Legislative Updates for Fashion Sustainability

California isn’t waiting for fashion brands to self-regulate. Hot on the heels of SB 707, CA just introduced AB 405, the Fashion Environmental Accountability Act of 2025, setting a new bar for holding brands accountable for their environmental impact. This bill mirrors New York’s Fashion Act, creating a coast-to-coast push to regulate emissions and chemical use in fashion supply chains. If passed, brands making $100M+ in revenue and selling in California will need to: ✅ Set science-based emissions reduction targets ✅ Manage toxic chemicals across their supply chain ✅ Prove compliance—or face penalties of up to 2% of global revenue With SB 707 already signed into law, California is making one thing clear: they mean business. What this means for brands: ✔️ You can’t just report impact; you need to reduce it. ✔️ Sustainability regulations aren’t coming—they’re here. ✔️ With CA and NY leading the charge, expect this to become the industry standard. The smartest brands aren’t waiting to react—they’re investing in circularity, branded resale, and smarter supply chain strategies now.

SYSTEMIC CHANGE -- Apparel and footwear are significant contributors to our climate crisis. The industry is responsible for between 4 and 8.6% of the world’s global greenhouse gas footprint –– 6x more than New York, and more than France, Germany and the United Kingdom combined. Left unchecked, the industry will be responsible for more than a quarter of the world’s global carbon budget by 2050. And perhaps most important of all -- there are currently no legally binding environmental standards for the industry. h/t Alec Leach for capturing this moment, and this critical systems level opportunity most eloquently: • The Fashion Act is an ambitious piece of legislation that’s being proposed in the New York State Assembly. The bill would regulate fashion so that sustainability, transparency and fair working conditions are a requirement for any major brand wanting to sell in the state of New York (aka all of them). • The Act would apply to any apparel and footwear brand with more than $100m in global revenue, and it would be enforced by the state’s Attorney General. • The bill was conceived by Maxine Bédat, one of the smartest and most driven people in the industry — she’s written a book about sustainability and appeared in the BOF 500, and she’s got a background in law. • The Act is thorough, wide-ranging and ambitious. Brands would be required to trace their entire supply chains, all the way back to the raw material. They’d have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, but in absolute terms — so no “emissions intensity” bullshit, no dodgy offsetting schemes and no ignoring Scope 3 emissions. Chemicals would be managed in line with the ZDHC’s most up-to-date Wastewater Guidelines. • Companies would be responsible for human rights abuses in the supply chain, and workers would have a legal mechanism for recovering any lost or stolen wages. "This is a really, really big deal. Any major player wanting to access the highly lucrative New York market would be required by law to be responsible for their supply chains, and anyone on the wrong side of the regulations would find themselves facing the state’s top lawyer — the Attorney General could fine a company up to 2% of their global revenue. This is what systemic change looks like!"

On behalf of the CFDA, we are proud to present Recent and Proposed Legislation Impacting the Textile and Fashion Industries, a policy brief prepared in partnership with Second Floor Advisors. This paper details three prominent pieces of legislation, two federal and one state, which could significantly impact United States fashion industry operations. This paper also briefly recaps recently passed state legislation, the California responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 and the California Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act of 2023 targeting fashion sustainability practices. At the federal level, the Fashion Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change (FABRIC) Act is aimed at improving working conditions in the garment industry and incentively domestic manufacturing. The Americas Act incentives domestic as well as regional manufacturing across industries and establishes a multi-billion-dollar loan and grant program for the textile sector. The New York Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability (FASHION) Act seeks to increase transparency and promote sustainability across the fashion industry. Each of these legislative measures would impart costs and regulations on the fashion industry. https://lnkd.in/eV52wmCv