It’s definitely a poly-crisis era, with constant geopolitical unrest, inflation spikes, extreme weather events, tariffs and conflicts. In other words, we’ve been seeing that the world no longer operates in isolation, one decision brings a series of impacts. 

These systemic pressures are not a fleeting disruption. Fashion’s traditional model of linear supply chains is being dismantled by this reality.

Yet far too many brands and industry agents still behave as though materials can be sourced independently of environmental, social, and economic ripple effects. From dye-polluted rivers in Bangladesh to depleted cotton fields in India, these are not at all just incidents; they are warnings. 

Supply chains are sensitive systems, and treating them as pipelines is becoming a luxury the industry, the world and its people can no longer afford.

Trying to explore further down the problem, discussions on big events like Future Fabrics Expo emphasize the lack of visibility past Tier 3, leaving real recycling, reuse, repair and regeneration trapped in the shadows. This disconnect highlights a glaring truth: fashion’s circular promises are hollow without systemic architecture.

The food sector has already demonstrated the transformational power of integrated systems: traceability, certifications, regenerative practices, collaborative data tools and, most of all, transparency. Yes, there’s still a lot to improve. However, no one can deny that they are a few steps ahead of us. 

Fashion should speak of circularity, but rarely focuses on building the infrastructure to make it happen. 

It’s time for the industry to apply systems thinking, aligning cause and effect across the value chain. The potential outcomes from it? The much needed blueprint for the structural revolution towards positive impact.

Let’s break it down.

Mapping the Reality of Fashion’s Value Chain

Fashion has long treated its supply chain like a straight line: raw materials in, products out. But, well, in reality the story is way different.

That’s the premise behind the Fashion Impact Toolkit, a new resource co-developed by Global Fashion Agenda and Deloitte, aimed at helping companies map and manage their sustainability impacts. Built as an interactive starting point, the toolkit breaks down fashion’s vast value chain into digestible segments (20 core activities and 101 sub-activities, narrowed down to the 88 most relevant) and offers a framework for identifying and acting on positive and negative impacts across the full lifecycle of a garment.

Unlike traditional models, this toolkit recognizes that value doesn’t flow in a single direction. The graphic below illustrates how the key activities across the value chain are interconnected, with each influencing or resulting from the other.

Source: Fashion Impact Toolkit by Global Fashion Agenda & Deloitte (p. 14)

And as circularity goals grow, so does the need to clearly track what happens after a product’s first life. 

Resale, reuse, repair, remanufacture, and recycling. These are no longer fringe concepts; They are critical points of reintegration. Yet most systems still can’t map them.

Fashion’s real value chain includes Tier 0 (design and development) all the way down to Tier 4 (raw material extraction and agriculture). But most brand systems only offer partial visibility into Tier 1 and Tier 2 (garment manufacturing and processing). What happens upstream (at the farming, fiber, dye, and spinning level) remains a black box.

At the 2024 Global Fashion Summit, Chiara Dall’Acqua of GFA noted that there are more than 3,000 potential sustainability impacts (both positive and negative) across the fashion value chain. Yet, the industry continues to lack a consistent, collaborative way to identify them. “Fashion’s fragmented, geography-spanning and multi-tiered supply chain makes identifying sustainability impacts an intractable challenge that stymies consistent, collaborative action,” she said.

Further exploring the tool, it's important to highlight that it allows stakeholders—from raw material producers to retailers and even waste managers—to assess their specific areas of influence based on geography, material, and process. The goal is to help companies move from sector-wide awareness to company-specific action—a shift that is essential for any real progress.

But as much as the toolkit offers clarity, it also reveals the depth of the problem:

• We don’t just need data.

• We need systems built around it.

• And we need all actors—not just brands, but farmers, processors, logistics providers, recyclers—to be part of the infrastructure.

Because when only brands are in the loop, the system stays broken.

It’s worth noting that the toolkit explicitly states this: “Such cooperation can help form the foundation for collective engagement, which could be central to scaling the positive impact needed to help transform the sector.” 

That’s the mindset shift fashion still needs to make.

Even more urgently, the toolkit highlights the growing importance of circularity visibility. As resale and reuse platforms continue to scale – the global second-hand apparel market is expected to reach $367 billion by 2029 – brands need to understand where those garments go, how they’re treated, and whether they re-enter the system at all.

But most supply chains still don’t track that. It’s a dangerous blind spot.

Summing it up, fashion’s future will not be mapped by linear pipelines. It will be shaped by feedback loops, shared accountability, and a digital system that treats the supply chain as a living ecosystem, not a series of disconnected transactions.

And while tools like the Fashion Impact Toolkit are a necessary first step, they can’t work in isolation. Tools must be paired with collaborative infrastructure, built to turn visibility and accessibility into action.

Next, we’ll explore what that kind of systemic thinking actually looks like, and why it’s the key to making sustainability more than a checklist for an annual report.

Systemic Thinking: What It Is and Why It Matters

A carbon offset here, a conscious collection there, and the famous end-of-year impact report. But even as the conversation around circularity and ESG matures, one crucial piece is still missing: the system.

