A year of sharpened focus and transformative change at Textile Exchange
Looking back at the impact we achieved in 2024
For Textile Exchange, 2024 was a year of deepening our resolve and doubling down on our priorities to meet the scale of action needed for our 2030 goals. Our latest Annual Report shows how this renewed focus shaped our work in transformative ways, capturing new milestones across standards and assurance, impact measurement, and industry engagement.
About us
Textile Exchange is a global non-profit driving beneficial outcomes for climate and nature across the fashion, textile, and apparel industry. We guide a growing community of brands, manufacturers, and farmers towards more purposeful production from the very start of the supply chain.
Our goal is to help the industry achieve a 45% reduction in the emissions that come from producing fibers and raw materials by 2030. To get there, we are keeping our focus holistic and interconnected, accelerating the adoption of practices that improve the state of our water, soil health, and biodiversity too.
For real change to happen, everyone needs a clear path to beneficial impact. That’s why we believe that approachable, step-by-step instruction paired with collective action can change the system to make preferred materials and fibers an accessible default, mobilizing leaders through attainable strategies, proven solutions, and a driven community.
Mission
Textile Exchange inspires and equips people to accelerate the adoption of preferred materials through clear and actionable guidance. We convene the fashion, textile, and apparel industry to collectively achieve beneficial outcomes for climate and nature across fiber and raw material production.
Vision
We envision an enriching global fashion, textile, and apparel industry that protects people and planet by driving beneficial outcomes for climate, soil health, water, and biodiversity.
Goal
Our organizational impact strategy, which we call Climate+, focuses on guiding the industry towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fiber and raw material production by 45% by 2030. This goal was developed to be in line with the Paris Agreement and to keep global warming to a 1.5°C pathway. But the way we lead the industry is unique, in that it goes beyond just greenhouse gas emissions to ensure a holistic view of impacts as well.
Our year at a glance
sites around the world were certified to our material sustainability standards
attendees, from farmers to brands, participated in our annual conference
members made up our industry community
leading brands and retailers reported into our Materials Benchmark
We’ve been busy driving change through three key pillars of impact
To lean into our vision of system-level transformation, we’ve identified three key strategic priorities, which work to ensure that our community has all the tools and resources needed to drive change at scale – no matter their stage in the journey.
Our standards system
In 2024, Textile Exchange’s standards continued to play a critical role in driving change across global fashion, textile, and apparel supply chains. The year saw continued growth in our existing suite of standards, coupled with the unveiling of the new Materials Matter Standard (previously referred to as the unified standard) in its pilot version.
We also made significant advancements within our assurance and traceability systems, releasing several new policy calibrations, and reaching milestones in the implementation of the Trackit traceability system for our standards. This year’s progress reflects our commitment to continuous improvement within our standards system, unlocking the opportunity for increased traceability and impact measurement.
Impact measurement
In 2024, Textile Exchange deepened its commitment to driving beneficial climate and nature outcomes across the textile industry. Through our tools, reports, and impact data, we worked to equip brands, suppliers, and producers with actionable insights to reduce emissions, regenerate ecosystems, and build more resilient supply chains.
We continued our annual volume reporting through the Materials Market Report and Materials Benchmark, using this data to model the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions from material production. We also advanced progress on seven new Life Cycle Assessment studies in preparation for the release of the first findings in 2025, and launched a Life Cycle Inventory Library to house underlying data from existing LCA studies for easier access and use by the industry.
Updates to our impact tools included the addition of “forestry” as a category to the Material Impact Explorer, and the start of the process to update the Fiber and Materials Matrix content, as well as shifting it into a self-assessment model. We also released two industry-leading reports to address core challenges for our industry: the continued reliance on virgin synthetic fibers, and the ever-increasing extraction of new raw materials to make new products.
Engagement and partnership
Textile Exchange continued to play a pivotal role in connecting brands, retailers, and material producers to build a more collaborative and accountable supply system. Our global member community reached 748 organizations by the end of 2024, with 298 brands and retailers, 291 suppliers and manufacturers, and 251 professional services firms (since members may identify with more than one category, some overlap exists).
Our annual Textile Exchange Conference in Pasadena brought together over 1,800 participants in person and online—creating space for meaningful dialogue across the industry. Beyond the conference, we hosted member-focused events in London and Paris, and convened roundtables and Communities of Practice that enabled in-depth discussions on key materials and system-level topics like regenerative agriculture.
Read our full report
Thank you to our driven global community
It is thanks to the support and action of our driven global community that we were able to reach new heights together in 2024, and we’d like to thank our members for consistently showing up to learn, share experiences, and grow.