Kearney Releases 2025 Circular Fashion Index (CFX)

While Showing Growth, Circular Fashion Has Yet to Scale

• CFX top 10 list mostly unchanged for the third year in a row
• Only two new brands entered the top rank
• Mid-tier struggled to keep pace and bottom 80 percent of brands stayed constant
• Only five brands scored above 7.0, fewer than 20 percent exceeded 5.0
• There is a clear shift from voluntary to mandated, from symbolic to systemic change

CHICAGO, July 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, global management consulting firm Kearney released its fifth annual Circular Fashion Index Report (CFX 2025), which tracks the industry's efforts to apply and advance circular practices worldwide. Representing the most comprehensive and data-rich analysis of 246 apparel brands across 18 countries and five core product categories—fashion, sports, outdoor, underwear and lingerie, and footwear—Kearney's CFX 2025 evaluates their performance across seven dimensions that reflect a product's full life cycle and beyond.

"While our top-ranking companies continued to pull ahead, the majority of brands find themselves stuck between ambition and execution, making progress in some facets, but not transforming themselves across all dimensions in an integrated way," said Nora Kleinewillinghoefer, partner, Americas fashion and luxury lead and co-author of the report. "For most companies we researched, circularity efforts are too often siloed in sustainability departments, rather than being embedded into product development, sourcing, supply chain, and commercial operations."

Among CFX 2025's key findings:

• While many brands have committed to circularity, few have translated intent into consistent, scaled execution.
  
  
• More than 70 percent of brands now fall into the "moderate" zone, a signal circularity has entered the mainstream with most brands committing to it strategically and beginning to implement relevant programs.
  
  
• However, only 3 to 5 percent of brands reached the "extensive" implementation level, underscoring a significant conversion gap. The leap from moderate engagement to scaled circularity remains rare.
  
  
• Europe and North America continue to lead with average scores of 3.6 and 3.4 respectively, but their trajectories diverge. Europe recorded a significant gain of +0.4 points since 2024, fueled by steady improvements in several key markets. These advances reflect the region's increasingly stringent regulatory environment including repair bonuses, extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, and forthcoming eco-design mandates.

"Even in the strongest-growing areas, progress in the adoption of circular design principles and raw material reuse was mostly limited to shifts from 'limited' to 'moderate' maturity.  What's needed now is a strategic reframing and circularity must be treated as a lever for growth, not just a compliance exercise. This means embedding it into how brands design, source, sell, and service their products," said Namrata Shah, partner and Americas lead for PERLab, Kearney's industrial redesign practice.  

"Most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked—basics such as circularity initiatives, awareness campaigns, capsule collections, or localized take-back programs. But these are rarely embedded into full product lines or deployed across geographies," said Kearney partner Dario Minutella. "Our analysis shows execution gaps are not due to a lack of awareness but to missing enablers such as scalable infrastructure, system integration, cross-functional ownership, and commercially viable business models. The message in this research is clear: while directionally correct, the industry's pace must now shift gears. As regulation moves from policy to enforcement, incremental gains are no longer sufficient. Brands need to move from declaring ambition to delivering evidence, systematically, and at scale."

Read the full report here.

About Kearney

Since 1926, Kearney has been a leading management consulting firm and trusted partner to three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500 and governments around the world. With a presence across more than 40 countries, our people make us who we are. We work impact first, tackling your toughest challenges with original thinking and a commitment to making change happen together. By your side, we deliver—value, results, impact. For more information, visit www.kearney.com.

About Kearney's Circular Fashion Index

Kearney's Circular Fashion Index Report tracks efforts to introduce, apply, and advance circular economic practices in the global fashion industry. The 2025 CFX offers our most comprehensive and data-rich perspective yet, covering 246 brands across 18 countries and five core product categories—fashion, sports, outdoor, underwear and lingerie, and footwear.

US press contact: 
Meir Kahtan
Meir Kahtan Public Relations
mkahtan@rcn.com | +1 917-864-0800

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SOURCE Kearney