#wool

Textile Exchange named Theory, owned by Fast Retailing, among winners of its 2026 Climate and Nature Impact Awards at its annual conference in Vancouver, FashionUnited reports. Theory shared the Collaboration for Global Impact Award with Australia's Congi Farm, Sea Forest and Italian mill Botto Giuseppe for a pilot that fed the seaweed-based supplement SeaFeed to 2,000 Merino sheep for 120 days.

The pilot cut enteric methane by 43%, avoiding about 54.5 tonnes of CO2e, and the wool went into Theory's spring 2026 Regal Wool collection. Theory's Gonzalo Pertile said the lessons on "measurement, traceability, cost, and scalability" mattered as much as the results. Other winners included Green Worms founder Jabir Karat, Amiha Agro's Amitabh Singh for regenerative cotton and the Circulose recycling ecosystem.

An Ipsos survey commissioned by Woolmark across the US, France, Germany, Italy and China found that, on average, 82% of consumers prefer natural fibres over synthetics when price, style and fit are equal, and 65% prefer Merino to polyester, FashionUnited reports. Sixty-seven percent said they would pay more for clothes made mainly from natural fibres, and 71% said independent verification of fibre content matters.

The survey coincided with Woolmark's "Natural Intelligence" report, which includes four years of research with North Carolina State University on how Merino base layers keep a steadier next-to-skin microclimate during stop-start activity.