Rebecca Burgess, founder of the Fibershed movement and a self-trained natural dyer, cultivating natural dye plants, asks in her new book Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy. “Think of it like food,” she explains. “Our food system has become fairly industrialised and there are so many things that people are asking because of health issues. Well, some of the chemical compounds that we’re concerned about in our food are also used to grow fibre crops.”

Conventionally grown cotton is the most pesticide-intensive crop in the world and the pollution caused by these pesticides affects thousands of cotton farmers and their families each year. It’s also grown with huge amounts of irrigation, accounting for 69% of the water footprint of all textile fibres.

The textile dyeing and finishing industry is one of the most chemically intensive on the planet and the number one polluter of water after agriculture. It's important to address this when looking at the overall sustainability of textile systems.

The future of the fashion industry is inextricably linked with the future of agriculture as all the raw materials from cotton to wool, or silk to cashmere that are used in our clothing are grown in farms, rangelands or the forests.

Though agriculture is currently a major driver of biodiversity loss and climate change, it can be transformed from a ‘problem’ to a powerful nature-based solution

Regenerative agriculture is a term used to describe a collection of farming and grazing practices that help to repair environmental damage and rebuild healthy ecosystems. These include practices that help increase biodiversity, improve soil fertility, reduce soil erosion, sequester carbon and generally offer a more sustainable way of producing our food and fibres.

Regenerative techniques include reducing tillage (which reduces disturbance to soil ecosystems), planting multi-species cover crops to enrich and improve the soil, and ‘alley cropping,’ a technique where organic cotton is grown between rows of trees like mulberry and fig.

Like plant fibres, wool can be regenerative if the animals are grazed on landscapes where the health of the pasture is restored through building soil fertility and the use of prescribed grazing systems to enhance biodiversity.

Natural indigo - a deep blue colour from the Indigofera plant - can be highly regenerative. It’s one of the most practical and durable natural dyes and unlike most natural dyes, it can be used without a mordant to fix the dye to the textile fibres. As a legume, indigo is a nitrogen-fixing plant that naturally enhances soil fertility. It grows easily without any chemicals or irrigation and is a very useful plant for restoring dry or nutrient-depleted soils. It’s also low-waste. After harvesting, the plant stems can be used as firewood. And once the pigment has been extracted, the plant residue can be composted and used as fertiliser, with the remaining water from the dyeing process used to irrigate crops.

Regenerative fibre and dye systems offer plenty of social as well as environmental benefits. Many of the producers we work with focus on the regeneration of communities as well as the environment. Their work encourages close local links between actors at different stages of the textile supply chain, helping to create a diversity of local jobs and supporting a healthy local economy.

“If we increase the carbon under the soil by 2% on all the farmland and working landscapes on this planet, we could offset 100% of all annual greenhouse emissions going into the atmosphere,” explains Rebecca, quoting a statistic by Dr. Rattan Lal, one of the preeminent soil scientists in the world based at Ohio State university.

There are organisations worldwide who are working with the local communities to integrate regenerative systems in their textile productions and creative practices.

Kering and Conservation International launched the Regenerative Fund for Nature, with the aim of transforming 1,000,000 hectares of crop and rangelands into regenerative agricultural spaces over the next five years.

7Weaves has been working extensively with the indigenous communities of Indo-Burma region and developed a fully transparent Eri Silk value chain with the farmers, spinners, natural dyers, weavers, ecologists and designers. "Each piece of cloth at 7Weaves is an incentive to save the environment", says Rituraj Dewan, co-founder at 7Weaves. He also explains that regenerative is only a new word to describe the traditional farming knowledge practiced by the indigenous communities since ages. In their campaign, "Fashion for Biodiversity", the organisation emphasizes on collaboration models where fashion can contribute significantly to save the biodiversity of the region.

Khamir’s Kala Cotton Initiative uses Kala cotton, a variety that’s indigenous to the Kachchh region of Gujarat. It’s a drought-resistant, purely rainfed crop so it doesn’t need irrigating. It’s also highly disease and pest resistant and can be grown without any chemicals.

Fibreshed is a US-based organisation championing regenerative textile systems with a particular focus on wool. Their work demonstrates how regenerative wool can be created alongside regenerative plant fibre systems to produce Climate Beneficial™ ethical wool.