Key Takeaways:
• Sustainable apparel is evolving from a marketing buzzword into a business expectation, with buyers increasingly demanding transparency, certifications and proof behind environmental claims rather than vague “eco-friendly” messaging.
• True sustainability in apparel goes beyond recycled fabrics — it includes ethical sourcing, cleaner production methods, reduced shipping waste and long-term product durability, all of which can improve both environmental impact and brand ROI.
• The industry’s shift toward sustainability is being driven by both consumer demand and competitive pressure, with brands realizing that incremental operational changes and authentic storytelling can strengthen customer trust and open new business opportunities.
Kevin Myette, director of brand services at sustainability solutions provider bluesign, doesn’t mince words.
“There’s no such thing as sustainable apparel,” he says. “It doesn’t exist.”
That doesn’t mean no progress has been made toward lowering apparel’s impact, adds Myette, who worked for REI for 27 years and launched the outdoor gear and apparel retailer’s sustainability program before joining bluesign in 2013. But, the journey toward building a more sustainable apparel supply chain is long, convoluted and riddled with detours, potholes and other hazards.
One bright spot, however, is simply the fact that brands and consumers are, for the most part, aligned in their desire for sustainable products, both at the retail level and in the promotional products industry. For instance, 74% of U.S. consumers say they would have a more favorable view of advertisers after receiving a more sustainable promo item, according to the 2026 ASI Ad Impressions Study.
“Sustainable apparel is becoming the norm and an expectation, rather than a nice-to-have,” says Emily Gigot, director of sustainability at Counselor Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863). “Seeing it scale in recent years has been heartening with lower-impact options across brands and categories, rather than just on the margins. Having sustainability enter the mainstream is what was needed to drive meaningful impact, and I think we’re seeing that now.”
Growth in Textile Recycling
In the last few years, textile recycling efforts have ramped up, with takeback programs and textile-to-textile recycling efforts becoming more common. In the promo industry, specifically, initiatives like SwagCycle and suppliers like Everywhere Apparel (asi/53059), the Counselor 2025 Sustainability Advocate of the Year, have been spurring positive change.
SwagCycle, founded in 2019 by Counselor Power 50 member Ben Grossman of Grossman Marketing Group (asi/215205) as a landfill diversion solution for excess branded merch, had its most successful year in 2025, facilitating nearly $9 million in charitable donations. To date, the initiative has facilitated more than $12.6 million in charitable donations and helped divert more than 3.3 million items from landfills. Many of those diversion efforts involved apparel and textiles, helping to support wildfire victims in California and working with Counselor Top 40 supplier S&S Activewear (asi/84358) on a massive donation following its acquisition of alphabroder and subsequent apparel distribution center consolidation.
“We’ve proven that obsolete swag doesn’t have to end up in landfills and that charitable impact can scale dramatically,” Grossman said in SwagCycle’s most recent impact report.
Everywhere Apparel has developed 100% mechanically recycled GRS-certified cotton blanks, includes a QR-activated recycling trigger on all its products and can also facilitate large-scale recycling services for clients. When Everywhere launched back in 2019, co-founder Irys Kornbluth recalls that “most manufacturers didn’t think it was possible to create premium 100% recycled cotton.”
Now, however, the supplier is “making thousands of pounds of the material on a regular basis.”
Also spurring change on the recycling front is state legislation. In 2024, California passed the landmark Responsible Textile Recovery Act (SB 707), an extended producer responsibility (EPR) law that established a formal framework for the collection, reuse and recycling of apparel and textile products. In March of this year, CalRecycle selected Landbell USA as the producer responsibility organization in charge of the state’s transition to a circular textile economy.
The nonprofit says it’s developing a comprehensive plan to reduce textile waste and increase the longevity of garments through the procurement of innovative consumer education programs and repair, reuse and recycling infrastructure.
“California is setting a global precedent for textile sustainability,” Patrick Gibbs, textile lead at Landbell USA, says. “Our goal is to provide a seamless, transparent and highly effective program that requires producers to fund a product stewardship program for the covered materials they put into the California marketplace while providing Californians with accessible options for textile recovery.”
Unlike Vegas, what happens in California doesn’t tend to stay in California when it comes to its avant-garde legislation, and in fact Washington and New York state are both considering their own EPR for textiles.
State legislatures have also been making inroads in tackling chemical management in textiles. A growing number, for example, are banning PFAS – so-called “forever chemicals” that were once a common treatment for repelling water – from textiles. “This accelerated action at a state level is actually moving the meter pretty quickly,” Myette says. “As a brand, the last thing I want to do is build product for 50 states. I’m going to build it once for the entire U.S.”
Monitoring the Full Supply Chain
Improving the material input of textiles – whether it’s certified organic cotton, recycled cotton or recycled polyester – has been a big focus of apparel brands’ sustainability efforts. However, Myette says, approaching the issue from such a narrow lens misses the point. “It’s one piece of the puzzle,” he adds. “It’s not the entire puzzle.”
With apparel, the biggest area of impact actually comes at Tier 2 of the supply chain, which, by its nature, is the most chemically intensive of all tiers, Myette says. He elaborates: Tier 1 is where fabrics are cut and sewn into finished products; Tier 2 is where a yarn is turned into fabric, dyed, finished and laminated; Tier 3 is where a material, whether synthetic or natural, is spun into yarn; and Tier 4 “is about as far upstream as you’re going to get,” whether it’s a cotton field, or oil extraction for polyester and other synthetic fabrics.
“You can have a perfectly recycled material and do everything wrong in the dyeing, finishing and processing of it,” he says, “and then you can have a virgin, fresh-from-petroleum version come through and do everything right at Tier 2, and that material has a significantly lower footprint than the recycled material.”
That very complexity is one of the things that can make the sustainable apparel space so challenging. Laura Smith, who oversees sustainability and compliance at B Corp-certified Storm Creek (asi/89879), admits that supply chain transparency beyond Tier 1 can be difficult, but it’s also increasingly necessary. “It takes time, collaboration and long-term commitment across suppliers, brands and partners,” she adds.
The other elephant in the room is consumption. Any gains made in reducing impact in the fashion industry are quickly overtaken by consumption. “The apparel world is business as usual,” Myette says. “From 2020 to 2030 we needed to cut our emissions in half, and we’re on a pace of doubling them.” That’s not to say consumption needs to cease, he adds, but instead that the industry must figure out how to decouple economic growth from increased emissions. “Until we’ve got a handle on that, all the progress in the world is for naught.”
That’s not license to despair, but rather a clarion call to make better choices and demand transparency from supplier partners. “Look to the leaders,” Myette says. “There are a few in the promo space who are shining well.”
Smith of Storm Creek agrees. “The most important thing for the promo industry right now is momentum – continuing to move forward even when solutions aren’t perfect, and prioritizing measurable, credible action over buzzwords,” she says. “Real progress comes from consistency, collaboration and a shared commitment to doing better over time.”
Distributors should be steering clients to well-made, quality apparel from suppliers making evidence-based and validated sustainability claims.
“A product that’s made to last, in facilities that are managing their environmental footprint and going beyond compliance with respect to their social responsibility efforts,” Gigot says, “is the most preferred product.”
