The UK Textiles Pact Roadmap charts the course for navigating the climate-critical years of the voluntary agreement, from 2026 through to 2030. It establishes priority indicators and actions to scale progress and achieve the Pact’s targets, while encouraging flexibility in individual businesses pathways.
Voluntary action towards circularity
The 2020s have been dubbed the decade of climate action. A crucial window for accelerating efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change.
The UK Textiles Pact is meeting this moment, putting the UK fashion and textiles sector on a trajectory to reduce carbon emissions by 50% and water use by 30% by 2030, through the transition to circularity. Between 2021 and 2025, the Pact focused on developing evidence, building the business case, and testing solutions.
Although unforeseen macroeconomic and geopolitical shifts have challenged progress and reshaped assumptions about how the Pact’s targets will be met, the early groundwork laid by signatories has established solid foundations for the years ahead.
A Roadmap for the critical years
If the 2020s is the decade for action, then 2026 to 2030 are the years when impact must be delivered at scale. While signatories made strong efforts in the initial years of the Pact, progress has not kept pace with the speed of change required. The per-tonne impacts of products have fallen, but resource-intensive business models and high volumes of new products continue to offset many of these gains.
The Roadmap responds to this challenge, calling for sharper focus, stronger alignment, and a decisive shift away from business as usual to deliver on the Pact’s targets. Co-designed with signatories through industry Working Groups, it introduces:
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8 new circularity indicators to guide decisions and progress
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A new workstream on ‘Supply Chain Decarbonisation’ to tackle upstream emissions
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Clear links to policy, while supporting efforts beyond compliance
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Roles, responsibilities and actions for all stakeholders
Flexible business pathways
Despite diverse priorities among businesses, the Roadmap creates greater alignment in signatory efforts while allowing flexibility for businesses to create individual pathways to the targets.
Businesses are expected to act across all indicators, but how they do so will vary. Each organisation will naturally lean into the indicators that best match their products, operations, customers, and strategy. This flexibility ensures that, collectively, actions add up to the Pact’s shared targets while enabling businesses to prioritise the areas most relevant to them.
A framework for action
Be part of something bigger
This Roadmap provides the framework for change. WRAP offers the resources and platform for collaboration; delivery sits with the sector.
While the Pact can and will make strong strides towards sector transformation, it cannot achieve everything in isolation. Action right across the value chain, supported by strong legislation and sustained investment is needed. All actors have a role to play in this.