Textile Exchange just co-signed Changing Markets Foundation’s sobering survey results: in spite of the sector’s sustainability efforts, the fashion industry is in the throes of “ plastic paralysis .”
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Global fiber production reached a record-setting high of 124 million metric tons last year, the climate initiative’s Materials Market Report uncovered. If this “ business as usual ” continues, Textile Exchange expects that production will hit 160 million metric tons by 2030—a clear conflict of interest with the 1.5-degree Celsius pathway promise .
The 11th edition of the sustainability trade group’s publication, which annually shares a snapshot of global raw material production, found that the market share of virgin, fossil-based synthetics jumped about 12 percent year over year—from 67 million metric tons in 2022 to 75 million metric tons in 2023—while that of cotton and recycled fibers dropped.
“We hope that this data, and the concerning-yet-clear trends it highlights, can act as a call to action for the industry, clearly outlining what is working and where it must now focus efforts to accelerate progress toward climate goals,” Claire Bergkamp , CEO at Textile Exchange, said in a statement.
To no one’s surprise, polyester accounted for 57 percent of total fiber production last year.
A bit more curiously, recycled polyester fiber production increased slightly in 2023 while the overall market share of recycled polyester dropped from 13.6 percent to 12.5 percent.
While systems for polyester textile-to-textile recycling are in development , Textile Exchange said they’re only estimated to account for about 2 percent of all recycled polyester. Interest in (and use of) ocean-bound plastic is growing, but makes up less than 0.01 percent of all recycled polyester; 98 percent is bottle-based .
Also hovering at 0.01 percent is the market share of biobased polyester , influenced by issues around price, availability and questions about the sustainability of the currently available options.
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For polyamide , synthetic’s second worst offender, recycled nylon fibers represented a mere 2 percent of the total market share. Not unlike the barriers that biobased polyester bears, biobased polyamide fiber’s market share in 2023 remained low at about 0.5 percent of the global market.
The combined share of all recycled fibers slightly shrunk (from around 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent)—a likely consequence of the lower prices that fossil-based production offers, the global nonprofit said. Meanwhile, less than 1 percent of the worldwide fiber market came from pre- and post-consumer recycled textiles .
While the report highlights how fashion’s continued synthetics addiction threatens to undermine the sector’s collective sustainability efforts over the last decade, the limitations of textile-to- textile recycling are also underlined.
“Unlocking pathways to textile-to-textile recycling will be key to help progress divestment from virgin synthetics,” Bergkamp said. “We also need to urgently find ways to rethink growth and value creation to decrease reliance on the continued production of new virgin materials.”
Amid these concerns, one positive trend did emerge: an amplified appetite for responsibly sourced animal fibers.
“[P]rograms like the Responsible Mohair Standard ( RMS ) and Responsible Alpaca Standard ( RAS ) both contribute to better animal welfare and environmental management,” Textile Exchange said. “This indicates the potential of farm-level standards of this kind to increase market recognition of more sustainable practices on the ground.”
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