Every year, textile manufacturing generates an estimated 92,000 tonnes of microfiber losses during production, with 63%, more than 58,000 tonnes, reaching the environment. But where exactly does this pollution occur, how much is already being captured, and what would it take to reduce it at scale?

This report is the first system-level assessment to quantify microfiber losses during the production phase of the textile value chain. Drawing on facility-level data, industry surveys, and peer-reviewed literature, it constructs a global baseline of production-phase emissions and evaluates the mitigation potential of a range of upstream and downstream interventions.

The findings are more actionable than the current state of the debate might suggest. Existing wastewater infrastructure already prevents 37% of generated fibers, around 34,000 tonnes, from reaching the environment each year. But capture is not the same as containment: wastewater treatment on its own reduces total leakage by just 6%, while moving all facilities to well-managed sludge disposal alone delivers a 43% reduction. Treatment and sludge management are two halves of one system, deployed together, they reinforce each other and compound to unlock far more of the system’s reduction potential than either can alone. Upstream, product design choices remain one of the largest available levers, largely untapped to date: certain textile constructions cut shedding by 60–90% through changes in yarn construction or finishing.

The report maps these intervention points across the textile value chain, from brands making product specification decisions to mills operating treatment systems to policymakers setting the infrastructure conditions that determine final environmental outcomes. Under coordinated, high-ambition scenarios, combined upstream and downstream action could reduce production-phase leakage by approximately 95% by 2032.

From Shedding to Solutions provides the analytical foundation needed to move from fragmented, single-intervention efforts toward an integrated strategy, one grounded in evidence and oriented toward measurable outcomes.