Table of Contents

1. Key Highlights:
2. Introduction
3. How the researchers measured “influence” rather than assigning blame
4. Leather and wool: the allocation dilemma that drives the headline
5. Cotton, linen, hemp and silk: smaller footprints, complex realities
6. Why counting full agricultural footprints matters to brands and supply chains
7. Life cycle assessments show production methods matter more than material choice
8. Organic, regenerative and biodynamic agriculture: evidence, limits and potential
9. The Demeter Textile Standard and industry initiatives: attempting to operationalize change
10. Policy and market drivers: regulatory timelines and consumer-facing implications
11. Data gaps, methodological uncertainties and the path to stronger evidence
12. What brands, financiers and policymakers can realistically do next
13. Consumer-facing choices and realistic expectations
14. Examples of place-based interventions already underway
15. Balancing social and environmental trade-offs
16. The research’s practical limitations and why the headline still matters
17. What robust follow-up looks like
18. FAQ

Key Highlights:

• New research estimates natural-fiber supply chains give fashion and textile companies potential influence over about 1.45 billion hectares — roughly 30% of global agricultural land — by counting the full agricultural footprint tied to each fiber.
• Leather and wool dominate that footprint, together representing nearly 97% of the total; the study highlights major allocation and methodological challenges and stresses that production practices drive environmental outcomes more than simple material choices.

Introduction

The clothes on shop racks and the leather in handbags do more than define trends. They are the end point of extensive agricultural systems that shape landscapes, water use, biodiversity and rural livelihoods. A new report from the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, produced with Dirt Charity, reframes the conversation by measuring the territory over which fashion and textile companies could exert influence through sourcing choices. The result is striking: five categories of natural fibers—leather, wool, cotton, linen/hemp and silk—connect to approximately 1.45 billion hectares, or about 30.15 percent, of the world’s agricultural land.

That headline figure does not mean fashion consumes one-third of farmland. It means textile supply chains are embedded in and linked to roughly one-third of global agricultural territory—often shared with food production, animal protein systems and other industries. The distinction is the research’s central contribution. By counting full agricultural footprints rather than allocating land only to textile outputs, the report shifts attention to where brands have leverage: over farming practices, pesticide use, soil health and the design of traceability and certification systems.

The analysis raises practical and ethical questions. Which actors are responsible for environmental impacts when a single field yields both fiber and food? How should land be allocated between co-products such as hides, meat and dairy? What do widely varying life-cycle assessments imply for material choices? And crucially, can brands use their purchasing power to alter how land is farmed at scale?

This article unpacks the report’s methods and findings, examines the practical implications for brands, farmers and policymakers, and lays out the evidence on alternative agricultural models—organic, regenerative and biodynamic—that the study reviews. It also explores where the research leaves open questions and what credible next steps look like for the textile sector.

How the researchers measured “influence” rather than assigning blame

The report introduces a deliberate conceptual shift. Traditional analyses of land use often allocate acreage among competing outputs—apportioning a fraction of a pasture to hides versus meat, or partitioning a cotton field between lint and seed products. The Oxford–Dirt methodology instead counts the full agricultural footprint associated with a fiber category. That footprint includes all land used to produce the crop or raise the animal, even when the same land simultaneously produces food, oilseed, feed or other commodities.

Why this approach? The authors frame it as a measure of power rather than culpability. Brands that purchase fiber do not wield direct control over how much land is devoted to a crop, but they can shape farming practices through sourcing requirements, premiums for better management, contractual relationships and long-term partnerships. Counting the entirety of land that supports fiber production approximates the geographic domain where those purchasing levers could be applied.

An example clarifies the logic. Seed cotton harvested from a field yields lint (the fiber used in textiles) and seeds (used for oil and animal feed). Farmers do not manage the field separately for lint and seed; pesticide regimes, irrigation and crop rotations affect the whole crop. If a brand demands lower pesticide inputs or higher soil-health standards, those demands affect the entire acreage. Therefore, counting only the portion of land allocated to lint would understate the potential reach of fashion’s sourcing power.

