Textile Printing

From Fast to Responsible: Time to Fix Fashions Broken Global Supply Chain

Tuesday 04. November 2025 - The legislation, which includes a product eco-score, fines up to 10 per item by 2030, a ban on advertising, and penalties for influencers promoting ultra-fast fashion, is the boldest stance yet taken by a national government to curb fashions runaway impact.

By Guy Yaniv, President EMEA, Kornit Digital
On June 11, 2025, France made history. In a decisive move against the environmental toll of ultra-fast fashion, the French Senate passed a bill that could redefine how the global apparel industry operates.
France’s message is clear: the era of cheap, disposable clothing churned out by algorithm-fueled giants like Shein and Temu is incompatible with the future they want to build. Around the world, regulators, consumers, and investors are waking up to the fact that the apparel industry, as currently structured, is unsustainable, both environmentally and economically.
This isn’t just about penalties. It’s about paving the way for a smarter, cleaner, and more responsive apparel ecosystem. As we stand at the tipping point of regulatory disruption, companies across the digital production supply chain must understand the real opportunity lies in leading, not resisting this change.
A New Reality – Fixing What’s Broken
Regulators are responding to what the public already knows: the traditional fashion supply chain – long, wasteful, and opaque – no longer fits consumer expectations or planetary needs. Overproduction has become an endemic business model, with some estimates suggesting that over 30% of apparel is never sold at full price, much of it destined for landfills or incinerators.
But these recent actions towards a more sustainable future are only a symptom of the larger issue. The fashion supply chain is broken – and has been for quite some time. It’s by far the world’s oldest, largest, most complex supply chain – yet holistically inefficient – resulting in overproduction, needless markdowns, supply chain disruption and waste. Unfortunately, the status quo isn’t affordable or profitable anymore. There needs to be a better way to manage not only what market disruptions (such as sustainability initiatives) come, but to fix an outdated system.
Adapting to new market forces like sustainability requires producers to inject agility into the market, because waste is no longer an unfortunate side effect. It’s a liability, one that brands, retailers, and manufacturers will increasingly be forced to address.
Speed Isn’t the Problem. Waste Is.
For years, sustainability was seen as a cost center: something to be offset, marketed, or minimized. But in a world of regulatory penalties, shifting consumer values, and volatile supply chains, the equation has flipped.
Sustainable production is no longer a moral imperative. It’s a strategic necessity:
• Brands that embrace on-demand, localized production gain resilience – reducing dependency on complex global logistics.
• Real-time inventory management reduces working capital needs and boosts margins.• Transparency and traceability open the door to premium positioning, loyalty, and compliance.
Some critics equate speed with harm, but speed itself is not the enemy. Responsiveness, when paired with transparency and sustainability, is a competitive advantage. The problem with ultra-fast fashion isn’t how quickly it delivers, but how recklessly it produces.
That’s why the next generation of fashion must be both fast and responsible. Companies are finally starting to embrace a long advocated for a smarter approach to apparel production, one that flips the script from overproduction to on-demand manufacturing. Now, that vision is no longer a niche idea. It’s becoming a regulatory necessity.
With digital printing technologies that eliminate water waste, reduce chemical usage, and cut lead times from months to days, companies like Kornit are empowering brands to create collections based on real demand, not projections.
Flipping the Script to On-Demand Production
The goal is to build a technology infrastructure for sustainable digital textile production, empowering brands to produce only what sells, closer to the point of need, with minimal waste. Making this possible, it’s critical to inject agility into the market with the ability to design, produce and deliver apparel and fashion in real-time.
The rule is a model that is fast, flexible and on-demand – with demand determining supply, not the other way around. The key is production postponement, letting buyers guide the production process. This not only reduces waste, but offers significant advantages in terms of inventory management, cost optimization and flexibility.
As opposed to stocking up on inventory, on-demand production enables retailers to only manufacture products when they’re ordered by customers. This reduces the risk of excess inventory, especially for seasonal products or niche markets and eliminates warehousing and related costs. And YES, it also addresses the inefficiency and waste these new laws are hoping to achieve.
The Time is Now to Deliver Results
Companies such as Kornit Digital are actively helping retailers, brands and producers tackle these challenges by working with an ecosystem of partners to drive agility across the market. For more than 25 years, the company has been dedicated to making fashion more sustainable – and a new ecosystem is critical to realizing this goal.
Aligning with such companies as MAS ACME USA and Syrup Technologies means boosting agility into an outdated production supply chain. By aligning Kornit digital production systems with MAS ACME USA – a holistic North American supply chain orchestration hub – customers, retailers and brands can now more quickly realize the vision of data-driven fashion production to become more sustainable and profitable. Taking this one step further is a relationship with Syrup Technology’s AI-powered on-demand production platform. This integration now enables precise inventory forecasting to dramatically reduce overstock and markdowns.
Together, it’s laying the foundation for an “apparel operating system” built on data, responsiveness, and accountability, not guesswork and volume.
And we’re seeing actual results today. Some customers have already reported cutting sample waste by 90 percent using design and proofing. Others report up to 80 percent reduction in water usage and 50 percent energy savings compared to analog processes. This isn’t hypothetical. It’s already in motion.
The Future Isn’t Fast – It’s Flexible
As regulation tightens and scrutiny intensifies, winners in the apparel industry are those who can adapt, iterate, and innovate. The future of fashion won’t be measured in how many units you ship, but how intelligently you meet demand, with minimal waste, local agility, and creative freedom.
The apparel industry doesn’t need a patch or a pivot. It needs a new operating system. And it must happen today – before any future market disruptions put the industry even further behind.
Guy Yaniv is President EMEA at Kornit Digital, a global leader in sustainable, on-demand digital textile production.