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This collection features a selection of inspiring examples of the circular economy, compiled in the context of the Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains programme (SWITCH).

Launched in 2020, SWITCH is a five-year initiative that assists EU multinational companies and their suppliers from developing countries to switch to more circular economy approaches and practices in three selected value chains: [Plastic Packaging](https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/switchtocircular/search?collections=832%3D0&framework_elements__5=111), [Textile & Garments](https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/switchtocircular/search?collections=832%3D0&framework_elements__5=99), and ICT and Electronics.

The overall objective of SWITCH is to support the “transformation towards a circular economy”, and to contribute to sustainable growth, low carbon and climate resilient development, decent jobs creation, and a safer, healthier and pollution-free environment.

SWITCH is co-funded by the European Union and the Government of Finland, and implemented by UNIDO, in collaboration with Chatham House, Circle Economy, and the European Investment Bank.
Learn more at www.switchtocircular.eu

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Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains

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Business case

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 textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

Using renewable energy like solar, wind, etc. or renewable fuels like biomass, etc.

Renewable energy, fuels

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within the same industry

Closed loop upcycling

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

Using closed loop recycled materials

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

Design for recycling

Takeback and return of products from customers after end-of-use

Takeback programmes

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

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

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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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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 Our operations are based on collecting and recycling cutting waste from textile industry where it is generated, in India. The collected cutting waste is sorted, processed and manufactured into high-quality textile products. Pure Waste products are made of 100% recycled fibres, meaning no virgin material at all needs to be used in manufacturing.  We founded Pure Waste in 2013, when we held the first batch of fabric made entirely from recycled fibres in our hands. We’d already tried to find fabric made from 100% recycled fibres in 2009, without success, so in 2010 we rolled up our sleeves and got down to the development work ourselves. Product development required time and committed partners, but in the autumn of 2013 we were finally at the stage of being able to set up a new company around the product. That’s how Pure Waste began. From the very start, providing completely high-quality products made of recycled fibres has been our goal. We’re inspired by the deeply ingrained Nordic recycling culture.      Think Again Think Again is our way of challenging everyone, primarily ourselves, to think about things again and from a fresh perspective. We want to make the textile industry more ecological, but that won’t happen if we don’t change our ways. Changing how we do things requires changing how we think. We want to inform consumers about the downsides of the textile industry so they can think again about their consumption habits. We challenge ourselves to think of better, more sustainable solutions for operations in production, sales and logistics. We question the norms and traditional ways of the textile industry, asking: could things be done differently after all? Change in the textile industry starts with all of us thinking about things in a new way. Our Symbol Our symbol is the scarab beetle, the dung roller, which represented renewal and rebirth in ancient Egypt. The dung roller is nature’s own recycler, rolling cow dung into balls to lay its eggs in. Out of those eggs, in time, a new generation of dung rollers hatches. Similar to the dung rollers, we at Pure Waste gather others’ textile waste and give them another life as new products. 

     SLIMRECT & VIKER PRODUCTS A technology with additives guaranteeing products of minimum thickness that allow high-level technical performance 

100% recycled yarns, fabrics and garments

Pure Waste produces premium quality, 100% recycled yarns, fabrics and ready made garments. Since 2013 the Helsinki-based company is breaking new ground in textile recycling. Their products are entirely made out of recycled textile waste.
“Pure Waste” is their promise to use only materials that would otherwise go to waste. With their latest development of the first „post-waste-era“ 100% recycled fabric, they used 20% of post-consumer waste from worn out clothes.
Have a look into the production, numbers and people behind the unique brand:
PureWaste – Process (video)   |   PureWaste – Numbers (video)   |   PureWaste – People (video)


Helsinki

Tamil Nadu

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100% recycled fibres, textiles and garments

Pure Waste

<p>Pure Waste’s products are made from 100% post industrial recycled materials, from the factory floor to classic, high-quality products made to last. During the company’s development, unable to find a textile made of 100% recycled materials, they set about to be one of the first to do so.</p>