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This collection features case studies selected as part of the Circularity Gap Report Textiles research.

This first-of-its-kind [**Circularity Gap Report Textiles**](https://www.circularity-gap.world/textiles)—the pioneering global Circularity Gap Report for an industry—examines how materials flow throughout the entire textile value chain, from design to post-consumer management. It explores how materials are extracted, transformed and managed at their end-of-life—from cotton farming and petrochemical production to spinning, weaving and dyeing to product assembly and distribution—and delves into the resource and energy inputs of each stage. This report focuses on the textiles, clothing, leather and footwear (TLCF) industries, including those used for home furnishings and upholstery, but excludes technical textiles, such as those used by the medical and automotive industries. The findings emphasise the industry’s resource-intensive practices, its contribution to the overshoot of several planetary boundaries, and the necessary systemic changes required to transition to a more sustainable and circular model.

[**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**](https://www.circularity-gap.world/)*, our mission is to deliver an annual global Circularity Metric that measures the state of the world economy and identifies key levers to transition to global circularity. 

To learn more, read the latest [**Circularity Gap Report Textiles**](https://www.circularity-gap.world/textiles).

Circularity Gap Report Textiles

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

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

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

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Regenerative materials

Using materials that can be easily reused or recycled after use

Reusable, recyclable materials and inputs

**Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns**

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The world is seriously off track in its effort to halve per-capita food waste and losses by 2030.The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on consumption and production patterns, with disruptions to global supply chains and changes in consumer behaviour. 

Responsible consumption and production must be an integral part of the recovery from the pandemic. 
But the global economy also needs to speed up the decoupling of economic growth from resource use by maximizing the socio-economic benefits of resources while minimizing their negative impacts. 

Reporting on corporate sustainability has tripled since the beginning of the SDG period, but the private sector will need to significantly improve reporting on activities that contribute to the SDGs. 

This primarily entails environmentally sound management of "toxic chemicals" A substantial use of chemicals is essential to meet the social and economic goals of the world community, and these can be used with a high degree of safety when best practices are followed.  Gross chemical contamination, with grave damage to human health, genetic structures reproductive outcomes, and the environment, has been continuing within some of the world's most important industrial areas, and restoration will require major investment as well as the development of new techniques.
Effective control of the generation, storage, treatment, recycling and reuse, transport, recovery and disposal of hazardous wastes is another similar challenge. 
In addition,  solid wastes include all domestic refuse and non-hazardous wastes such as commercial and institutional wastes, street sweepings construction debris, and, in some countries, human wastes. As hazardous waste is frequently intermixed with other waste, this poses particular management challenges.
Finally, this target ensures that radioactive waste is safely managed, transported, stored and disposed of, with a view to protecting human health and the environment. 

To deliver SDG12, it is crucial to implement policies that support the shift to sustainable practices and decouple economic growth from resource use.

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste)

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12. Responsible consumption and production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

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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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

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**These 17 Goals recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.**

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, and especially on the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York which let to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. A major blueprint came out of this: The Sustainable Development Goals: 17 overarching goals—and 169 targets—that governments are aiming to meet by 2030. Significant progress has been made in terms of poverty, health and inequality, but there's still a way to go. This is where the circular economy comes in: by circulating resources multiple times, the circular economy tackles issues of scarcity and allows all to access what they need—without overburdening the earth. If it's implemented in a holistic way—affording attention to social considerations and the fair distribution of resources— it also offers a pathway for achieving the SDGs; and the link between the two is ever-growing. To read more about the link between the SDGs and the circular economy, click [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/blogs/how-the-circular-economy-can-help-us-reach-the-sustainable-development-goals).

It is the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues. TheDSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.
Alongside this, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.
In addition, the UN Secretary-General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

To read more information: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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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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                               TreeToTextile started as a research project in Sweden, exploring new, better, and scalable ways to dissolve cellulose. This was initiated by the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and brought to life by the entrepreneur Lars Stigsson’s vision to use cellulose to revolutionize the textile industry.
Together with the industry leaders H&M Group and Inter IKEA group Lars founded TreeToTextile, later joined by Stora Enso. The shared mission was to provide a unique cellulose fiber through innovative technology and ensure its scalability to textile suppliers and brands globally.
Today, we carry on the legacy of Lars, turning his idea into reality. Join us as we uncover the inspiring tale of innovation, sustainability, and the cellulose fibers that are shaping the future of textiles.
Better fibers to all.                                                  

      


  “The beauty of Infinna is that the consumer would never guess it is made from recycled garments. They will get to experience the same longevity, comfort and softness as a similar product made of virgin materials.”    
 
 

                            
                 The dyeing industry is one of the largest water consumers in the world, using over 5 trillion litres per year along with petrochemical dyes and a host of toxic and highly polluting chemicals.  5   Trillion                 Up to 200,000 tonnes of dye are lost to effluents every year due to the inefficiency of industrial dyeing. 200,000   Tonnes                 Textile dyeing pollution is more than simply dye and water. The industry uses up to 1.2 kilos of chemicals per kilo of fabric, only 50 grams of it being dye. Approximately 70 highly toxic chemicals are routinely used in textile processing, and around 30 are irretrievable. 70   Toxic Chemicals             
              
                         
 

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"We’re on a mission to make textile circularity an everyday reality – offering a way to capture the value in waste by regenerating it as a new and versatile textile fiber. We see a future that’s not reliant on precious natural resources and where old processes are replaced with cutting-edge alternatives. Working together with textile producers, brands and people who share our vision, we can bring joy and hope back to closets, homes and people as we go." - Infinited Fiber

Infinited Fiber Company

Monki

The first company to use a biological process to produce, deposit and fix pigments onto textiles. Colorifix follows Nature’s own circular model, which makes and applies colour sustainably. Their innovative process sources and replicates true colours from nature, for use in the dyeing process. Using DNA sequencing, they engineer natural solutions (non-toxic renewable chemistry) to solve man-made problems, specifically the heavy dependence on petrochemical dyes and highly polluting chemicals.

Colorifix

Weekday is a Swedish street/fashion brand influenced by youth culture and street style. 

Weekday

TreeToTextile

Alchemie Technology

<p>H&amp;M Group, a leading global fast fashion retailer has set ambitious goals for 2030. Through innovation, partnerships, and circular business models, it aims for 100% of its materials to be recycled or sustainably sourced.</p>