Business case

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Reduced use and withdrawal of water and rate of recycling and reuse of water

Save Water (SDG6)

Reduced use of fossil fuel energy sources and/or increased use of renewable energy

Reduce Energy Consumption

Producing textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

Account for the systems perspective during the design process, to use the right materials, to design for appropriate lifetime and to design for extended future use

Design for the future

Engaging in discussions with industry stakeholders to share circular economy best practices and push the industry towards greater circularity

Guidance, dialogue with industry stakeholders

Developing or utilising online platforms to enable circular economy opportunities through information, product or service offering

Online platforms

Solutions at all stages of the textiles value chain.

Zero Waste Textiles

Other

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

Urban Opportunities

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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We believe that Good Fashion is not only possible, it is within reach — what the industry lacks are the resources, tools and incentives to put it into relentless practice. Our mission at Fashion for Good is to bring together the entire fashion ecosystem through our Innovation Platform and as a convenor for change.
The ‘Good’ in Fashion for Good™
Good fashion is not fashion that simply looks good or is mostly good. It is good in five important ways:
 Good Materials  –  safe, healthy and designed for reuse and recycling
Good Economy  – growing, circular, shared and benefiting everyone
Good Energy  – renewable and clean
Good Water  – clean and available to all
Good Lives  – living and working conditions that are just, safe and dignified

“The Five Goods represent an aspirational framework we can all use to work towards a world in which we do not simply take, make, waste, but rather take, make, renew, restore.” 
– William McDonough, Co-founder Fashion for Good

By sharing ‘The Five Goods’ widely with practicality and wisdom, and by demonstrating that they can create good fashion that is more attractive, accessible and affordable than its opposite, Fashion for Good will guide the sector with an aspirational model that all can use; a genuine and accountable framework with the promise of social, economic and environmental prosperity.  LEARN ABOUT THE FIVE GOODS (5 MB)  

Fashion for Good is a global initiative to inspire change and drive the collective movement to make fashion a force for good. We work directly with the fashion industry to innovate towards solutions that are better for people and the planet and empower behaviour change through our sustainable fashion Museum. 

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Fashion for Good

Fashion for Good is a global platform for innovation, made through collaboration and community. The organization aims to improve the fashion industry for the better with 'The Five Goods': Good Materials, Good Economy, Good Energy, Good Water and Good Lives. To drive their agenda, Fashion for Good collaborates with brands and supports start-ups with funding and expertise.

Collaborating with brands to change the fashion industry for the better

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This collection has been built by a community of passionate researchers, students, and industry professionals as part of <a href="https://worldcirculartextilesday.com/" target="_blank">World Circular Textiles Day</a> (WCTD). 


World Circular Textiles Day takes place every year on 8th October. Our vision is to galvanise the collective ambitions and goals of people, organisations and businesses to reach a fully circular textiles world by 2050. Our mission is to provide a framework for circularity stakeholders to develop and deliver a collaborative, evolving roadmap and to chart circularity’s momentum annually from the 8th of October until 2050.

What does fully circular by 2050 mean?
- Shared textile resources, in the form of products and raw materials, are kept in **continual circulation**.
- Virgin resources are **replaced with circular materials**.
- Dignity, equity, and equality for the **people** involved in all parts of the circular value chain.

We need to know where we stand today to chart how to get to 100% Circularity by 2050. What circular activity is currently happening in the textiles and apparel industry, and where in the world is it happening? The WCTD Collection aims to answer this question by building the world’s largest digital library of circular textiles case studies. 

World Circular Textiles Day is proud to be supported by our 2022-23 Circular Hero Partners:
[Lenzing](https://www.lenzing.com/), [Texaid](https://retailsolutions.texaid.com/), [Bank & Vogue](https://www.bankvogue.com/), [Usha yarns limited](https://ushayarns.com/), [The Conduit](https://www.theconduit.com/), and [Asia Pacific Rayon](https://www.aprayon.com/en/)

## Want to contribute to the WCTD Collection? Sign up and add your circular textiles activities.

World Circular Textiles Day

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Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Operating networks and software that enable the exchange and broadcasting of information, such as entertainment and internet software, television, cable, satellite or radio broadcasting systems, and cellular, wireless and/or fixed-line telecommunications services

Software and Communications

Installing sensors to gather data from products and services to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Sensors, monitoring systems

Increase standardised data collection

VISION:
Products and services are designed for multiple use and material value retention, with maximum positive impact.