The methodology has advantages and trade-offs. It produces an upper-bound estimate of the acreage linked to textile value chains, offering a clear indicator of where brands could influence farm-level practices. It also reveals how concentrated that potential influence is: leather and wool dominate under the full-footprint approach because grazing systems occupy vast areas, even when much of that land serves multiple uses.

The authors carefully note that the report does not measure blame. Instead, it provides an inventory of where the sector’s procurement choices intersect with agricultural territory, intending to catalyze strategic action on soil health, biodiversity and emissions in those places.

Leather and wool: the allocation dilemma that drives the headline

Leather and wool account for most of the headline figure. The report links leather production to roughly 876 million hectares of grazing land and wool to about 528.4 million hectares. Combined, these two categories represent almost 97 percent of the total 1.45 billion hectares estimate.

The dominance of grazing land underlines an uncomfortable reality: livestock systems are inherently multifunctional. Pastures and rangelands generate meat, milk, hides and wool. Disentangling which portion of land use and environmental impact belongs to hides versus meat or to wool versus meat is not straightforward. The leather industry itself has not reached consensus on whether hides should be treated as by-products of meat production or as co-products with independent allocation of environmental burdens.

This allocation question is more than theoretical. It matters for carbon accounting, biodiversity metrics and how responsibility is distributed among industries. If leather is treated primarily as a by-product of meat, the leather industry would plausibly carry a smaller share of the emissions and land-use burdens attributed to livestock systems. If hides are treated as co-products, leather buyers and brands would bear a greater share of the responsibility and therefore greater leverage — and obligation — to push for better animal welfare and land-management practices.

The report does not distribute grazing land between meat and hides. Doing so would require a series of contested, context-sensitive assumptions about economic value, mass allocation, market dynamics and cultural practices. Instead, the authors keep the full acreage linked to hides and wool in the inventory as an indicator of the scale of influence accessible to textile buyers, leaving allocation debates for sector-specific policy and standard-setting processes.

A further wrinkle concerns sheep. FAO data do not clearly differentiate whether sheep are counted for leather and wool simultaneously. The researchers assumed the figures represent different animals, citing common industry practice where sheep raised for wool are often of different breeds than those raised primarily for leather or meat. The assumption reduces the risk of double-counting but does not eliminate uncertainty.

Practical implication: for brands that buy leather or wool, engagement with livestock systems is unavoidable. Sourcing policies that only address the finished material without grappling with integrated pastoral landscapes will be insufficient. Brands must either accept the sectoral complexity and engage with co-products or advocate for clearer, globally consistent allocation rules that drive investment and standards in grazing areas.

Cotton, linen, hemp and silk: smaller footprints, complex realities

Compared with grazing, cultivated fiber crops occupy a relatively modest share of agricultural land under the report’s methodology. The figures: cotton accounts for approximately 34.7 million hectares, linen and hemp together about 5.9 million hectares, and silk about 2.3 million hectares.

That said, the environmental stakes tied to cultivated fibers are concentrated and substantial. Cotton, though occupying only a few tens of millions of hectares, has historically been associated with high pesticide and water use in certain producing regions. The report’s methodology again counts full acreage linked to the crop, not just the textileable lint. Seed cotton yields both lint and seeds; lint represents roughly 40 percent of harvested seed cotton, while the remainder goes primarily to oil and animal feed. Farmers do not split management between seed and lint, hence cotton’s full agricultural footprint can be influenced via textile procurement.

Linen and hemp occupy far less land globally but are gaining attention for potential regenerative fits into crop rotations, lower chemical inputs in certain systems, and multi-purpose uses — fibers, seeds and biomass. Silk’s 2.3 million hectares reflect the relatively limited geographic footprint of sericulture, but environmental and labor considerations (water use, mulberry cultivation, and the labor-intensive nature of processing) remain significant in producer countries.

