The statistics and predictions for the future raise many significant questions for the present.
Up to 40% of clothing produced each year – approximately 60 billion garments – goes unsold. Experts indicate that addressing this unreasonable waste will require radical changes in production—and also in legislation.
40% of Clothing Produced Goes Unsold
To date, no one can accurately calculate how many jackets, jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers are produced worldwide each year. This also means that no one knows how many unsold garments remain in storage, are buried, or are destroyed. Without this information, efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the fashion industry are akin to solving a puzzle in the dark.
Current estimates suggest that approximately 80 billion to 150 billion garments are produced annually, with about 10% to 40% of those going unsold. Therefore, there could be 8 billion to 60 billion surplus garments each year—a staggering figure.
Liz Ricketts, co-founder and executive director of the Or Foundation, an environmental justice charity based in Ghana, stated: “The volume of production is really important information to bring honesty back to the conversation. This is data that everyone can collect. The question is whether companies are willing to share that data.”
A mountain of waste at the Kpone landfill in Tema, Ghana.
Believing that transparency about production volume is a core factor in assessing and addressing the environmental issues of the fashion industry, the Or Foundation launched the Speak Volumes campaign in November 2023, urging brands to disclose the number of products they produced in 2022.
So far, 32 small and medium-sized enterprises have participated. The largest number comes from the UK brand Lucy & Yak, which produced 760,951 items. The smallest number is from the Scottish brand Mlambo, with only 100 items. These statistics are still far from the billions of garments produced by the largest fashion companies. Yet, no leading firms have joined this campaign.
Francois Souchet, a strategist in circular economy and sustainable development, commented: “The reason they don’t like to talk about how many products they have is because it’s the industry’s dark secret. There is likely to be public backlash when people find out how many products go unsold“.
At the Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana, where the Or Foundation operates to support the community trading in unwanted clothes from the Global North, about 40% of each bale of textiles ultimately becomes waste. This figure has led Ricketts to call for brands to commit to reducing new clothing production by 40% over five years, a goal that can only be achieved by recognizing the enormous surplus production. Ricketts stated: “Why are they producing so much excess?”
There are several reasons brands produce more than they sell: ambitious manufacturers, the constant trend changes in the fashion industry, or misreading the market. While there are some new technologies to address these issues, including AI to predict consumer demand and made-to-order models, there are no signs that technology is widely adopted.
Why Does the Fashion Industry Overproduce?
Overproduction is also a symptom of an outdated production system that encourages volume: the more T-shirts ordered, the cheaper the price per garment. This is because the largest costs of producing fabrics and assembling clothing are in the setup stage; the longer the assembly line runs, the more efficient it becomes. Souchet stated: “Additionally, brands fear missing out on a discount, so they always order too much instead of just enough.”
Christina Dean, founder of the anti-waste charity Redress, remarked: “To complete our clothing, a lot of human effort is required, from picking cotton, spinning yarn, and weaving fabric to the work of garment workers, and think about how often they don’t get to see their children because they have to work long hours. The fact that these pieces of fabric are mindlessly thrown away shows how ‘out of sync’ we are with our fellow humans across the globe.”
A recent survey by Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) found that 78% of brands aim to reduce overproduction. However, according to Holly Syrett, the GFA’s director of impact programs and sustainable development, respondents indicated that a lack of clarity about what overproduction means is a barrier to addressing the issue.
A textile factory in Guangzhou, southern China, specializing in supplying Western retailers.
“We define overproduction quite simply as when a company buys or produces more inventory than it can sell, leaving stock that is then sold at a discount, resold to others, or likely destroyed. The feedback we receive is that our definition isn’t specific enough,” Syrett explained.
But inventory isn’t the only issue, Ricketts stated: “We try to use the term ‘supply exceeding demand’ more than ‘overproduction’ because the marketing mechanisms used to push excess supply to consumers are also a concern. Brands are producing demand in the same way they overproduce clothing. This demand is created through relentless marketing on social media, targeted digital advertising, email campaigns, and seemingly endless sales and promotions. Of course, the flip side of this coin is the issue of overconsumption.”
This is a harsh truth that is often avoided at industry summits and within corporate goals. According to the sustainability research group Hot or Cool Institute, the fashion industry will need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least half from 2018 levels by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
What Solutions Exist for Us?
Some experts have proposed ways to “address” the surplus fashion goods by creating alternative business models such as rental, resale, or repair. However, regardless, Hot or Cool states that achieving the 1.5-degree target in high-income G20 countries—including the UK, US, France, and Australia—will require a 60% reduction in consumption.
At the current trajectory, the industry’s emissions are expected to double in the next decade.
“Rapid and radical changes in production and legislation are crucial,” said Lewis Akenji, CEO of Hot or Cool. “Extending producer responsibility for fashion brands to the post-consumption stage is a promising avenue… but it should not be a mechanism for shifting the burden.”
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Experts assert that new laws need to be proposed to hold producers accountable and responsible for managing the product lifecycle. They could utilize initiatives such as textile recycling, upcycling, downcycling, renting, resale, and repair.
“How do we think we will face the future if we continue to pump out this endless surplus of products? That’s impossible,” Ricketts added. “Policies must take production volume into account. No matter how much brands invest in solutions (like textile recycling), we won’t succeed if we don’t stop from now on.”