DETAIL: 
Imagine a time when…products flow via optimal collection and distribution streams into reusable and repairable product platforms. Reuse and access models are dominant, and products are designed for multiple recirculation before biodegrading (if designed to do so), or being broken down into reusable raw materials for production. People only consume what they need. Production and consumption wastes have been fully eliminated and multifunctional, season-less and timeless fashions are the norm, yet still fulfil our human need for expression and creativity without constraint. All business models, organisations, governments and citizens play a role in maintaining a healthy, functioning circular ecosystem.

Products and Services

A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policy Instruments

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

It is 2050.  Full systems change has taken place. This wouldn’t have been possible without the immediate action and radical steps taken from 2020 onwards. Many targets had to be identified in the early 2020s and achieved by 2030 to ensure that the 2050 goal happened in full. A sense of urgency, turbo stakeholder collaboration, supportive government regulation and clear, data driven targets enabled the mindsets and systems change needed to transform to a fully circular textiles ecosystem.

A circular economics model underpins what we have created. It reflects and supports a living organism made up of makers, users and restorers, interacting across vibrant and interconnected networks. Checks and balances, alongside transparency and accountability, ensure a healthy system. Financial, environmental, and social metrics have the purpose of serving communities and the planet. There is shared ownership of profit and loss – across all three metrics – throughout the value chain.

This is what we’ve achieved over the last 30 years:

WCTD Themes

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Global sustainability initiative Fashion for Good reported the successful completion of its Viscose Traceability Pilot in time for World Rainforest Day on 22nd June 2021. The pilot is a consortium project with partners Bestseller and Kering and supported by Zalando to trace sustainable viscose in garments using innovator TextileGenesis’ blockchain tracing solution. 

Bestseller and Kering each contributed four garment styles, totalling around 23,000 product units, which were cataloged and successfully tracked on the TextileGenesis platform. The garments were made with varying compositions from 100 percent sustainable viscose produced by Lenzing, ENKA and Tangshan Sanyou to blends with generic fibres. They were traced through 25 suppliers from seven countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Turkey, India, Bangladesh and China. 

“Fashion for Good initiates projects such as the Viscose Traceability Pilot to share knowledge and learnings attained in critical challenge areas with the entire industry. Specifically, we want to inspire all players, innovators, suppliers and brands, to work towards and implement changes with the potential to shift the needle. We’re calling for industry-wide collaboration to embed and build on traceability solutions within the value chain, and ensure the protection of natural resources and forests,” said Katrin Ley, managing director, Fashion for Good, in a press release.

“The Viscose Traceability Pilot we’ve joined, led by Fashion For Good, is one of the options we’re looking at to support us in reaching our goal of 100 percent traceability for our key materials by 2025,” added Christian Tubito, head of materials innovation at Kering.

Three key dimensions: flexibility, interoperability and scalability

Three key dimensions were determined to be proof points against which to measure the success of the TextileGenesis platform and the pilot: flexibility, interoperability and scalability. 
Flexibility was achieved using Fibercoins as blockchain-based digital tokens that provide a “digital twin” for sustainable fibres, thus capturing the broad, real-world complexity of vertically-integrated suppliers and covering steps from fibre production through to garment production, and highly fragmented supply chains. 
 

“Once a fibre is produced, every kilogram of that fibre is represented in the platform by one Fibercoin. Supply chain players can transfer these digital coins in parallel to the production of textile products as they move through the supply chain”, explained Fashion for Good.

Textile Genesis platform operates across all standards, platforms and industries

Interoperability was achieved by the fact that the TextileGenesis platform is able to operate across all standards, platforms and industries, aggregating and incorporating these into a single system, for example Lenzing’s and ENKA’s unique physical traceability techniques. This allows brands visibility over their products and demonstrates its industry wide application. 