The cultivated-fiber sections of the report reiterate a central message: land area alone is insufficient to gauge environmental or social risk. A relatively small cropped area can be associated with high chemical intensity, water scarcity impacts, or concentrated biodiversity loss. Conversely, larger grazing footprints may be associated with low-intensity pastoralism that sustains ecosystems and livelihoods in ways poorly captured by simple acreage metrics.

Real-world examples illuminate these trade-offs. The Sekem initiative in Egypt, discussed in the report, replaced conventional cotton production with biodynamic practices across experimental plots. Over five years, pesticide use fell to less than 10 percent of previous levels while yields increased by nearly 30 percent and soil salinity dropped by 18 percent. The result demonstrates how management changes—even on modest parcels—can generate outsized environmental and yield benefits. Yet scaling such systems requires finance, technical support and credible certification pathways.

Why counting full agricultural footprints matters to brands and supply chains

Retailers and fashion brands often frame sustainability commitments around materials, recyclability and greenhouse gas reductions. The report suggests that sourcing strategies must also extend to the geography of agricultural influence. Counting full agricultural footprints does three things for corporate strategy:

• It identifies where purchasing power can be applied at the farm level. If a brand sources leather tanned from hides produced in regions with particular pasture-management challenges, that brand holds leverage to demand better traceability, engage with ranchers, and invest in landscape-level solutions.
• It reveals concentrations of influence that can justify collective action. If many brands source cotton from a single producing region, joint initiatives—such as pooled finance for soil-health programs or region-wide regenerative programs—become feasible and efficient.
• It reframes impact metrics. Measuring acres touched by a supply chain offers a different lens than tons of CO2e or liters of water. Acreage metrics can drive place-based strategies—investing in soil regeneration, biodiversity corridors and rural livelihoods—rather than generic, portfolio-level interventions.

The authors emphasize that fashion’s influence operates through procurement. Brands do not directly farm land, but sourcing requirements, contract lengths, premium payments for certified products and support to farmer cooperatives can shift on-the-ground practices. For cotton, a brand’s requirement for lower pesticide regimes, more robust soil-health practices, or procurement from producers certified under recognized standards affects field-level decisions that govern the whole crop—lint and seed alike.

The report frames brands’ public profiles as an asset. Fashion companies have consumer-facing influence and communication channels that can mobilize demand for better practices, support farmer transitions via premiums and offtake guarantees, and collaborate with governments and NGOs to scale interventions on the ground.

Life cycle assessments show production methods matter more than material choice

One of the report’s most consequential findings concerns variability in environmental performance within a single fiber category. Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) included in the review show striking ranges:

• Leather’s global warming potential spans from about 8.5 to 151.9 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per square meter, depending on production system, energy mix and allocation rules.
• A mycelium-based leather alternative registered roughly 2.76 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per square meter in one study, while a bio-based alternative produced using a coal-heavy electricity grid reached 57.15 kilograms per square meter.
• Viscose estimates vary from 0.20 to 8.30 metric tons CO2 equivalent per metric ton of fiber, reflecting differences in feedstock, manufacturing processes and energy supplies.

These ranges underscore that “what” a material is matters less than “how” it is produced. A given material’s environmental profile can swing dramatically with changes in energy sources, chemical inputs, processing technologies and land-management practices. Comparing two fibers without accounting for their production contexts is therefore misleading.

This observation has practical consequences for corporate decision-making. Material swaps—switching from leather to an alternative, or from conventional cotton to a plant-based fiber—are not guaranteed sustainability wins unless the alternative’s production system is well-understood and measured. A brand that replaces leather with a bio-based substitute manufactured in a fossil-fuel–heavy grid could inadvertently increase emissions.

Consequently, the report recommends more granular, region- and process-specific LCAs, standardized methodologies and transparent reporting frameworks. Brands should prioritize traceability that captures upstream production conditions, energy sources and chemical management, not merely the nominal fiber type.

