By Sophie Benson, Journalist

As key levers of the circular economy and catalysts of much-needed system change in the fashion industry, it’s easy to assume an element of built-in future-proofing for solutions such as repair, recycling, and resale. Indeed, analysis from academic and industry sources, including Global Fashion Agenda’s 2026 Fashion CFO Agenda report, suggests that embracing circular strategies can help to insulate companies against market volatility and increase resilience. But even the tools that will play a role in tackling the climate crisis are vulnerable to its impacts. As citizens in the northern hemisphere breathe a collective sigh of relief as they leave one of the hottest summers on record (so far) behind, extreme heat – and how to handle it – is high on the agenda. For fashion, the conversation has been largely contextualised through the lens of garment workers and the extreme physical toll of heat stress. It’s a critical consideration that cannot be ignored. But the risks of extreme heat spread far and wide, so circular solution providers must take a proactive approach to stay in play.

Preparing for a new normal

Europe has become a hub for textile circularity. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations in the European Union (EU) have spurred the establishment of textile collection mandates and collection infrastructure, while innovation and investment have seen an array of textile-to-textile (T2T) recycling companies build facilities in proximity to consumer markets. Circulose in Sweden, Reju and Circ in France, Coleo in Spain, and RE&UP and Brightfiber in the Netherlands are among the growing T2T cohort.

But Europe is also the fastest-warming continent, warming more than twice as fast as the global average. With infrastructure historically built to retain winter warmth, the continent now faces a rush to retrofit for increasingly scorching summers. A 2025 study conducted in garment factories in India (where temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius have become routine due to climate change) revealed heat-induced fatigue and reduced concentration increasing quality-related errors; grid outages causing partial closures; productivity declines of up to 12%; and spiked levels of absenteeism. Like cut, make, trim factories, recycling facilities can be hot and humid environments, both giving off ambient heat from machinery and generating heat for processes such as melting fibres. And like sewing, cutting, pressing, and dyeing, the sortation and dismantling of used clothing can be a demanding manual task. Important lessons can be learnt and applied accordingly.

With modelling predicting that today’s record-breaking temperatures will be considered average across Europe by summer 2035, adaptations such as evaporative coolers, reflective roofing, and improved ventilation will be essential to sustain productivity – and protect worker health. Drafting an extreme heat policy presents another opportunity for pre-emptive, practical action as unions push for EU-wide maximum working temperatures, adjusted working hours, and mandated heat breaks. Investment in automation and technology, meanwhile, can reduce physical and cognitive demand on workers. Explore innovations such as Refiberd’s AI-enabled textile detection, Trosort’s garment identification and sorting machine, and Matoha’s infrared sensor material identification technology.

Prioritising resource efficiency

Extreme heat also stresses essential resources. In August, six EU countries shut down power plants due to low water levels or excessively high water temperatures, putting grids at risk of strain. Water shortages can also directly impact processes such as washing, dissolution, cooling, de-colouring, and rinsing. Across the fashion ecosystem, research and development is unveiling solutions that can reduce resource-demand overall, increasing operational resilience when extreme heat adds extra pressure. Take the Green Machine, the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel’s (HKRITA) polyester and cellulose recycling system. It operates in a closed loop system, recovering and reusing the required water, heat, and chemicals. Now at iteration 4.0, in June 2026 HKRITA joined forces with industrial equipment supplier Jeanologia and circular textile solutions provider Looptworks to commercialise the technology.

Spanish T2T recycling company Coleo reduces its water use by skipping dyeing. Instead, it sorts by colour and lets what it collects dictate its palette. Switzerland’s DePoly, meanwhile, has developed a low-energy PET and polyester recycling technology that operates at low heat and with no added pressure.

Planning ahead

“Extreme heat risks adding cost and complexity across the textile value chain, at a time when the industry needs to make recycled materials more competitive. Higher temperatures can affect worker health and productivity, increase cooling and energy demand, and place further pressure on water resources in already water-stressed sourcing regions. These pressures are not unique to recycling. They apply equally to conventional production, but they land on circular infrastructure at precisely the point where it is still building its cost and reliability case,” says Clare Woodford, VP Impact and Sustainability, at global manufacturer and material innovator Alpine Group.

“As the industry invests in the next generation of circular infrastructure, we have an opportunity to design for these realities from the outset, from energy and water systems to facility design and worker protection. Building this in now will be critical to making circularity both scalable and commercially viable in a changing climate,” Woodford continues.

The circular fashion ecosystem is a hotbed for innovation. Naturally, much of that innovation is focused on circularity itself. But as temperatures rise and the multi-layered risks of extreme heat loom large, the sector needs to apply its inherent systems thinking to the horizon and meet new challenges head on.