“This was a true cross-industry consortium approach with broad engagement of brands, sustainable fibre producers, textile suppliers, and key industry stakeholders. In this pilot, we demonstrated that the digital supply chain traceability and physical tracer verification are complementary (not substitutes), and along with the traceability data protocol form the building blocks of a holistic system. Our vision is to become the industry’s technology backbone where fibre-to-retail supply chain transactions of all sustainable materials can be verified and tracked in a robust, reliable and scalable manner,” commented Amit Gautam, CEO and founder of Textile Genesis.

Simultaneously on-boarding the 25 suppliers in a short span of four to six weeks, who were able to independently use the system after a single training session, demonstrated the scalability of the platform in terms of rapid on-boarding of suppliers and ease of use.  
“With an estimated 30 percent of viscose sourced from endangered forests, the validation of TextileGenesis’ solution is an important step towards transparency in the value chain, and ensuring fibres originate from renewable sources. Proving the flexibility, interoperability as well as scalability of the TextileGenesis platform has prompted participating brands to explore further implementation of the technology, expanding the scope for viscose to also include other fibres,” said Fashion for Good. 

Taking the project beyond viscose

Given the success of the pilot project, Fashion for Good is now planning to scale the TextileGenesis platform and solution together with its partners beyond viscose to include other sustainable fibres such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. 

“Six other fibre players will independently be engaged in pilots for sustainable viscose, recycled polyester and organic cotton. Lenzing and Tangshan will continue to be engaged in the scaling phase of these pilots. This roadmap will also leverage TextileGenesis’ partnership with Textile Exchange, whom they are supporting to digitise traceability in their certifications, including recycled polyester, responsible wool or down and later organic cotton,” explained the organisation. 

“In this pilot, Bestseller has successfully traced more than 22,500 styles. We believe in the potential of this solution and have just agreed to an upscaled second pilot where we will double the number of supply chain partners – including spinners, weavers and manufacturers – and trace one million styles through a fibre-based approach. Starting out with viscose, we are now looking into organic cotton as well as the compatibility with Bestsellerś existing digital systems – achieving one success at a time,” confirmed Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, sustainable materials & innovation manager at Bestseller. 


