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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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Starter Kit collection

Business case

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

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)

Producing and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

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

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

Designing products so they use as little materials, water, energy, etc. as possible during use

Design for resource efficiency

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

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

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

Archetypes

CE Materials

Impacts

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Industries

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Materials

Nace Sectors

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

Topics

Urban Opportunities

Whilst no two countries are the same, there are still obvious similarities between some of them, with discernible development patterns and parallels in evidence. Common problems and shared solutions help place unique country identities and individual issues in context.

Whilst this classification is far from clear-cut and exhibits some overlap, it does underline how the discourse on transitioning to a circular economy needs to account for both differences and commonalities, if we are to arrive at a more strategic and instructive analysis. It also allows to highlight a set of key themes that are likely to be central to the countries that fall under the respective profiles. 

Country profiles (Build, Grow, Shift)

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A framework to distinguish between different country profiles and their circular transition needs.

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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The Circular City Actions Framework provides urban changemakers with five complementary strategies they can use to start working towards a more circular system. 

The framework is action-based to provide users with concrete strategic directions and showcase the desired outcomes of each strategy. 
The framework consists of five complementary **strategies**, under which **sub-strategies** provide further detail. Finally, each sub-strategy consists of a diversity of tangible **solutions** which are framed in relation to key thematic areas. 

Note: solutions are currently focused on:
- 🍏 **Food systems**
- 🏢  **Built environment**
- 👕📱  **Consumer goods**
- ⚡ **Energy Systems**
- 🚌 **Mobility Systems**
- 💧 **Water Systems**

More thematic areas are coming soon...

'Click through each of the five strategy cards below to explore the framework and circular economy case studies in more depth!'



This framework was developed in collaboration with ICLEI, Metabolic and Ellen MacArthur Foundation with support from the MAVA Foundation. Read more about it [here]( https://circulars.iclei.org/action-framework/). 



Circular City Actions Framework

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An action-based framework for local governments working towards circular cities

Test Framework

Challenges

Based on the ongoing ISO standardisation process, a taxonomy has been defined under which to cluster indicators to measure circularity. 

ISO Taxonomy

If managed well, the transition to the circular economy will have multiple benefits for the labour market, including the opening up of job opportunities, raising job standards and reducing inequalities through a global redistribution of value. But a positive transition to circularity for work and workers must be underpinned by three pillars: upskilling the workforce, quality of work and inclusive job opportunities. Find out more and explore cases that illustrate these pillars below.

Circular Jobs Initiative Pillars

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A positive transition to circularity for work and workers must be underpinned by three core pillars.

This is a survey that dives into understanding the policy environment around specific circular solutions. 

The survey is divided into five sections, based on the five key elements of the Circular Cities Action Framework. 
Each section asks 2-3 questions to explore which policies may or may not be present within your city to support a transition towards a circular economy. 

You are not alone! Each question provides some practical examples from cities around the world that have adopted a certain policy to support their transition. This can help to compare with your city - is your city doing something similar?

The survey answers should be based on your current knowledge, and not illicit additional research - ! Please make use of the Not sure option as appropriate.


Ganbatte Cities Policy Tracker [Food]

Ganbatte Cities - Policy tracker policy instruments

Policy Tracker - TEST

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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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 “It was back in 1949 when my great-grandfather, Valentino Masolini, started to recycle fabric scraps and military uniforms to make shoes. As a good Friulian, he was a practical, hardworking, determined man: he started a small shoe manufacturing factory and, step by step, his hometown Gonars, a village in the Friulian lowlands, became a real shoe manufacturing district. For four generations, Valentino passed on the family tradition, the art of creating and the passion for doing good.Then, hard times came along: globalization, the 2008 crisis and customers who chose price over quality.I felt as if I was suffocating and I left. As fate would have it, Ethiopia became my new home exactly during the years in which the country was emerging as the new global shoe production center. I worked with world-known shoe factories and brands, offering my experience and my passion for the shoe industry. Africa has given me so much: a wonderful family, a lot of friends and great music. During a business trip in the United States, while I was promoting shoe brands to foreign investors, I realized I had been swallowed by the same globalization that was threatening my own family business. So, in that moment, I decided to go back. As a good Friulian, I was aware of my responsibilities, so I went back to Friuli to help my parents and our business. In my last years in Africa, I had been living more sustainably and I was taking daily simple actions to protect the planet. For this reason, when back in Gonars, I started to study a new production model, with low environmental impact and the use of recycled materials instead of animal origin: exactly like my great-grandfather Valentino did in 1949.  This is how RE49 was born: the most sustainable shoe brand in the world, in circular economy.”  Nicola Masolini 


