Fashion’s Sustainability Journey Unpacked at 2025 Venice Forum

VENICE, Italy — As sustainability faces disruption and political backlash globally, fashion finds itself questioning how to move the needle forward after a decade of quantum leap efforts.

Against a dampened economy and geopolitical turmoil, the stakes are higher than ever.

Global supply chains, including Italy’s, are under pressure — and increasingly under scrutiny. Policymakers are navigating the complexity of dealing with a different world — and business views. The performance of the fashion sector is still iffy and the outlook hard to predict.

“The issue at hand concerns the models we want to champion for the future, the vision of the world we want to embrace,” said Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, international relations professor at Milan’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, at the fourth two-day edition of the Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum held here at the Fondazione Cini.

“This is the time to have the courage to face our era head-on,” echoed Carlo Cottarelli, director of the program for education in economic and social sciences and of the observatory on Italian public accounts at the same university.

Industry players at the forum recognized the importance of scaling up, rather than back, their efforts and of doing so collaboratively.

“Not only Made in Italy fashion is under attack. The reality is that it’s part of a much broader ecosystem, one we share with our European partners. This is a multifaceted attack,” said Luca Sburlati, president of Confindustria Moda, in reference to the many pressing issues faced by the sector.

“We are working within a model where ethics, economy and innovation are all evolving rapidly, so it’s crucial that we take center stage in this discussion and make decisions to bring to the attention of the policymakers,” he said.

The Italian association was among the organizers of the event alongside Confindustria Veneto Est and consultancy The European House Ambrosetti, or TEHA Group.

A study by the latter titled “Just Fashion Transition 2025,” provided a candid picture of where the fashion sector stands in its eco-journey.

Drawing from data by the European Environment Agency, the research said that the EU fashion sector has cut 37 percent of its carbon emissions since 1990.

An additional 18 percent is still required to comply with the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles for 2030, which the consultancy estimates would require at least 4.4 billion euros.

“The cost of waiting is higher than the cost of taking action,” said Carlo Cici, partner and head of sustainability practices at TEHA Group. “When it comes to sustainability, waiting is not a viable strategy for growth,” he added, sparking applause from the audience.

Making his point, Cici said that biodiversity and the health of natural ecosystems are crucial enablers of growth as about half of global GDP, or $55 trillion, is moderately or heavily dependent on them.

Are These Gloomy Days for Sustainability?

For the highly globalized and interconnected fashion sector, the complexity of pressing on with the transition is becoming increasingly challenging.

“For the first time, perspectives on sustainability at a global level are diverging,” Cici said.

President Trump’s administration in the U.S. has kicked off a rollback of ESG policies and intensified efforts against green finance, championing a narrative that ESG is killing businesses. For instance, the “Big, beautiful” spending bill repealed a total of $650 billion in incentives for clean energies.

This compares to China’s continued investments in low-carbon sectors, with clean-energy technologies making up 10 percent of the country’s economy in 2024. However, China — home to ultra-fast fashion players such as Shein and Temu — has been lagging significantly behind on social responsibility.

Meanwhile in Europe, the “Green Deal is sinking in the narratives, seen as a blow to Europe’s competitiveness and often referred to as the ‘Green Lash’,” Cici said. “Changing by decree is difficult, and this is perhaps the mistake of the EU in thinking it can enforce rules that alter the status quo.”

According to Enrico Giovannini, scientific director at the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development, or ASviS, “there’s a perception that the EU has been dominated by an ideological green stance. However, the ‘Green Deal’ was never an environmental strategy — it was an economic one.

“The concept was that if the world was going to make this [green] transition, by anticipating the business shift in Europe, we would have had products to sell globally,” he said. “What we need is a clear vision for the future, but too often the narrative we hear is focused on clinging on to the present.”

Fueled by factual evidence that sustainability is not just a tool for survival but a growth enabler, the European fashion industry seems to have rejected counternarratives and oftentimes anticipated regulatory frameworks.

“Some say sustainability is just a trend, especially in the fashion industry, and that has been true to some extent. Today, however, the pendulum has swung to the opposite side, and despite this shift, a significant number of companies are actively investing in this area,” Giovannini said.

“Considering the existing regulations, which are often seen as a hassle, it would be great to move from a mindset of obligation to one of pride,” said Andrea Rosso, sustainability ambassador at OTB Group, parent of Diesel, Marni and Jil Sander, among others. “The moment you start sowing knowledge and expertise, you’ll start seeing results.”

