Why now
The regulatory environment for European fashion brands has shifted materially. CSRD requires large brands to report on supply chain conditions now, with mid-size companies entering scope progressively from 2026. The EU Green Claims rules apply from September 2026 — meaning any environmental claim on a label, product page, or campaign must be backed by a traceable evidence chain, not just a supplier certificate. The Digital Product Passport will require fibre-level traceability at product level from 2030. The direction of travel is consistent: upstream tiers that brands have historically ignored are now the ones regulators are asking about.
Most mid-size brands are not equipped to meet these obligations at depth. The documentation they hold stops at Tier 1. The brands that will find this manageable are those that have already built genuine relationships and real evidence chains further up the chain — at the mills, cooperatives, and fibre producers where most of the environmental and social risk actually sits.
What We Offer
We work with European and UK fashion brands at the point where textile sourcing decisions are made — and with Indian producers building the foundations for lasting partnerships.
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We maintain a curated network of mills, cooperatives, and producers in India working with natural and organic fibres — selected as much for the people and practices behind them as for the materials they produce.
Suppliers are vetted before a brief arrives, not assembled in response to one. When you have a sourcing requirement, we match it against this network, manage qualification, and support the early stages of relationship-building.
For brands exploring India as a sourcing origin, or looking for supplier relationships grounded in genuine practice.
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CSRD, the Digital Product Passport, the EU Deforestation Regulation, the Green Claims Directive — together, these create documentation requirements that go well beyond first-tier suppliers. Most brands are not equipped to meet them at depth.
We help brands understand what these obligations mean for their specific supply chains, identify gaps, and build the evidence trails that compliance requires — starting at fibre origin, with the people who grow and process it.
For brands preparing for reporting obligations, substantiating sustainability claims, or conducting supply chain due diligence.
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Some of the most genuine producers in India — with strong community relationships and exceptional materials — lack the documentation or process consistency to work reliably with European and UK buyers. The gap between their actual practice and their ability to demonstrate it is often the only barrier.
We work directly with these producers to close that gap. Not to create paperwork that obscures reality, but to bring documentation into line with genuine practice.
For producers seeking to develop export partnerships, and for brands that have found the right supplier and need support bringing the relationship to a workable standard.
We work with a small number of clients at a time. Get in touch to discuss.
Why India
India is the world's largest producer of cotton and a major source of linen, jute, and wool. Its textile sector includes some of the most technically capable natural fibre mills in the world — alongside cooperatives, social enterprises, and NGO-linked producers whose practices are genuinely aligned with what responsible sourcing requires.
The commercial case has also strengthened. The India-UK Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2025, eliminates tariffs of 10–12% on textile imports — making Indian-origin fabric meaningfully more price-competitive for UK brands. An India-EU agreement is under active negotiation. For brands currently sourcing from China, Turkey, or Bangladesh, India now offers a combination of material quality, ethical sourcing potential, and improving commercial terms that no other origin currently matches.
The barrier has never been the quality of what India produces. It has been the distance — commercial, documentary, and relational — between what the best Indian producers offer and what buyers are equipped to assess and work with.
That is the gap t.issu & co is built to close.