Recent Release | 08 Dec 2023
German Fashion Environmental Footprint
Economic Consulting Team
Oxford Economics
This report, following Oxford Economics’ work that estimated the economic impact of the German fashion industry, looks at the global environmental footprint that the industry has in terms of emissions, pollution and resource usage.
Germany is one of the largest markets for fashion in the world and is home to several of the world’s top fashion brands such as Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss. As such, trends and practices in the country’s fashion industry have a significant environmental impact that reaches across the globe.
Following on from our recent study on the economic impact of the German fashion industry, this report provides the first comprehensive look at the environmental impact of the industry. We look at its footprint through five important variables: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; energy use; air pollution;
water use; and agricultural land use.
Building a detailed understanding of these existing impacts is an important step towards managing and mitigating them in the future. In this report, we assess the impact of the industry in 2019, before the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely reduced output across many sectors of the world economy. In this report, we have considered the impact of the operations of fashion brands and retailers within Germany, as well as the global impact of clothing and footwear sold in Germany but manufactured elsewhere.
The expert behind the research
Our Economic Consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. The lead consultant on this project was:
Rob Harbron
Associate Director, Economic Impact
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