To be sure, the sector has been increasingly aligning with mandates and regulations.

“We are resilient, we continue to invest and innovate and believe in our industry, but we are also frustrated we don’t see from policymakers any real corresponding action,” said Mario Jorge Machado, the president of Euratex, the European Apparel and Textile Confederation.

“The EU is fast in enforcing obligations for EU companies… and these rules point towards the right direction. We’re not against safeguarding the environment. But we cannot have a clean Europe within a dirty world. We must level the playing field otherwise we incur in unfair competition [from non-EU countries],” he said.

The Latest Pressing Issues

Industry associations in Italy have been vocal for months: Made in Italy is besieged, and action must be taken to safeguard the local supply chain and its reputation.

One of the key issues is the unregulated influx of ultra-fast-fashion products in the country and the Old Continent at large.

As reported, pressured by this wave of products, the Italian government is moving forward with a draft law to curb the impact of low-cost imported products by resorting to the European Union’s EPR, or extended producer responsibility, directive. If passed, the country could impose an extra tax on these products, connected to the manufacturers’ accountability for the end-of-life management of discarded products and textile waste. The same regulation would apply to local manufacturers.

Meanwhile, an EU-level framework — the only one with the capability to impose custom duties on such products — has yet to be passed.

“Currently the European Commission is essentially telling EU consumers that they have a 12 percent discount on those products as a result of the absence of tariffs; it’s unacceptable,” said Euratex’s Machado.  “The European Court of Auditors has checked VAT declarations of these companies, and they’ve found fiscal fraud of hundreds millions of euros,” he said, directly referencing the likes of Shein and Temu.

“These companies also don’t respect IP; we invest money in creativity and innovation and then we see copycats of our products. This is something we cannot accept. We have to defend our products, our creativity, our brands,” he argued.

“When it comes to ultra-fast fashion, the real issue isn’t the low cost but the content of the products,” said Andrea Sianesi, professor of operations and supply chain management at Milan’s Politecnico University. “I believe these items shouldn’t necessarily face custom duties — since these companies can easily absorb that — but they shouldn’t be allowed onto the market entirely, unless they meet Italian safety standards.”

According to Bernstein luxury analyst Luca Solca, “the Chinese [product] invasion is finding fertile ground because a significant portion of our consumers has very limited real purchasing power, which hasn’t grown in years.”

Adding further fuel were the recent supply chain scandals in Italy’s high-end pipeline, which linked marquee brands including Dior, Valentino, Loro Piana, Giorgio Armani and Tod’s, among others, to subcontractors allegedly engaged in sweatshop schemes and labor exploitation.

None of the brands has faced criminal charges, but all of them — except Tod’s, which is awaiting a hearing in November — have been put under judicial administration to correct and enhance audits and oversight through court-mandated procedures. Dior’s and Giorgio Armani’s probes have been fully resolved and the judicial oversight lifted.

While standing by a vocal defense of Made in Italy against a narrative that it would lack ethics, Confindustria Moda’s Sburlati said that “while the ecosystem is under attack, some of the problems are also internal and they are ours to solve.”

“The problem we’ve been grappling with for years is ‘Made in Italy by Chinese companies,’” said Bernstein’s Solca. “There are many Chinese companies that work very well, but there is also a minority that does not. We cannot praise the craftsmanship of our workforce and then, behind the scenes, rely on subcontractors who don’t follow the rules. This can be addressed by upstream integration, which would expose fewer businesses and brands to this reputational crisis. Over the last 10 years, companies have focused primarily on investing in retail, but today, upstream investment is absolutely crucial.”

As the industry geared up to gather in Venice, the Senate Committee passed a draft law outlining a voluntary certification system for brands’ pipeline across all tiers of subcontracting, aimed at ensuring legality and traceability throughout, as reported.

An amendment requested by Confindustria Moda and Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, which asked to remove the rule that companies found negligent in auditing their supply chains would be directly put under judicial administration, didn’t pass the vote at the Senate Committee. The associations had requested to leave a window open for companies to enhance auditing on their own.

Sburlati touted the draft law — which needs to be voted on by the Senate and then by the Chamber of Deputies and related committee — while acknowledging defeat on the amendment for now.

“It’s not true that we are endorsing an illegal supply chain. On the contrary, we are certifying a legal supply chain through a repository that maps the entire network,” he said, in apparent response to trade unions, which harshly criticized the draft law.

