Soil, sensors and supply chains: enabling regenerative fashion through technology

Now we all have to agree that regenerative agriculture is no longer a fringe conversation in fashion - yet it barely starts to be integrated in the industry’s sustainability ambitions. As we explored in our last article its benefits go beyond minimising harm. It promises to actively restore ecosystems and ensure resilience : rebuilding soil health, increasing biodiversity, improving water cycles, and enhancing both livelihoods and animal welfare, while placing farmers' know-how at the centre. For a sector striving to reduce its reliance on fossil resources—and still dependent on natural fibres—the potential is profound, particularly in the face of climate change and broader environmental challenges.

Yet, turning this promise into widespread, verifiable practice is far from simple. Regenerative agriculture isn’t a standardised method—it’s context-specific, holistic, and deeply rooted in Indigenous and traditional knowledge. It asks brands to shift from extractive to reciprocal supply chain models, embracing long-term relationships and investing upstream. Scaling these changes requires not just good intentions, but robust systems—and that’s where, critically, technology enters the field.

Challenges in scaling regenerative agriculture for fashion

Despite growing brand interest, regenerative farming remains largely small-scale and decentralised. This is both its strength and its challenge. Localised, place-specific approaches are essential—but they are more difficult to track, compare, and verify at scale. Traceability is a major hurdle. For a fibre to be credibly « labelled » or called regenerative, it must be linked to specific farm-level practices, which are rarely standardised. Most regenerative farms are not part of global certification schemes and often operate outside conventional sourcing models.

The financial demands of transition are also significant. Regenerative methods can take several years to deliver results, and the burden of risk typically falls on the farmer. Without proper incentives, training, and long-term market security, adoption remains limited.

Where tech comes in

Technology is no silver bullet—but it is a powerful enabler. From tracking soil carbon to building supply chain transparency, digital tools are making regenerative claims more tangible, measurable, and investible. But it seems crucial to understand that the goal extends far beyond carbon sequestration. Measurement must also encompass general soil health, biodiversity, water impact, animal welfare, and social equity. This increases the complexity of modelling and comparison tools—and reinforces the importance of genuine collaborative engagement with farmers, building on their expertise and complementing their skills.

Traceability tools like FibreTrace, TextileGenesis, and TrusTrace are creating digital threads from farm to finished product. Using blockchain or digital fingerprints, they allow brands to verify origin and farming methods, while enabling better communication of impact to end-consumers. Soil and biodiversity monitoring is also evolving. Satellite imagery, drones, and in-soil sensors now provide real-time, localised data on vegetation cover, organic matter, and microbial life. Kayrros, a geoanalytics platform specialised in environmental intelligence, models carbon fluxes and soil health changes from space—offering brands a science-based window into on-the-ground impact. Similarly, Regrow Ag offers satellite-driven analysis of regenerative practice adoption, tracking indicators like cover cropping and reduced tillage.

The Textile Exchange Regenerative Agriculture Landscape Analysis¹ section titled “What it Means to ‘Measure’ and ‘Model’ Soil Carbon and Other Indicators” highlights how carbon modelling tools are being refined to reflect the complexity of soil dynamics. Traditional carbon accounting often oversimplifies, but newer tools, like COMET-Farm and Cool Farm Tool, are incorporating microbial activity, mineral interactions, and regional climate patterns to improve accuracy.

AI-powered platforms such as Perennial (formerly known as Cloud Agronomics) or Downforce Technologies (UK-based firm founded by scientists from the University of Oxford) now blend agronomic data with predictive analytics to assess carbon drawdown and biodiversity gains over time. Textile Exchange’s Tool Matrix offers additional farm-level accounting tools, depending on specific needs.

Beyond measurement, impact accounting itself is evolving. A new generation of LCA tools—sometimes referred to as “LCA 3.0”—seek to go beyond carbon and include soil health, water retention, and ecosystem resilience. This integrated approach enables brands to better understand and evaluate the true environmental and social value of regenerative fibres.

Supporting farmers through tech

Technology can also facilitate the shift towards supporting farmers, by offering better access to markets, knowledge, and finance:

To enable genuine regeneration, brands must rethink sourcing. This means moving beyond seasonal, transactional contracts towards long-term, risk-sharing relationships. Here too, technology can support—via smart contracts, built on blockchain, which automate multi-year agreements tied to environmental outcomes. Interactive dashboards powered by traceability platforms also give sourcing teams, designers, and consumers clearer insight into where and how fibres were grown.

© Jean Wimmerlin / Unsplash

Yet, data and numbers alone isn’t enough. Because especially in the creative field, one must speak to designers, to artistic directors, and emotion is necessary. Visual expression is crucial, along sound and unique experiences, to touch us all and speak in today’s languages: That’s why tech-enabled "storytelling"—from augmented reality labels to digital passports—can play a key role in connecting us to the soil. Transparency must be both emotional and factual. Traceability provides the proof; storytelling provides the purpose. And all of this must make sense economically, for farmers and brands alike.

Technology is a catalyst, not the end goal

Regenerative agriculture challenges the fashion sector to move beyond sustainability, beyond offsetting, towards genuine reciprocity with nature. It’s a bold vision—and increasingly, one backed by data, digital tools, and investment.
Nevertheless, technology won’t regenerate the land on its own. But it can scale the effort, verify integrity, and support fairer value distribution across the chain. As Textile Exchange notes, “soil management should be based on constant care” (Lehmann, J. et al. “Persistence of Soil Organic Carbon Caused by Functional Complexity”² and tech can help scale that care without losing sight of local context.

The economic case is compelling. According to a BCG study in Germany, regenerative agriculture can increase farmer income by up to 60% after 6 to 10 years of progressive improvements.

The Rodale Institute suggests even greater potential.

Meanwhile, fashion and textile brands are beginning to shift from pledges to action. In a major move, Inditex invested €15 million into the Regenerative Fund for Nature, co-created by Kering and Conservation International in 2021, aiming to convert one million hectares of farmland to regenerative practices by 2026—targeting raw materials like cotton, wool, leather, and cashmere. Meanwhile, the Fashion Pact and 2050 are scaling their Unlock programme (funded in part by the Laudes Foundation) aiming to catalyse an increased adoption of lower-impact and regenerative farming practices, with 25 brands participating in the pilot phase, including J.Crew Group and House of Baukjen.

And in the venture space, Hugo Boss became the first fashion brand to invest in Collateral Good Ventures’ climate fund, focused on financing sustainable innovation across the industry, including regenerative agriculture. These strategic investments signal a broader industry shift: regeneration is no longer niche—it’s becoming foundational to future supply chain security.

The environmental stakes are equally high. If regenerative practices were applied globally, soils could store 2.5 billion tonnes of CO₂, and yields could increase by 30% under extreme weather, enhancing food and fibre resilience.

The message is simple: the cost of inaction will be far greater than the price of action. So the real question is—what can we put in place today?

> Read part 1: Beyond greenwashing: is regeneration the real deal?