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Rampant material extraction is pushing the ecosystems of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to their limits. Over 11% of global raw materials are extracted within the region, yet it represents only about 8% of the world's population.

[*The Circularity Gap Report* (CGR) Latin America and the Caribbean](https://www.circularity-gap.world/lac), a first of its kind, demonstrates how the region can leverage the circular economy to tackle systemic inefficiencies in satisfying societal needs, conserve its unique natural wealth, and improve its people’s well-being.

To devise pathways for a circular transition, the report analysed the sectors where circular interventions could yield the most positive impact—environmentally, economically, and socially. This entails shifting to a circular food system, building a circular built environment, advancing circular manufacturing, transforming the energy system, reducing waste generation, and improve waste cycling.

[Circle Economy](https://www.circle-economy.com/) is a global impact organisation with an international team of passionate experts based in Amsterdam. We empower industries, cities, and nations with practical and scalable solutions to put the circular economy into action. Our vision is an economic system that ensures the planet and all people can thrive. To avoid climate breakdown, our goal is to double global circularity by 2032. Through the Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative, our mission is to deliver Circularity Metrics that measure the state of the global and national economy and identify key levers to transition to circularity. 

Latin America Collection

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Business case

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

Innovation

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Save Water (SDG6)

Ensure renewable, reusable, non-toxic resources are utilised as materials and energy in an efficient way

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Utilise bio-based, reusable, non-toxic and non-critical materials

Regenerative materials

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

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

Designing products so they produce as little waste as possible during production

Design for minimal 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

Prioritise regenerative resources [Textiles]

Regenerative materials [Textiles]

Alternative bio-based materials and inputs [Textiles]

Regenerate strategies phase out hazardous or toxic materials and processes and substitute them with regenerative biomass resources. A circular economy aims to mimic natural cycles—by shifting to more regenerative farming practices, for example—while also maximising the share of circular biomass that enters the economy. Regeneration can happen both at the systems level (by designing regenerative processes) as well as at the product level (by switching synthetic to organic fertilisers, for example).

Regenerate

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

Impacts

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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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The Textiles Key Elements Framework is based on the main Key Elements Framework which renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive textile-focused strategies and interventions. 

The framework is action-based to provide users with concrete inspiring exemples to prevent and reduce the textiles waste mountain. 

The Framework consists of:
- 3 core elements: activities directly handling textile product or material flows; and uniquely,
- 4 Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.

Under which strategies provide further detail. Finally, each strategy consists of a diversity of tangible solutions which are framed in relation to the sought outcome. 

'Click through each of the seven elements cards below to explore the framework and circular textile-focused case studies in more depth!'

This framework was developed in collaboration with Circle Economy's textiles team. Read more about it [here]( https://www.circle-economy.com/programmes/textiles). 

Textiles Key Elements Framework

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 An action-based framework for apparel brands working towards circular strategies

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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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 Using biotechnology to create lab-grown cotton. More in detail You may rarely think about it, but a lot of resources have gone into the making of your favourite cotton t-shirt. And we mean a lot. Conventional cotton production requires massive amounts of water, land and a hefty cocktail containing thousands of chemicals. It also results in considerable greenhouse gas emissions. It makes you wish there was a smarter way to make cotton. And luckily, there is! By producing cotton from cells – not plants – in a lab instead of on huge farms, this innovation makes it possible to grow the same cotton everybody loves, but in a different way. The lab-grown cotton can be grown anywhere, without being dependent on soil and weather conditions, and without exhausting our planet. The method is ten times faster, and uses less than 80% water and land while emitting only a fraction of the greenhouse gas compared to traditional cotton. The price would be the same as for the high-quality cotton on the market today. Does this story sound fluffy to you? Yes, it’s the kind of cotton soft fluff not only dreams are made of, but also a greater, more sustainable future for everyone. “Winning the Global Change Award, it’s simply mind blowing, it validates the recognition and belief in our vision as a company and open new doors for partnerships, technology and call to action for the entire industry. We are going to work hard to make our vision come true and we believe this award is one of the most important steps for this accomplishment.”Luciano Bueno, Founder and CEO GALY  LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter 
   
 

 We have two work schedules: 8am to 5pm, or 9am to 6pm, which may vary slightly. Our offices are in Sunderland, MA, USA and São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, and our dress code is to be true to yourself. We want you to be comfortable enough to do your best!
If you want to know more about what it is like to work at GALY from people who experience this emotion on a daily basis, talk to us! We promise total transparency and willingness to answer your questions. 

   A view from the Galy lab {e-VA} electric Variations - Creative Technologies  
You might call this a puff piece, because it’s about cotton that’s just as fluffy but more sustainable than the traditional type. This “incredible cotton” comes from a startup called Galy, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.  Galy grows its “incredible cotton” in a lab, from cells instead of plants, says Luciano Bueno, CEO and co-founder. The company recently won the annual Global Change Award from the Sweden-based H&M Foundation (named after the apparel company).  Galy took home the first prize of 300,000 euros (about $330,000 U.S. dollars) with the award, which has been called the Nobel Prize of fashion.  The prize comes with enrollment in a one-year Innovation Accelerator Program to connect winners with fashion industry insiders and help speed the process of bringing innovations to market.   Besides being 10 times faster than cotton grown on big farms, Galy’s lab-grown variety “can be grown anywhere, without being dependent on soil and weather conditions, and without exhausting our planet,” according to a description on the award’s website.  “The method is ten times faster, and uses less than 80% water and land while emitting only a fraction of the greenhouse gas compared to traditional cotton. The price would be the same as for the high-quality cotton on the market today.” Galy’s proprietary process for growing cotton in the lab is pretty simple, Bueno says.
“Basically, what we do is we have a bunch of different cotton plants in our greenhouse,” he explains. “Then we cut a piece of the plant and that plant has a bunch of stem cells. The stem cells have the ability to pretty much transform into any part of the plant.”
The cells are segregated into large vessels (similar to brewing beer) full of nutrients to make the cells multiply, then into another vessel where they differentiate into fibers. “Instead of growing the whole plant, we go from the cell directly to the fiber,” Bueno says.
The process is said to be 10 times faster than traditional farming, or 18 days compared to 180 days.
Right now, Galy is still in the research and development phase, and Bueno isn’t wearing a t-shirt made from lab-grown cotton ... yet. The plan is to produce yarn to sell to clothing brands.
Bueno hopes to see Galy become the new DuPont of plant-based products.
“There are plenty of companies trying to produce more sustainable biomaterials and we love them, because if they succeed, we can definitely succeed.”
MORE FROM FORBESWorn Again Transforms Old Clothes Into Raw MaterialsBy Jeff Kart
MORE FROM FORBESThis Hoodie Is Made From Coffee Grounds And Recycled Plastic BottlesBy Jeff Kart


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Galy is a biotechnology research company produce in-vitro cotton.

Galy

<p>Galy is a biotechnology research company who grow high-quality cotton in labs instead of farms, using less water and no land. The company won the annual Global Change Award in 2020 from the H&amp;M Foundation.</p>