Water and Fashion: An XXL-Sized Problem, Drip-Fed Solutions
Fashion adapts nimbly to its seasonal collections. Facing water scarcity is an entirely different story. A pair of jeans requires between 5,000 and 9,000 liters of water to produce; a simple t-shirt, around 2,700 liters.
9/29/20263 min read
Water and Fashion: An XXL-Sized Problem, Drip-Fed Solutions
Fashion adapts nimbly to its seasonal collections. Facing water scarcity is an entirely different story. A pair of jeans requires between 5,000 and 9,000 liters of water to produce; a simple t-shirt, around 2,700 liters. Globally, the textile and fashion sector is estimated to consume close to 93 billion cubic meters of freshwater every year, a figure regularly cited by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, UNCTAD, and the World Economic Forum (WEF), representing roughly 4% of global freshwater withdrawal.
As one WEF expert quoted by Les Echos put it, water use is an XXL-sized problem for the textile industry. The concern is compounded by downstream pollution: toxic dyeing processes are responsible for an estimated 20% of global industrial water pollution, according to the same Forum.
A Transformation Underway, But Too Slow
Over the past decade, the fashion sector says it has been transforming its processes to reduce freshwater withdrawal and limit associated pollution, a trend confirmed by the Innovation and Sustainable Development Commission of the French Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM). But the very title of the Les Echos piece documenting this shift sums up the reality on the ground: "drip-fed improvements." The intensive production model that defines the fashion industry continues to hold back progress that has been identified for years.
Real Technical Innovation, Still at Pilot Scale
Two examples illustrate this gap between technological ambition and industrial deployment.
DyeCoo, a Dutch technology using supercritical CO2 dyeing, dyes fabric without water, without chemical additives, and without a drying step. Adidas and Nike have already adopted it, but only for polyester. Cotton, the world's most widely used fiber, remains out of reach for this technology.
Pigmentoco, a Tunisian startup supported by HEC Paris's Entrepreneurship & Innovation Institute, is working to close exactly that gap: it adapts supercritical CO2 dyeing to natural fibers, cotton included, with an announced 40% reduction in environmental impact based on life-cycle analysis. The project is still at the semi-industrial prototype stage, actively seeking pilot partners.
Both cases show that the technology exists and is advancing, but that scaling to industrial volume, particularly for cotton, remains the sector's real bottleneck.
A Risk That Has Become Financial, Not Just Environmental
Another notable shift in recent months: water stress is no longer treated solely as a CSR topic. Investor assessment frameworks, CDP Water Security, TNFD, now score companies on their exposure to water risk. In Europe, the CSRD requires large companies to disclose these risks. This is especially critical given that 75% of textile production sites could face high to severe water stress by 2050, concentrated in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Central Asia regions that account for a large share of global production.
The ITBA-AIBT Analysis
This case confirms an observation the Alliance has made since its founding: the availability of technical solutions is not enough to transform a sector if the underlying economic model, volumes, production cycles, margins, keeps pushing in the opposite direction. DyeCoo has existed for over a decade and remains confined to polyester; Pigmentoco, promising as it is, is still at pilot stage. Between proof of concept and deployment across a global supply chain, the gap remains considerable.
This is precisely the blind spot FiberForever™ certification is designed to address: supporting companies not just in adopting a technology, but in structuring a production model compatible with the physical limits of water as a resource, starting at the design stage, not only at the end of the chain. As water becomes a financial criterion as much as an environmental one, the companies building this evidence base today will gain a regulatory and commercial head start over those that wait for the constraint to hit.
Sources: Les Echos, "Quand l'eau vient à manquer" series (4/5); Ellen MacArthur Foundation; World Economic Forum; HEC Paris; Novethic.
ITBA - AIBT
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
FOLLOW US
Ressources
contact@itba-aibt.org
© 2025. All rights reserved.
Help
Paris - Montreal - Shanghai