Systemic thinking means understanding how things connect. Not just what happens in one department, one facility, or a “conscious collection” but how every part of the value chain – from farm to factory to finished product – influences and depends on the other.

It’s the difference between asking “How do we lower emissions in our Tier 1?” and asking “How do we reduce emissions across our raw material procedures, material sourcing, production processing, transportation, and packaging steps — and how do those reductions affect suppliers, margins, design timelines, and the people who engage (somehow) with it?”

In a global industry like fashion, those connections are everything. And big brands navigating multi-shored production know this all too well. A delay in one region can throw off entire calendars. A spike in raw material prices can break a collection’s margins. A war that blocks key shipping routes makes logistics riskier and more expensive. A drought in a cotton-growing region can change everything from fiber blends to fabric choices to color palettes.

Systemic thinking calls on brands to widen their lens. To stop treating sustainability as something that happens after design, or only within brand headquarters. It urges us to consider how decisions at every level, from sourcing strategies to waste handling to supplier payment terms, shape not just environmental outcomes but economic ones.

That’s why tools like the Fashion Impact Toolkit are so relevant. Not because they offer all the answers, but because they attempt to map what fashion’s sustainability landscape actually looks like: complex, layered, and deeply interdependent. 

The toolkit outlines how activities from raw material extraction to consumer use and disposal are not isolated, but deeply interlinked and why understanding those links is key to making real change.

This kind of mapping helps us see the system for what it is: a web of relationships, not a production line. And once we see that, it becomes clear why so many sustainability efforts stall. If traceability stops at Tier 2, how can a brand verify material provenance? If recyclers aren’t connected to designers, how can circular design truly close the loop?

Too often, fashion looks to brand-led solutions without inviting the rest of the chain to participate. That leaves suppliers, manufacturers, and innovators underutilized, or worse, excluded.

To move forward, fashion needs tools, yes, but also new mindsets and working flows. Systemic ones. Ones that ask not just “what’s our footprint?” but “what’s our role in the system that creates it and how can we redesign that system to amplify our efforts?”

Because without that shift, all the data in the world won’t drive impact.

Access Is the Real Innovation: Why Fashion’s Tools Must Work for All

Who holds the hidden data? The suppliers. The farmer in rural Brazil tapping rubber for your sneakers. The women working in processing facilities across the Global South. But they’re not being brought to the table – not considered, not heard, not included – despite being critical agents in this deeply interconnected ecosystem.

So yes, visibility tools like the Fashion Impact Toolkit are a valuable starting point. They help companies pinpoint areas of influence, map ESG risks, and begin to situate their sustainability efforts within a broader context. But identifying impact is not the same as reducing it.

Knowing where your emissions come from doesn’t automatically lower them. And for most small and mid-sized brands, even accessing that knowledge is a challenge.

Tools alone aren’t enough. Especially not when they’re built for enterprises, not for the reality of a team of one (or even five, 10….) trying to design, source, sell, and stay compliant at once.

This is where things begin to break. 

While big brands might have internal ESG teams, LCA consultants, and reporting systems, SMEs are often navigating new regulations with little guidance and limited leverage. They need sustainability tools that are actionable, affordable, and designed for their scale. N

As the Deloitte and Global Fashion Agenda report puts it: “This cooperation can help form the foundation for collective engagement, which could be central to scaling the positive impact needed to help transform the sector.” It’s not just about getting better data. It’s about building better systems around it — systems that include everyone in the loop.

That loop, however, is still full of holes.

For all the circularity talk in fashion, most brands still can’t trace past Tier 2. Few have visibility into repair, reuse, or recycling pathways.

The problem is that the tools for making circularity (by concept) real aren’t widely available. Especially not to the smaller brands who need them most.

This is exactly where World Collective comes in.

Built by industry insiders, World Collective is a digital ecosystem designed to help fashion brands (of all sizes!) turn sustainability ambition into practical, systemic action. It brings sourcing, traceability, and supplier connection into one platform that scales with the needs of each player involved.

We curate certified, low-MOQ materials from verified suppliers. We power collective action, helping brands meet supplier minimums, and partner with next-gen material innovators A Blue World. We partner directly with suppliers and innovators to unlock Tier 1–4 visibility,  and co-develop traceability infrastructure, like our ongoing DPP Pilot with Kinset.

And most importantly, we’re designing our tools not just for the top 1% of fashion, but for the majority who’ve been left out of the sustainability transition.

Because when circularity becomes a reality only for the brands that can afford it, we’re not transforming the system, we’re just reinforcing the status quo.

To build real impact, we need shared infrastructure, smarter sourcing systems, and tools that turn data into action.

It’s not just about tracking impact. It’s about democratizing access to innovation.

And that’s what systems thinking initiatives are here to do. Afterall, sustainability is no longer about individual efforts (a.k.a. a capsule sustainable collection here and there). It’s about shared infrastructure, shared intelligence, and shared responsibility. The system won’t fix itself, but it can be redesigned.

Written by Júlia Vilaça, Communications & Brand Manager @World Collective