Highlighting how incidents have affected very few companies compared to the 60,000 fashion enterprises in Italy, Sianesi said that “achieving risk zero is hardly possible, but it’s important to work toward ensuring these incidents remain minimal and are addressed and resolved as quickly as possible.”

“The supply chain needs to be fairly compensated. If management is incentivized solely for cutting supply costs, the result is lower-quality products and potentially slipping into illegality, which is a self-inflicted blow to the industry,” Sburlati said.

“The ‘S’ in ESG will always remain a hovering concept unless it becomes a tangible, integrated practice [which results from] incentivizing and empowering people,” Sianesi concurred.

Among the brands placed under judicial administration, the Giorgio Armani Group tackled the issue hands-on.

The company’s sustainability director Rossella Ravagli said at the forum that the procedure turned into “a collaboration that allowed us to achieve in 10 months what we initially aimed to accomplish in two years. It was demonstrated that we had everything in place, which accelerated further improvements.”

The probe “made us realize that there’s no such thing as zero risk. Risks need to be understood in order to manage and prevent them effectively, while also acknowledging that some issues could still arise… The solution lies in working proactively to identify risks, implementing systems to prevent them, and fostering collaboration between internal departments within the company. We’ve invested in a traceability platform we didn’t have before, which has helped us ensure greater transparency,” she explained.

Cooperation to Reach Critical Mass

A sense of togetherness permeated the entire two-day forum, with industry operators expressing pride over more cohesive initiatives.

“We’ve eventually realized that when the market grows, there’s enough revenue for everyone. But when the market slows down, we either stay united or some will be forced out of business,” Sburlati said. “Today, our collective voice is becoming unified, and that’s the true success of our ecosystem.”

“If we don’t work together it’s going to be a lose-lose [situation] rather than win-win,” concurred Euratex’s Machado. “If we communicate, we can achieve policies that make it possible for this industry to be competitive… Policies are instrumental in making Europe thrive or lose, and the EU is currently losing relevance globally.”

One national example of cooperation is the Retex.Green consortium established in 2022 by Confindustria Moda to collectively fulfill the sector’s extended producer responsibility, or EPR, framework, which sets accountability terms on fabric-makers for textile waste.

Part of the EU Waste Framework Directive and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, it triggers producers to deal with the end-of-life management of discarded products by primarily tackling upstream efforts.

At the forum, Confindustria Moda reiterated its stance on the topic and urged Italian policymakers to enforce the law, which has been sitting in Parliament for over three years, noting how it would also birth an entirely new industry dedicated to textile recycling.

Laura D’aprile, head of the Department for Ecological Transition and Green Investments at the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, confirmed at the forum that a law should be enforced in the first quarter of 2026.

Brand-wise, members of the Fashion Pact gathered on stage to reveal the creation of the European Accelerator, a project aimed at the decarbonization of the supply chain.

“We are increasingly collaborating between brands, supply chain players, and associations, following the shared belief that we are mutually important to one another,” said Chiara Morelli, sustainable operations and product compliance director at Prada Group, one of the more than 55 signatories of the Fashion Pact alongside Kering, Chanel, Zegna, Ferragamo, H&M and Inditex, to name a few.

“The chosen path has been the improvement of efficiency in the supply chain by reducing energy consumption, water use, and waste production. All of this is being achieved through investment and the adoption of cleaner technologies and innovations, in a sector where innovation exists but is challenging to implement — because we don’t produce mass-market products, we create unique items. Therefore hard innovation doesn’t always fit the industry,” Morelli said.

The European Accelerator project has been two years in the making, said Mickaël Maniez, Kering’s head of sustainable supply chain, and has resulted in the creation of a shared audit system based on a universal checklist.

“The questionnaire may not be the best yet, but it is the simplest and most sustainable option, one that can trickle down across all tiers of the supply chain,” explained Fulvio Benetti, sustainability director at Ermenegildo Zegna Group. “The work doesn’t stop here, we are considering the creation of a technical committee to keep the questionnaire updated on technical and scientific fronts,” he said.

“Fashion cannot be only about looking good, but doing good and feeling good about it,” said Javier Goyeneche, the founder and president of Spanish sustainable brand Ecoalf. The audience cheered in approval.

The next edition of the Venice Sustainable Fashion Forum, the fifth, is scheduled for Nov. 5 and 6, 2026.