topics such as the importance of data and transparency to support informed action, new reporting demands that ask brands to disclose how much they are investing in climate action in their supply chains, what pressure can and is achieving, and when legislation is needed.

"We need brands to push for a fully renewable supply chain by 2040 to help accelerate clean energy adoption in key manufacturing hubs."

"There's a huge amount of low-hanging fruit that brands are not yet doing—some of it is even cost-saving."

"Greater transparency enables public scrutiny and accountability, which can drive the systemic change we're ultimately campaigning for."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

Hakan Karaosman, whose mother was a garment worker, is a Professor in supply chain management from Cardiff University. Six years ago, Hakan and his colleagues asked "Where are the workers' voices in the discussions and decisions about climate strategies?" At that time no one was looking into fairness, inclusion, and justice in the context of climate action. Since then his research has uncovered inconvenient truths and best practices. In this conversation Michael and Hakan explore what is a "Just Transition" both theoretically and in practice. Hakan presents conclusions from his research, including his and his colleague's work on what they call the transition archetypes, while arguing that technological and efficiency paradigms will not solve the problem. Hakan also suggests alternative approaches.

"Just transition is not happening. Strategies are still top-down. We're trying to shoehorn social justice into systems designed for profit."

"Decarbonisation is framed around technology and efficiency. But what we need is democracy, inclusion, and behavioural change."

"Unless we talk with people from the beginning, we will keep creating policies that harm the very communities we claim to protect."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

Nandita Shivakumar is a labor organizer and campaigner whose work has focused on gender justice, sustainability, and migrant rights in global fashion supply chains. She also represents the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), a 12,000 worker strong, Dalit women-led trade union, working to ensure dignity, safety and decent work for textile workers. In this conversation Nandita describes how she is witnessing first hand the impacts of global warming and specifically increasing heat stress on garment workers. As she describes it, increasing heat and temperatures are having significant impacts on workers' health, particularly health problems for female workers, and is putting their lives at risk now. Michael and Nandita discuss the problem, the lack of accountability, the solutions, and the need to act now.

"Fashion's climate crisis is not a future risk for us. Our workers are living through it now - factories hitting 40°C, no ventilation, no water, no rest."

"We're already hearing of fainting, dehydration, heat rashes, and haemorrhoids among workers - but they can't afford medical care."

"The greatest responsibility must fall on those with the most power and profit - and that's the brands and governments."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/

The Laudes Foundation is one of the few philanthropic organizations that funds sustainability initiatives that specifically impact the apparel industry. The Foundation is also actively promoting the need for a Just Transition. That is why Michael Schragger invited Amol Mehra, human rights lawyer and Director of Industry Programmes at the Laudes Foundation, to explain the Foundation's definition, vision and strategy for enabling a Just Transition in the apparel industry. Michael and Amol discuss the problems with brand driven climate action and why suppliers and workers need to be in the center of the climate transition, why Amol thinks that global warming poses serious business risks for the industry and how embedding sustainability into the core of business is the only way to survive and thrive as a company, and what specific initiatives that Laudes is supporting, such as the Just Transition Center soon to be launched in Bangladesh during 2025.

"If you're doing decarbonisation right, there can be beneficial outcomes for workers and communities — but they need to be at the center of the process."

"The success or failure of a fashion transformation doesn't start with brands. The missing middle of the supply chain is where most of the action will live or die."

For more information about this podcast and our guest expert, or to listen to other Climate Action Week 2025 podcast conversations, please visit: https://sustainablefashionacademy.org/stica/climate-action-week-2025/