 22th June 2021
AMSTERDAM – Today, on World Rainforest Day, Fashion for Good celebrates the successful completion of the Viscose Traceability Pilot, a consortium project with Fashion for Good partners BESTSELLER and Kering to trace sustainable viscose in garments using innovator TextileGenesis’ blockchain tracing solution. With an estimated 30% of viscose sourced from endangered forests, the validation of TextileGenesis’ solution, is an important step towards transparency in the value chain, and ensuring fibres originate from renewable sources.
Proving the flexibility, interoperability as well as scalability of the TextileGenesis platform has prompted participating brands to explore further implementation of the technology, expanding the scope for viscose to also include other fibres.
 “Fashion for Good initiates projects such as the Viscose Traceability Pilot to share knowledge and learnings attained in critical challenge areas with the entire industry. Specifically, we want to inspire all players, innovators, suppliers and brands, to work towards and implement changes with the potential to shift the needle. We’re calling for industry-wide collaboration to embed and build on traceability solutions within the value chain, and ensure the protection of natural resources and forests.” – Katrin Ley, Managing Director, Fashion for Good
Facilitated by Fashion for Good, the consortium project is a collaboration with BESTSELLER and Kering with support from Zalando. BESTSELLER and Kering each contributed four garment styles, totalling around 23,000 product units which were cataloged and successfully tracked on the TextileGenesis platform. The garments, made with varying compositions; from 100% sustainable viscose – produced by Lenzing, ENKA and Tangshan Sanyou, to blends with generic fibres, were traced through 25 suppliers from seven countries; Austria, Germany, Italy, Turkey, India, Bangladesh, and China.
“At Kering we believe that innovation is crucial to reach our sustainability targets. Part of the work we’re doing at our Materials Innovation Lab since 2013 is to identify materials that can lower our impact on people and the planet while continuing offering our Luxury Houses fabrics and textiles that meet the highest standards of quality for their collections. The Viscose Traceability Pilot we’ve joined, led by Fashion For Good, is one of the options we’re looking at to support us in reaching our goal of 100% traceability for our key materials by 2025.” – Christian Tubito, Head of Materials Innovation, Kering
THREE KEY PROOF POINTS PROVIDED
Three key dimensions were determined to be proof points against which to measure the success of the TextileGenesis platform and the pilot; flexibility, interoperability and scalability.
FLEXIBILITY: CAPTURING REAL-WORLD COMPLEXITY
The TextileGenesis platform uses Fibercoins as their blockchain based digital tokens which provide a “digital twin” for sustainable fibres. Once a fibre is produced, every kilogram of that fibre is represented in the platform by one Fibercoin. Supply chain players can transfer these digital coins in parallel to the production of textile products as they move through the supply chain.
Thanks to this tokenisation model, the platform demonstrated its flexibility in capturing the broad, real-world complexity of vertically-integrated suppliers, covering steps from fibre production through to garment production, and highly fragmented supply chains. This provided new insights on product flow while also illustrating the importance of combining both physical tracers and digital components, to amplify one another towards a more robust traceability system.
INTEROPERABILITY; COMBINING THE DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL
With many traceability technologies on the market today, the TextileGenesis platform is able to operate across all standards, platforms and industries, aggregating and incorporating these into a single system. This allows brands visibility over their products and demonstrates its industry wide application.
The incorporation of physical tracer certificates demonstrates the interoperability of the platform, that is its ability to communicate and aggregate information from other systems. Through this consortium project, future upgrades of the TextileGenesis platform will integrate Canopy Hot-Button Ranking data and next generation viscose lines which will not only be available to the participating pilot brands, but to all other brands using the platform.
As part of this pilot, the unique physical traceability techniques used by Lenzing and ENKA were incorporated onto the platform and, for the first time ever, different physical traceability techniques were integrated in a single platform at the garment-level.
SCALABILITY
Simultaneously on-boarding the 25 suppliers in a short span of four to six weeks, they were able to independently use the system after a single training session – indicating the scalability of the platform in terms of rapid on-boarding of suppliers and ease of use.
“In this pilot, BESTSELLER has successfully traced more than 22,500 styles. We believe in the potential of this solution and have just agreed to an upscaled second pilot where we will double the number of supply chain partners – including spinners, weavers and manufacturers – and trace one million styles through a fibre-based approach. Starting out with viscose, we are now looking into organic cotton as well as the compatibility with BESTSELLER’s existing digital systems – achieving one success at a time.” – Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, Sustainable Materials & Innovation Manager, BESTSELLER
EXPANDING IN VISCOSE AND SCALING INTO OTHER FIBRES
Due to the success of this pilot, the TextileGenesis platform and solution will be scaled with Fashion for Good partners beyond viscose to include other sustainable fibres such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. Six other fibre players will independently be engaged in pilots for sustainable viscose, recycled polyester, and organic cotton. Lenzing and Tangshan will continue to be engaged in the scaling phase of these pilots. This roadmap will also leverage TextileGenesis’ partnership with Textile Exchange, whom they are supporting to digitise traceability in their certifications, including recycled polyester, responsible wool or down, and later organic cotton.

“This was a true cross-industry consortium approach with broad engagement of brands, sustainable fibre producers, textile suppliers, and key industry stakeholders. In this pilot, we demonstrated that the digital supply chain traceability and physical tracer verification are complementary (not substitutes), and along with the traceability data protocol form the building blocks of a holistic system. Our vision is to become the industry’s technology backbone where fibre-to-retail supply chain transactions of all sustainable materials can be verified and tracked in a robust, reliable and scalable manner.” – Amit Gautam, CEO and Founder, Textile Genesis
Read more about the project and its outcomes on the Fashion for Good Resource Library 

  Our vision is two fold: creating radical transparency from fiber-to-retail, and ensuring authenticity & provenance of sustainable textiles against generics.   TextileGenesis™ platform is an outcome of intensive “grass-root” discussions with the entire apparel supply chain from fiber producers, fabric mills, dyeing house, cut & sew, to retail brands.   It's custom-built for the premium and sustainable textiles such as wood-based fibers, premium cotton, specialty filaments, silk, wool and cashmere.  Our technology secures brand reputation against fakes, creates article level transparency from fiber-to-retail, and drives value-chain inventory optimization. 