Real-world implications: a leather supply chain that sources hides associated with deforested pasture and high-emission tanning practices will have a markedly worse footprint than a leather chain embedded in well-managed grazing systems and powered by low-carbon energy. Similarly, viscose manufactured in a facility using renewable energy and closed-loop chemistry can out-perform a cotton supply chain reliant on high inputs and water-stressed irrigation.

Organic, regenerative and biodynamic agriculture: evidence, limits and potential

The report devotes significant attention to alternatives to conventional agriculture—organic, regenerative and biodynamic systems. Across multiple studies, these systems demonstrate potential environmental benefits, but evidence has limits and is context-dependent.

Organic agriculture Studies in the review indicate that organic systems can increase species richness and improve certain soil-health metrics compared with conventional systems. Reduced synthetic pesticide use improves in-field biodiversity and reduces chemical runoff risks. However, organic yields can be lower for some crops and in some regions, raising questions about land-use trade-offs if conversion reduces output without compensatory changes in consumption or productivity gains through agroecological practices.

Regenerative agriculture The term “regenerative” encompasses a variety of practices such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, diversified rotations and managed grazing designed to restore soil health and increase carbon sequestration. Evidence points to improved soil structure, enhanced microbial communities and potential increases in resilience to drought. The report finds promising case studies but stresses that “regenerative” remains a loosely defined category with variable monitoring and verification.

Biodynamic agriculture Biodynamics adds a suite of preparations and calendar-guided management practices to organic principles. The report finds evidence that biodynamic systems can support greater species richness and soil-health improvements, but characterizes the scientific evidence specific to the unique biodynamic preparations as “tentative and incomplete.” The report calls for more rigorous experimental work isolating the causal effects of biodynamic preparations versus broader organic or regenerative practices.

Field trials and examples The Sekem initiative in Egypt provides a compelling empirical example. Over five years, biodynamic management on cotton plots yielded multiple benefits: pesticide use fell dramatically to under 10 percent of prior levels, cotton yields rose by nearly 30 percent, and soil salinity decreased by 18 percent. Similarly, 12-year cotton-rotation trials in India showed healthier soils and stronger microbial communities under biodynamic management.

These results suggest that carefully designed transitions to alternative farming systems can deliver both environmental gains and yield stability or improvement. Yet scaling remains a challenge: long-term experiments are costly, data are often fragmented across geographies, and certification systems for certain practices (notably biodynamics) are less standardized and more resource-intensive than more established labels.

Financial and operational barriers Transitioning to organic, regenerative or biodynamic systems involves financial and technical costs. Certification carries fees and bureaucratic requirements; farmers may face transitional yield dips; supply-chain logistics must be adapted for traceability and segregation; and buyers must be willing to provide price premiums or offtake guarantees during multi-year transitions.

The report therefore calls for standardized methodologies for measuring outcomes, longer-term studies to capture system dynamics, and more research into commercial viability, certification costs and land-use trade-offs. It also highlights the need for mechanisms that channel finance and technical support to producers during transitions, especially in low-income producing regions.

The Demeter Textile Standard and industry initiatives: attempting to operationalize change

Dirt Charity is developing a Demeter Textile Standard with Biodynamic Federation Demeter International to extend biodynamic principles across textile supply chains. The proposed standard covers 11 raw-material categories and stretches from agricultural production through processing and manufacturing. It proposes requirements for soil health, biodiversity, animal welfare, working conditions and the compostability of finished garments.

The standard aims to translate biodynamic principles into verifiable criteria for textile value chains. If widely adopted and credibly audited, such a standard could provide a clear market signal and a pathway for brands that want to source fibers with a stronger emphasis on regenerative outcomes and social safeguards.

Other initiatives already attempt to engage fibers at scale. The report references protocols like the Cotton Trust Protocol, which pilots farm-level data checks and traceability mechanisms. Multi-stakeholder programs—certification bodies, industry coalitions and government initiatives—are experimenting with blended finance models, farmer-support programs and technical assistance to scale sustainable practices.

