Changemakers in fashion (part 4): Baptiste Carrière-Pradal, co-founder and director of 2B Policy

Baptiste Carriere-Pradal, Co Founder and Director of 2B Policy Credits: Lotte Dale

There are countless sustainability initiatives, but who in the fashion industry is truly driving the transition, whether their efforts are visible to the general public or not? We interview changemakers, consultants, sustainable fashion experts and activists. What can we learn from their work?

In this fourth instalment, FashionUnited spoke with Baptiste Carriere-Pradal, a French sustainability and legislation expert based in Amsterdam with over 25 years of experience in the fashion industry. He is the co-founder and director of 2B Policy, a consultancy company that supports fashion stakeholders, textile companies and other organisations to navigate ESG policy and legislations.

Fashionising change (part 4): Baptiste Carrière-Pradal on turning policy into progress

1. Can you introduce yourself and provide an overview of your professional background and expertise?

My name is Baptiste Carrière-Pradal. I started my career in the early 2000s with labour rights in supply chains, first in Eastern Europe, then in Asia and particularly Bangladesh, at a time when production was expanding rapidly. My focus was always on helping brands understand and address risks tied to human rights and compliance. That led me to head sustainability at Decathlon, where I helped pioneer environmental product footprinting and communicating this to consumers, well before it was standard industry practice.

Later, I joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, now Cascale, to broaden the impact across the industry. There, I launched the Social & Labor Convergence Program, aimed at harmonizing how social performance is measured.

In 2020, after having worked for an independent brand and then in industry collaboration, I shifted my thinking. I believed that, given the size and atomisation of the sector, meaningful legislation would become the biggest driver of change. That’s why I decided to launch my own organisation, working at the intersection between sustainability and legislation, to ensure that the sector would make the best of this opportunity.

2. How do you support fashion businesses today? And what work and projects are you most proud of so far?

At 2B Policy, we help organisations navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainability legislation. Most sustainability teams don’t have the time, resources, or legal expertise to interpret complex policy texts. That’s where we come in: translating legislation into clear, actionable strategies from practical implementation, like how to comply with the EU deforestation law, eco-design requirements, or France’s environmental labelling rules, to long-term strategic planning. Our clients include SMEs, sports and luxury brands, industry platforms and sustainability tool providers.

Whether it’s breaking down what matters, identifying the impact, or helping organisations act with confidence, our goal is the same: to keep businesses ahead of regulatory shifts, de-risk their supply chains and prepare for systemic change. In today’s landscape, understanding policy isn’t just compliance, it’s a competitive edge.

One of the broader policy projects I’m most proud of is the recently completed Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) for apparel and footwear, aimed at creating a single, harmonized method to assess and compare the environmental impact of textile and footwear products.

It was a five-year effort involving hundreds of brands and diverse stakeholders from fiber associations to luxury, sports, and fashion players. The process was complex and at times controversial, but we succeeded in reaching a collective compromise. The final PFCR was submitted to the European Commission, which has now validated it, and officially launched in Brussels earlier this year (May 2025).

I’m equally proud to have co-founded and chaired the Policy Hub, which now operates independently, as a central platform uniting the fashion industry around EU sustainability legislation and a critical voice in shaping policy frameworks that affect the sector.

3. What’s your advice to fashion executives navigating sustainability?

First, understand that legislation is a catalyst for change. Most of the laws simply formalize what responsible companies should already be doing.

Second, laws will continue to evolve and despite their different focus - whether deforestation, forced labour or carbon emissions - most regulations all come down to the same: businesses must deepen their understanding of their supply chains, take ownership of what happens within them and will be (more) accountable for their overall impact.

I also want to emphasize that beyond compliance, the urgency is clear. We’re having this conversation on one of the hottest days ever recorded in Europe, and it’s only June, a reminder that climate change is no longer a distant threat, but a current reality.

Delaying action brings real risk. The sector is already facing increasingly stringent regulation, and those who wait may soon find themselves facing stricter rules, tighter deadlines, and reduced flexibility. To remain competitive, resilient and credible, now is the time to act.

4. What advice do you have for companies looking to move faster and drive real change?

If you want to drive real change, start by prioritizing. Fashion’s value chains are incredibly complex, and it's easy to get lost trying to fix everything at once. Focus on the most material issues, then phase the rest. We live and work in a world of limited resources, targeted action brings greater impact.

Collaboration is essential. Some issues you can address internally, but most demand cooperation with peers, suppliers or actors beyond your value chain.”

Think about traceability. It’s not just for sustainability, but for business resilience too. If you don’t know where your cotton comes from, you won’t know how tariffs or other trade risks affect you. Often, what you do to manage social or environmental risk will also benefit other areas of your business.

5. Where do you see the future of fashion heading?

There’s a constant race toward faster and cheaper, but it brings serious challenges. When I started, fast fashion was the concern, now we’re confronting ultra-fast fashion from Shein and Temu and we may soon be dealing with ultra-ultra-fast models. These cycles are speeding up, and the bottom of the market keeps shifting. But what rarely changes are the major players at the top. The luxury giants Chanel, Hermès, Louis Vuitton remain remarkably stable and will likely still lead the pyramid a decade from now. That tells us something. I’m not praising the ultra fast fashion business models, but what I am trying to say is that we need to understand their growth and impact.

Fighting fast fashion alone is like chasing unicorns, it won’t stop the system. Instead, I believe in real, systemic solutions. Textile-to-textile recycling is one of them. It’s not a silver bullet, but it has real potential to reduce the industry’s environmental pressure. If we can scale recycling and reduce virgin material use, we’ll be one step closer to a closed-loop system, something that’s already in place in other industries. That’s where I see real opportunity, and where legislation can truly accelerate change.

Related reads:

Next month, a new Changemakers interview will be published. If you have a recommendation for a strong candidate to consider for this series, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@fashionunited.com.

Sources:
- Interview Baptiste Carriere-Pradal on June 30, 2025.
- AI tools were used to transcribe the interview and to support the writing of this article, particularly in rephrasing and simplifying quotes.

Background

Changemakers

Circular Fashion

ESG

Recycling

Sustainable Fashion

Workinfashion