Supply Chain news and archive

H&M capitalises on ‘Designed in Barcelona’ and opens a product development office in the city

Madrid – The H&M Group appears determined to end the period of gradual decline it has been experiencing in Spain, both operationally and commercially. The company has announced the opening of a “production office” in the country. This department will now operate from Barcelona, strengthening the Swedish fashion multinational's product...

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Oeko-Tex: “Traceability is becoming a prerequisite for market access”

Traceability is increasingly seen in the apparel industry not as a competitive advantage, but as a prerequisite for market access. This is the key message of the recently published annual report from Oeko-Tex. New legal requirements in the EU, US and Canada increasingly demand that companies can prove the origin of their products and raw...

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Clean Clothes Campaign questions who benefits from the billions in tariff refunds

The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) is calling on apparel brands to publicly disclose what they have received in US tariff refunds and urging them to give a fair share to the suppliers and workers who absorbed the cost. The organisation, a global network of trade unions and NGOs working to improve conditions in the garment industry, notes that the...

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Fairtrade textile standard to apply only to garment factories from September

Fairtrade has fundamentally revised its textile standard. The new version will come into effect on Tuesday, September 1, and will now only apply to the final stage of garment production. Instead of covering the entire supply chain from cotton seed to finished garment, the standard will now exclusively apply to so-called Tier one factories. These...

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Cotton route, destination Uzbekistan: is China seeking a new gateway to supply Europe?

The news went relatively unnoticed. It deserves, however, to be examined closely. China and Uzbekistan want to strengthen their cooperation in the textile industry. The agenda includes raw material supply; technology transfer; blended fabric production; dyeing and finishing technologies; automation; and the creation of joint production...

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Closer to home: How nearshoring is transforming apparel supply chains

Nearshoring in the garment industry has evolved from a defensive reaction and temporary safety net to shipping crises into a permanent, data-driven core strategy. With sweeping US tariff pressures in 2026 and stringent European eco-regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Digital Product Passport (DPP),...

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UK government urged to prioritise domestic textile manufacturing through public procurement

Fashion Roundtable has published an open letter to the UK’s new prime minister Andy Burnham urging the government to use public procurement as a tool to rebuild the region’s fashion and textile manufacturing sector. Addressed to Burnham ahead of the finalisation of the proposed ‘Number 10 North’ initiative, the letter calls for public contracts...

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Bangladesh's evolving aparel sector: beyond low-cost manufacturing

A new sourcing report argues that the way brands are buying from Bangladesh has not kept up with the country they are buying from. “The Sourcing Times: Bangladesh” written by Forbes sustainability contributor Brooke Roberts-Islam and commissioned by trims manufacturer Harnest Label Industries argues that buyers are still judging the world's...

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Garment supply chain overhaul: Achieving true impact in fashion

Moving away from broad macro-level fashion commentary, this deep-dive panel from Crash Course Fashion targets the operational friction between ESG mandates and unit economics. Host Brittany Sierra moderates a candid debate with industry practitioners on whether "sustainable fashion" under current linear business models is commercially viable, or...

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The volume shift: How Asian online retailers move from individual parcels to bulk inventory

The landscape of international trade and e-commerce logistics across Europe has undergone a fundamental structural realignment. For years, the European Union’s long-standing low-value customs duty exemption—the de minimis threshold—allowed billions of individual parcels valued under 150 euros to flood into member states from Asian manufacturing...

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US fashion industry poised for sourcing consolidation and AI integration, study finds

The US fashion industry is facing another year of uncertainty. From the IEEPA tariffs that were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court to the expiring Section 122 tariffs that took their place to the new 301 and 232 tariffs – tariffs remain a top concern for US fashion businesses from brands and retailers to importers. The United States...

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Textile production generates 92,000 tonnes of microfibre pollution each year, report finds

New research from Earth Action has found that textile manufacturing generates around 92,000 tonnes of microfibre pollution annually, with more than 63 percent of this waste ultimately leaking into the environment. In the NGO’s ‘From Shedding to Solutions’, it is suggested that despite wastewater treatment capturing a significant proportion of...