What these initiatives share is a recognition that supplier finance, robust monitoring, and clear chain-of-custody mechanisms are required to turn sourcing commitments into measurable changes on the ground. The Demeter Textile Standard, if it gains market acceptance, could complement existing frameworks by focusing on biodynamic practices and broader lifecycle criteria.

Policy and market drivers: regulatory timelines and consumer-facing implications

The report’s publication coincides with regulatory shifts that elevate the stakes for accurate environmental claims. It arrived shortly before European Union member states were required to begin implementing the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive on September 27. That directive seeks to curb misleading environmental claims, strengthen product information and empower consumers to make more sustainable choices.

For apparel and textiles, stricter rules on green claims, mandatory disclosures and product-level requirements will increase brand accountability. Accurate, verifiable sourcing claims will be more important than ever. Brands that cannot substantiate sustainability assertions risk regulatory penalties and reputational damage.

Market forces complement regulatory pressure. Increasingly, retailers and consumers demand traceability on raw materials and clarity about environmental footprints. Large buyers have responded with ambitious commitments—net-zero targets, deforestation-free sourcing policies, and investments in regenerative agriculture pilots. The Oxford–Dirt report adds a spatial dimension to these efforts by identifying the agricultural territories where such policies could have the greatest reach.

Data gaps, methodological uncertainties and the path to stronger evidence

The report is candid about limitations and uncertainties. Several methodological assumptions underpin headline numbers and should guide cautious interpretation:

• Wool acreage per tonne: The wool calculation assumes that producing one metric ton requires 250 hectares, based on an estimate from the animal-advocacy group Circumfauna. The authors note this was the only suitable figure they identified, highlighting the need for better global data on grazing productivity and regional variation.
• Overlaps in FAO data: FAO datasets do not always clearly distinguish animals counted for different product categories (e.g., sheep for wool versus sheep for leather), creating potential for double-counting or ambiguous allocation. The researchers made reasonable assumptions—counting different breeds separately where typical—but stress uncertainty remains.
• Heterogeneous LCA sources: Life-cycle figures reported in the review derive from multiple studies with different geographies, technologies, system boundaries and methodologies. The authors avoid claiming standardized comparisons and recommend harmonized LCA approaches to enable apples-to-apples assessments.
• Allocation choices: Deciding how to allocate land and environmental burdens among co-products (meat, milk, hides, wool) is innately value-laden and context-specific. The report intentionally avoided allocating grazing land to avoid embedding contested assumptions, but allocation choices will matter for policy and corporate accounting.

To address these gaps, the report calls for longer-term, standardized field trials, harmonized LCA protocols for fibers, improved farm-level data collection (including geospatial mapping of production practices), and more research into certification costs and commercial viability of alternative farming systems.

What brands, financiers and policymakers can realistically do next

The report moves from assessment to action by identifying practical levers available to different actors. The pathways are not easy, but they are concrete.

For brands:

• Translate acreage exposure into place-based engagement plans. Identify producing regions where procurement is concentrated and prioritize investment in soil-health and biodiversity programs there.
• Require robust traceability. Move beyond supplier declarations to farm-level data, third-party verification and geolocation tagging that ties purchased volumes to specific plots or ranches.
• Combine purchasing power with farmer support. Use offtake contracts, premiums and technical assistance to help producers adopt low-chemical, soil-restorative practices during transition periods.
• Avoid simplistic material swaps. Conduct region- and process-specific LCAs before substituting materials; prioritize improvements inside existing supply chains where possible.

For financiers and investors:

• Develop blended finance instruments that fund multi-year transitions for producers, recognizing that benefits (soil restoration, yield resilience) accrue over extended time horizons.
• Integrate land-use exposure into risk assessments for portfolios and credit decisions, particularly for suppliers whose raw-material footprints concentrate in environmentally sensitive regions.

