The FOSSIL FUEL FASHION Campaign convened MEPs, NGOs, academics, and industry opinion leaders in a roundtable hosted by Saskia Bricmont MEP  at the European Parliament.  Speakers included Brussels Secretary of State, Barbara Trachte, Rapporteur for Ecodesign (ESPR),  Alessandra Moretti MEP, Ghana representative and The Revival founder Yayra Agbofah, and Kenya representative and Clean Up Kenya Founder Betterman Simidi.

The discussion, under Chatham House rule, focused on the EU’s leading role in legislating the fashion industry toward a fair phase out of fossil fuels. Participants also discussed how the Global South currently bears the weight of exploitative fashion practices and the implications of this for a just transition to net zero. Social justice ultimately must  be a core factor determining a pathway to fossil-fuel-free fashion.

The pervasive theme was one of social justice and a fair transition, and how in combination with cheap synthetic materials this creates the formula for fast fashion and exploitation.

Key insights included:

•Fashion should be used as a lens to inspire action – climate is viewed as a negative threat, whereas fashion is uplifting and should be used for positive progress

•Fossil fuel production impacts developing countries and textile production hubs multiple times: we extract raw materials, including fossil fuels; we burn them, creating emissions and pollution; products and profits are hoarded by the Global North; pollution and waste are dumped back on vulnerable communities, which are often some of the least prepared for the climate crisis. Policy is failing to recognise this dynamic.

•Working in extreme conditions, such as heat-stress, workers are already robbed of wages (wage theft remains endemic in fashion production) and have little financial resilience. Fashion is a people-centered industry and around 80% of workers are women. The current system represents abuse after abuse heaped on those who shoulder most of the burden – and none of the reward – of a highly profitable industry.

•A major obstacle to fair decarbonisation is social inequality given fashion is a people-centred industry involving 70 million workers, 80% of whom are women. 

•We must ensure social justice is at the core of a just transition, where the workers’ voices are listened to and represented.

•The impact on workers has not been properly analysed and there is a clear and present danger that the industry will take the wrong course of action, focusing on self-interest for the few.

•There is a lack of joined up thinking from a policy perspective, and many are working at cross purposes. We need to unifying call of a fair phase out of fossil fuels in order to focus efforts in the right places.

•Production is demand driven and targets need to be put on production volumes. Products don’t fail materially, but because people loose interest in them. None of the current legislation / regulation addresses plastification and overproduction. How long things are used is not about durability but about consumption

•Alessandra Moretti specifically highlighted the fallacy of recycling plastic bottles into clothing – as the ecodesign rapporteur, this is a significant announcement and alignment with campaigners’ asks.