India

London

Hong Kong

TextileGenesis™ is a pioneering traceability platform custom built for the apparel ecosystem.  


TextileGenesis

Traceability and transparency are key factors in accelerating the transition to a circular economy in the textile industry. However, the supply chain is complex, and to meet the requirements to achieve the right traceability and transparency, it is necessary to extract information from the fibre production, passing through the production of clothing, covering the entire life cycle of the garment. To meet these requirements, the TextileGenesis platform was used in a pilot for viscose traceability in partnership with FashionForGood and the Bestseller and Kering brands. As a result of the pilot project, brands were able to catalogue and track around 23,000 units of products through the TextileGenesis platform, thus providing greater visibility, interoperability and scalability throughout the supply chain.

Viscose Traceability Pilot From TextileGenesis Platform

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Article / Report

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Contributing to the improvement of biodiversity including species diversity, total number of protected species, and ecosystem health

Biodiversity

Producing and gathering crop and animal products from land and water through farming, hunting, and fishing

Agriculture

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within the same industry

Valorise waste streams - closed loop

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within the same industry

Using closed loop recycled materials

Advocate for circular change

VISION:
Raw materials are renewable, recyclable and safe, kept in continual circulation.

DETAIL:
Imagine a time when…the raw materials that are used to make things are sourced from existing products and regenerative agriculture, via carbon negative and climate neutral processes. Biodegradable raw materials are used for products with biodegradable end routes. Toxic chemicals have been washed out of the global materials pool, disposed of safely and replaced with beneficial alternatives. Virgin fibres made from fossil fuels have been banned, while secondary synthetic fibres, derived from what was already in the system, are kept in constant circulation as a resource. Circularity accounting methods, built on science-based metrics, help to manage a balanced system of resources, across all industries, and in line with the planet’s environmental limits.

Raw Materials and Planetary Boundaries

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

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Europe

Belgium

Fashion for Good published a report in September 2020 highlighting how chemical recycling technologies of cellulose based textiles, could aid to the sustainable innovation for Man-Made Cellulosic Fibres (MMCF). Textile waste could be a more efficient source of cellulose to be regenerated in MMCF compared to wood: 1 tonne of cotton waste can generate 1 tonne of cellulosic pulp, while 2.5/3 tonnes of wood are require to produce the same output.

Closing the loop of Man-Made Cellulosic Fibres through chemical recycling

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

Scalability

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

Utilise waste streams as a source of secondary resources and recover waste for reuse and recycling

Use waste as a resource

Use digital, online platforms and technologies that provide insights to track and optimise resource use, strengthen connections between supply chain actors, and enable the implementation of circular models



Incorporate digital technology

Give products and parts another life after their end-of-use

Maximise lifetime of products after use

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Industry peers to industry peer collaboration to create joint value and identify synergies

Industry collaboration

Employ technologies to gather and analyse data to provide insights on resource use

Data and insights

Activities to clean, decorate, and restore products back to working condition for original or new purposes

Refurbishment, remanufacturing, renovation

Working together with stakeholders and parties in other unrelated industries to implement circular economy strategies and opportunities

Cross-industry projects, pilots

Connecting products and services into the internet of things to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Internet enabled, connected operations

Research and facilitate new technological developments to aid the transition to a circular economy.

Research and Development

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

 Develop research, structure knowledge, encourage innovation networks and disseminate findings with integrity


Strengthen and advance knowledge

Manufactured goods, such as vehicles, textiles, appliances and equipment and their associated production processes are big employers but:
- production processes often rely on fossil fuels and currently drive one-third of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its GHG production, 
- material- and energy-intensive industrial activities are linked to deforestation and drive 15% on both the land use and freshwater planetary boundaries, 
- manufacturing goods results in substantial amounts of hazardous industrial waste and leaks chemicals into the environment.