For policymakers:

• Clarify allocation frameworks for livestock co-products and encourage transparent accounting standards that reconcile sectoral responsibilities.
• Support public funding for long-term field trials and data infrastructure that can underpin credible certification and verification systems.
• Set clear rules for environmental claims, supporting initiatives like the EU directive to prevent greenwashing and create a level playing field.

Collective action mechanisms—multi-brand roundtables, landscape finance, producer cooperatives and public-private partnerships—are likely to yield the largest returns because they reduce transaction costs, provide stable demand signals to producers and allow co-financing of technical assistance.

Consumer-facing choices and realistic expectations

Consumers often ask whether they should avoid certain materials altogether. The report cautions against blanket prescriptions. Environmental performance depends on production conditions and end-of-life pathways as much as raw-material identity.

Choosing better-made garments, supporting brands that disclose sourcing and invest in traceability, repairing and lengthening the life of garments, and favoring circular business models (resale, rental, repair programs) can all reduce the cumulative pressure on agricultural land and resources. But major systemic shifts will require upstream changes—payment for ecosystem services, farmer supports, and standards that incentivize low-impact production at scale.

Consumers can also use their influence indirectly by supporting policies and brands that commit to credible sourcing practices, transparency, and investment in farmer transitions.

Examples of place-based interventions already underway

Several real-world programs illustrate how acreage-informed approaches translate into action:

• Regenerative cotton pilots in producing countries have combined farmer training, cover-cropping, and low-chemical pest management with guaranteed offtake contracts. Some projects report improved soil health, reduced input costs, and resilience to drought. Scaling these pilots requires capital and buyer commitments.
• Leather roundtables and multi-stakeholder initiatives attempt to trace hides to abattoirs and ranches, implement animal-welfare standards, and invest in pasture restoration. Legal and practical barriers remain, including fragmented supply chains and variable recordkeeping at slaughterhouses.
• Traceability pilots for viscose and other cellulosic fibers integrate geolocation of feedstock supply, mill-level audits, and supplier capacity building to reduce deforestation and chemical discharges.

These initiatives show that progress is possible but uneven. They also demonstrate that buyers with large procurement footprints can drive change when they coordinate, commit to long-term contracts, and fund the farmer-level transformation process.

Balancing social and environmental trade-offs

Transforming agricultural practices affects livelihoods. Any credible sustainability pathway must consider worker welfare, smallholder incomes, gender dynamics, and market access.

Certification costs and administrative burdens can exclude smaller producers if buyers and certifiers do not build inclusive models. For example, biodynamic certification or Demeter Textile Standard requirements may impose fees and documentation requirements that smallholders cannot bear without support. Effective scaling therefore requires financial and technical assistance targeted at smallholders, simplified group certification approaches, and market structures that channel premium payments equitably.

Additionally, yield impacts during transition periods must be managed. Where alternative practices reduce yields temporarily, buyer-backed price support or blended finance can prevent income shocks that would otherwise drive producers back to conventional methods.

The research’s practical limitations and why the headline still matters

Critics might point to the uncertainties and methodological assumptions underpinning the 30-percent headline. The authors acknowledge those concerns. They describe the report as a preliminary framework meant to catalyze further inquiry rather than a final, definitive accounting. Small changes in assumptions—how wool acreage is calculated, how sheep are counted in FAO databases, or how grazing land is allocated between co-products—would alter the precise percentage.

Yet the scale of the estimate, not its second decimal point, is the salient takeaway. Whether the correct figure is 25 percent or 35 percent, the underlying fact is the same: large swaths of global agricultural land are connected to natural-fiber supply chains. Those connections offer a strategic entry point for brands to shape farming practices, support biodiversity, and reduce pollution—if they choose to use their leverage coherently.