In the province of Udine, in Italy, a start-up company produces the most sustainable shoe in
the world: RE49, which will be exhibiting at Pitti Immagine Uomo in June, embraces
sustainability and circular economy across all stages of production, and creates vegan,
limited-edition shoes, ensuring full transparency through the Blockchain technology.
The founders, who are experts and passionate about slow fashion in the footwear industry,
lead a team of artists and artisans that transform recycled materials into works of art to be
worn with pride.
“Reducing our environmental impact has been our top priority since day one. At RE49, we
are proud to have reinvented the way we produce shoes, by redefining our family business
into an innovative start-up company that preserves the environment. This way, from a
traditional leather shoe production, we are now creating shoes with recycled, recovered,
vegan materials that are otherwise wasted and could easily end up in landfill sites”, says
Nicola Masolini, visionary and CEO of RE49.
 RE49, courtesy of the brand

RE49 shoes are made of recycled beach chairs, sails, fabrics and tyres: waste materials
are regenerated and cleaned without further processing, ensuring a drastic cut on CO2
emissions. The company is also investing in novel solutions to minimise the amount of
material they use in the first place and reduce waste.
“At RE49, innovating, changing and making the difference for future generations means
applying a radical circular economy model with transparency”, says Alberto Ciani, CMO and
Innovation Leader at RE49, and adds that “the company applies the Blockchain technology
to guarantee full transparency of materials and production process. Moreover, RE49 offers
its know-how and innovative solutions to other companies that want to add value to
discarded materials and create new resources from them”.
 RE49, courtesy of the brand

At RE49, the production method is 100% carbon neutral, with the objective to reduce the
footprint to zero in less than five years, by switching to renewable energy and partnering with
companies that share their values and preserve the environment.
And, in the spirit of “Less is more”, RE49 takes extra effort to increase the durability of the
shoes, which are all-season appropriate. Also, the company is working on a method to
minimise waste by creating a closed-loop circular economy solution and re-converting
used shoes into a new product, when their functional cycle comes to an end.
 RE49, courtesy of the brand

 Promotion Read more about RE49 on their brandpage



 RE49 produces sustainable fashion: the future generations are in our hands and it is our responsibility to make a move towards this ongoing situation and fight against fast fashion. Behind low prices, most of the times, high environmental and human rights costs are hiding. We want to partner with leading brands and companies to find options to shape the industry from the inside out, at both local and global level, throughout the value chain, promoting better working conditions, social integration, inclusion and equality of rights. As we are running out of time and resources, it is up to us, individuals and organizations, who genuinely care, to try and change the general mindset. Through our action, we have the power to educate, influence, inspire and motivate. 

 RE49 shoes are made with different materials that are recovered, sanitized and tailored to our models. We do not use materials of animal origin and our production method is 100% carbon neutral. Inserts, laces, tags and packaging are also made with recycled materials. The special “Ideal” seam makes our shoes more resistant and flexible. 

Udine

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Re49

<p>RE49 is an Italian start-up company that produces the most sustainable shoes in the world, embracing sustainability and circular economy across all stages of production. The brand creates vegan, limited-edition shoes and utilises the Blockchain technology to ensure full transparency. The shoes are made of recycled beach chairs, sails, fabrics, tyres and more, ensuring a drastic cut on CO2 emissions, because waste materials are regenerated and cleaned without further processing. RE49 is also investing in novel solutions to minimise the amount of material they use in the first place and reduce waste.</p>