Almost a third of the world's farmland is influenced by the fashion industry, new Oxford report finds

The report, produced with DIRT Charity, finds the industry has influence over 30 per cent of global farmland, or 1.45 billion hectares, once leather and wool are counted alongside textile crops. 

Earlier estimates counted only textile crops such as cotton, hemp and flax, which produced a far lower figure. This report estimates the land the industry is in a position to influence, rather than the land for which it is directly responsible.

Professor Sam Fankauser, co-author and Interim Director of the Oxford Smith School, said:

Once leather and wool are counted alongside textile crops, roughly a third of the world's agricultural land is linked to what this industry buys. That is the scale of the opportunity, and our review suggests it is currently underestimated. A brand changing how it sources is changing how land is farmed.

DIRT Charity founder and report co-author Arizona Muse said: 

Brands have spent a decade arguing about which natural fibre is more sustainable, many with little idea about how these fibres are farmed. DIRT Charity sees that fashion– as a sourcing power– has the opportunity to regenerate up to 30% of earth's agricultural land through transitioning to regeneratively farmed biodynamic fibre. Healing the surface of the earth from toxic pollution while clothing humans.

The findings land six days before the EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive takes effect on 27 September, after which generic environmental claims are restricted and sustainability labels shown to EU consumers must rest on a certified scheme verified independently.

The report highlights that the environmental impact of a textile is often decided by how it is produced rather than by which fibre it is, a perspective that some sustainable fashion critics have argued for years. The variation inside a single material can be wider than the gap between two different materials, which means fibre content does not tell a buyer the complete story about its impact. 

• In the case of leather, life cycle assessment studies indicate emissions can run from 8.5 to 151.9 kg CO2e per square metre.
• Two mycelium leathers assessed in the report are twenty times apart on emissions, despite both potentially appearing as ‘mycelium’ on a label. MycoWorks' Reishi comes in as low as 2.76 kg CO2e per square metre, compared with roughly 33 kg CO2e for bovine leather, a 92 per cent reduction. The other is assessed at 57.15 kg CO2e, worse than the leather it replaces, because it is made on a coal-heavy grid. 
• Wood-based fibres show a similar pattern, with one analysis showing emissions for viscose  ranging from 0.20 to 8.30 tonnes of CO2e per tonne, a fortyfold spread driven by production and energy use rather than by the fibre. 

The report concludes that to drive meaningful change, fashion brands and industry stakeholders must expand their role in sustainability to include support for agricultural systems that are ecologically sound and socially just. By transforming how fibres are grown, the fashion industry has the potential to not only reduce its impact but to actively restore ecosystems, support rural livelihoods, and contribute to a more resilient and climate-positive future, say the lead authors Megan Siyi Liu and Clara Cecil.

The report also highlights that sustainable agriculture methods and techniques can reduce the environmental impacts of textile agriculture. For example:

• Organic and biodynamic systems are associated with higher species richness than conventional agriculture across beneficial insects, soil fauna and farmland birds.
• In Egypt, biodynamic insect control cut pesticide use to less than 10 per cent with cotton yields rising by almost 30 per cent. 
• Twelve-year trials in Indian cotton rotations found biodynamic systems improved soil quality and supported microbial communities.
• Biodynamic agriculture demonstrates superior soil health outcomes compared to both organic and conventional systems across multiple long-term studies. 

Muse said: "Every brand has a contract coming up for renewal with a supplier. They have the opportunity to ask how the fibre was farmed, to demand– contractually– that the fibre be sourced from biodynamic or organic farms, and pay for the necessary transition.“

Arizona Muse presents the findings at Eco Age's Convening the Next-Generation Materials Transition Forum at the Fashion Institute of Technology for Climate Week NYC on 22 September.