Ask Marissa Brock, who ponders supply chains for a living, whether the fashion industry has girded its loins sufficiently for the deluge of transparency and traceability legislation coming down the pike from Europe, and her answer would be a resounding “not at all.”

While most apparel brands have by now come to grips with the provenance of their most commonly used raw materials—think cotton, polyester, wool, silk and cashmere—this is only the starting point, said Brock, senior director of policy and government affairs at New York-headquartered Sourcemap, which develops enterprise software for end-to-end supply chain visibility.

The “real risks,” she noted, lurk deeper in the supply chain with component makers, finished-goods manufacturers and brand licensees, whose diffuse and complex global networks make tracking metals, plastics and trims a heavier lift.

As sweeping EU sustainability mandates like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the Forced Labour Regulation, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation transition from policy ambitions to compliance non-negotiables, that readiness gap can easily escalate into a material business threat.

“What is evident is the cumulative effect for the industry: a system-wide change across every stage of the value chain, with multiple pieces of legislation landing at once,” said María Luisa Martínez Díez, vice president of public affairs at Global Fashion Agenda , the sustainability think tank that convenes the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen every June.

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