Here, circular solutions must tackle the full value chain, but material demand must also shrink: this will necessitate a societal shift to favouring sufficiency over excess and reducing consumption to sustainable levels. Our four key solutions for manufactured goods are:
- Mainstream industrial symbiosis and efficiency : Achieve process improvements, scrap diversion and reduction in yield losses through greater industrial symbiosis and efficiency. Foster tighter collaboration within and between industries to deliver powerful material and emissions savings.
- Extend the lifetime of machinery, equipment, and goods: Maximise the lifetime of goods that serve our daily needs to bring a number of environmental benefits. 
- Buy what's needed: Reduce the number of purchases of common electronic goods, appliances, and other equipment to sufficiency levels. 
- Eschew fast fashion in favour of sustainable textiles: Drastically reduce new clothing purchases. All used clothing should go on to be repaired, reused or, if needed, recycled appropriately. Prioritise natural and local textile manufacturing, as well as higher-quality and more durable garments. 




👕📱 Consumer Goods

The demand for transport is rising globally—but current modes are heavily material- and fossil-fuels-intensive. Emissions from the transport system could grow by 60% by 2050, and transport is the number-one user of oil worldwide. GHG emissions result not only in warming global temperatures, but also in ocean acidification, which has severe consequences for entire ecosystems and further destabilises our climate. The transport system also drives land-use change and biodiversity loss through the development of infrastructure—also releasing harmful pollutants into the ocean. Key circular solutions:

- Embrace and enable car-free lifestyles
- Invest in high-quality public transport
- Rethink unnecessary air travel
- Electrify remaining vehicles

🚌 Mobility Systems

Businesses

Slow strategies aim to keep materials in use for as long as possible, for example through design for durability and repairability. A more circular economy is also a slower one: materials, components, and products—and even buildings and infrastructure—that we lock in stocks are made to last. This will lower material demand in the long run, in essence also serving to narrow resource flows.

Slow

Thematic Areas

City Stakeholders

 20th May 2021
AMSTERDAM – The amount of discarded textiles is increasing annually, with projections of further acceleration. Although some of this waste is reused, a significant proportion is diverted for recycling. To create the necessary infrastructure to effectively recycle these textiles, an understanding of their material composition is needed. The current textile sorting system, which relies heavily on manual input, cannot provide accurate insights given often unreliable and absent clothing labels.
Today, Fashion for Good launches the Sorting for Circularity Project to address this challenge on a scale greater than ever before. Bringing together key brands and industry leaders from across Europe, the project will conduct a comprehensive textile waste analysis using more accurate, innovative Near Infrared (NIR) technology, while also mapping textile recycler’s capabilities. This research will lead to an open digital platform to match textile waste from sorters with recyclers, enabling their alignment and building an infrastructure towards greater circularity in the years to come. “The aim of the 18 month project is to create a greater link between textile sorters and textile recyclers; stimulating a recycling market for unwanted textiles that can generate new revenue streams for sorters. Traditionally, the sorting industry generates income through the sale of reusable textiles, with the remainder being downcycled, incinerated or landfilled. To achieve a circular system, a new end-market for non-reusable textile is required, with an infrastructure and digital matching system that can support activities of sorters and recyclers” – Katrin Ley, Managing Director – Fashion for Good
The Sorting for Circularity Project is driven by Fashion for Good with catalytic funding provided by Laudes Foundation and facilitated by brand partners, adidas, BESTSELLER, and Zalando, as well as Inditex as an external partner. Fashion for Good partners Arvind Limited, Birla Cellulose, Levi Strauss & Co., Otto and PVH Corp. are participating as part of the wider working group. Circle Economy leads the creation and implementation of the methodology, with support from Refashion, to assess textile waste composition. Both organisations build on their extensive experience from similar projects, such as the Interreg Fibersort Project and previous textile composition analyses.
The analysis will provide the most representative snapshot of textile waste composition generated in Europe. What is more, Fashion for Good and Circle Economy will map the current and future capabilities of textile recyclers in the region – illuminating crucial gaps between the sorting and recycling industry, and the innovation, investment and policy changes required to accelerate circularity.
Findings from this research will ultimately enable sorters to take action through the support of a digital platform that matches their textile waste with recyclers. This open-source platform will bring greater transparency, spark greater harmonisation between the industries, and ensure the learnings contribute to foundational change for the industry at large.
The project brings together the largest industrial textile sorters in the North-West European region; including the Boer Group, I:CO (a part of SOEX Group), JMP Wilcox (a part of Textile Recycling International) and TEXAID, placing key industry players firmly at the heart of the project and driving the industry towards greater circularity.
The French accredited Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) eco-organisation Refashion, a key project partner, provides input into the methodology and leads the NIR scanner calibration. Aligning the Sorting for Circularity Project with their own study in France ensures methodologies and findings can be standardised, compared and implemented on a larger scale. 