What robust follow-up looks like

To convert the report’s inventory into policy and purchasing change requires several coordinated steps:

• Standardize LCA methods across fiber types and geographies to enable comparable assessments of production alternatives.
• Expand long-term, randomized trials of regenerative and biodynamic practices across a diversity of climate zones and socio-economic contexts, with metrics for soil health, yields, biodiversity, and socio-economic outcomes.
• Develop shared data platforms that allow brands to map procurement exposure to specific geographies and production systems.
• Agree sector-wide allocation rules for livestock co-products or adopt transparent co-product accounting methodologies that prevent shifting burdens across industries.
• Scale blended finance instruments that reduce the risk and cost for farmers transitioning to higher-standard production systems.

Achieving these steps will require coordination across brands, certification bodies, researchers, governments and financiers. The report supplies an agenda and a spatial orientation; the execution depends on political will and market alignment.

FAQ

Q: Does the report claim the fashion industry uses one-third of the world’s farmland? A: No. The report estimates the share of global agricultural land that is linked to natural-fiber supply chains by counting the full agricultural footprint associated with each fiber. That method produces an estimate that fashion and textile companies could potentially influence around 30 percent of agricultural land through sourcing choices. It does not claim that fashion exclusively uses or consumes that land.

Q: Why count the full agricultural footprint instead of allocating land among co-products? A: The authors use full-footprint accounting to indicate where brands have leverage through procurement. Farmers do not manage fields separately for different outputs—cotton fields produce lint and seed; grazing land supports meat, dairy, hides and wool. Since sourcing requirements can influence whole-field practices (pesticide regimes, soil management), counting the full footprint approximates the geographic scope of potential influence.

Q: How reliable are the specific acreage figures for wool and leather? A: The report relies on available datasets and makes explicit assumptions where data are incomplete. For wool, the calculation uses an estimate of 250 hectares per metric ton of wool from Circumfauna; FAO data ambiguities required assumptions about whether sheep counts overlap between products. The authors note these as sources of uncertainty and call for more granular data.

Q: If leather and wool dominate the acreage, does that mean brands buying these materials are the primary actors for change? A: Brands sourcing leather and wool have significant potential influence because these fibers are tied to large grazing territories. But meaningful change requires coordinated action across sectors (meat, dairy, leather), governments and finance providers, given the multifunctional nature of pastoral systems.

Q: What does the report say about alternatives like mycelium leather or recycled fibers? A: The report reviews LCAs showing wide variation in emissions among both conventional materials and alternatives. Some mycelium-based leathers show much lower GHG per square meter in individual studies, but production energy mix and process design can dramatically change outcomes. The central message is that production methods and energy sources matter more than the material label alone.

Q: Are organic and biodynamic systems proven to be better? A: Evidence indicates organic and biodynamic systems can support greater species richness and improve some soil-health metrics compared with conventional agriculture. Biodynamic-specific effects are less conclusively isolated. Case studies like Sekem in Egypt and long-term trials in India show positive results, but more standardized, longer-term research is needed to generalize findings and assess commercial viability at scale.

Q: What steps should brands take now? A: Brands should map their raw-material footprints geographically, invest in traceability to the farm or ranch, engage in place-based programs with multi-year commitments, fund farmer transitions via premiums or offtake guarantees, and support standardized LCAs and certification systems that capture production method differences.

Q: How will regulatory changes affect these dynamics? A: Policies like the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive increase scrutiny on environmental claims. Stricter rules for transparency and claim substantiation will raise the bar for brands and encourage investment in traceable, verifiable sourcing practices.

Q: How can smallholder farmers afford certification and transitions? A: Scaling sustainable practices equitably requires finance and technical assistance targeted at smallholders. Group certification models, buyer-funded premiums, blended finance instruments and public support can lower barriers. Without such support, certification costs and administrative burdens risk excluding vulnerable producers.

Q: What is the most important takeaway? A: The report reframes influence as geographic exposure. Textile supply chains touch vast agricultural territories, especially through leather and wool. This exposure offers brands a clear pathway to shape farming practices at scale—if they invest in traceability, aligned finance, long-term procurement commitments and standardized measurement systems that reward low-impact production.