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Amsterdam

Refashion

OUR MISSION IS TO ACCELERATE THE PRACTICAL AND SCALABLE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

At Circle Economy, we believe in a visionary future for our planet — one in which we do not have to compromise in order to achieve economic, social, and environmental prosperity. As an impact organisation, we connect and empower a global community to create the conditions for systemic transformation. With nature as our mentor, we work alongside businesses, cities and governments to identify opportunities to make the transition to the circular economy, and provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable solutions to turn these opportunities into reality.
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Our mission is to empower a global community of businesses, cities and governments to accelerate the transition to the circular economy through practical and scalable insights and solutions that address humanity’s greatest challenges.

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Circle Economy

Fashion for Good launched their Sorting for Circularity Project in May of 2021 to help drive textile recycling through technological innovation. The 18 month-long project utilizes Near Infrared (NIR) technology to conduct an accurate, comprehensive textile waste analysis across Europe and maps the capabilities of textile recyclers. The project's research will aid in the creation of an open digital platform with the ability to match textile waste from sorters to recyclers. The platform is intended to foster alignment between these stakeholders in the development of circular infrastructure.

Fashion for Good: Sorting for Circularity Project

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Providing various support services for businesses and governments, such as research, testing, certification and consulting services, cleaning and maintenance services, security and protection services, legal, accounting and bookkeeping services, information management, data processing, and business process outsourcing services

Research & Commercial Services

Producing and refining oil, gas, and other consumable fuels related to the generation of energy

Consumable Fuels

Producing basic and specialty chemicals, inks, agricultural chemical such as fertilisers and pesticides, plastics including packaging, and rubber

Chemical and Plastic

Using bio-based materials such as bioplastics, mushroom-based materials, etc.

Alternative bio-based materials and inputs

Enacting measures that optimise material use such as 3D printing, etc.

Material efficiency

Using <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/information-on-chemicals" target="_blank">materials that are not toxic or hazardous</a>.

Non-toxic materials and inputs

Using materials that can be easily reused or recycled after use

Reusable, recyclable materials and inputs

Enacting measures that optimise water use

Water efficiency

Enacting measures that optimise energy use

Energy efficiency

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within the same industry

Closed loop upcycling

Designing products that can easily breakdown and degrade in the environment

Design for bio-degradability

Designing products to remove any barriers to recycling and enable easy recyclability

Design for recycling

Working together with industry peers to engage in business activities or exploratory projects that advance the circular economy

Joint industry ventures, projects, pilots

Engaging in discussions with government bodies and policymakers to push for regulations that support the circular economy

Advocacy for circular economy policy

Facilitate discussions and meetings between internal team members to identify circular opportunities

Dialogue with internal stakeholders

Data, knowledge & information sharing

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

This report was commissioned by Fashion for Good to&nbsp;provide an overview of safer chemistry innovation opportunities in the textiles, apparel and footwear sector. The key drivers (call for transparency, increasing awareness and circular economy) are described and the role that different chemicals of concern play in the production process are evaluated. In addition, five key areas of innovation are identified and insights to accelerate the adoption of new technologies that reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous chemicals are provided.&nbsp;