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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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Business case

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

Increase Awareness

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Contribution to social parity, or impact on social disparity

Equality

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

Innovation

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

Providing electricity and gas services, including traditional and renewable energy generation, natural and manufactured gas and operating gas networks

Energy Utilities and Independent Power Producers

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 textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

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

Agriculture

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

Designing to enable multiple uses and lifecycles of a product and its materials

Design for cyclability

Designing products that are made to last and to ensure longer use

Design for durability

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

Industry collaboration

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

'Inform' increases the overall levels of awareness and builds the necessary skills and knowledge around the circular economy to foster long-term change.

Inform

Develop regenerative infrastructure

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Advocate for circular change

Environmental assessment & permits

Technology standards

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


Strengthen and advance knowledge

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

VISION:
People are valued and supported in an equitable, socially just and resilient society.

DETAIL:
Imagine a time when…people and communities are at the heart of any sustainable and circular system. The planet thrives, enabling us to survive with balance and abundance. People are no longer passive consumers, but proactive participants. The ‘makers’ who design, build, reprocess and recirculate products throughout the value chain are treated equally and are equitable partners in shaping and benefitting from the system. Textiles/garments can be produced and repurposed locally as well as centrally. A blend of craft methods alongside more automated production provides regionalised, multi-faceted perspectives and fulfilling livelihoods, be they high- or low-tech. Wealth gaps are minimised and dignity, equity, equality is a reality for all.

People and Society

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

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

Impacts

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Industries

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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

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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        Fibershed is a non-profit organization that develops equity-focused regional and land regenerating natural fiber and dye systems. Our work expands opportunities to implement climate beneficial agriculture, rebuild regional manufacturing, and connect end-users to the source of our fiber through direct educational offerings. We are transforming the economic and ecologic systems that clothe us to generate equitable and climate change ameliorating textile cultures.           We envision clothing ourselves through diverse and decentralized textile systems that operationalize equitable soil-to-soil processes. We are uplifting the voices and strengthening the capacity of place-based grassroots textile communities that are directly enhancing their regional economies for the purpose of generating permanent and lasting systems of localized fiber and natural dye production.
We see a nourishing tradition emerging that connects the wearer to the fields where clothes are grown in a system that can last for countless generations into the future. Through a host of scientifically vetted soil health-enhancing practices, paired with regional textile districts, we will create the new standard for textile material culture creation.                We work across three program areas to cultivate Regional Textile Economies, expand Climate Beneficial Agriculture, and empower Education & Advocacy. Rooted in our Northern California Fibershed homebase, we foster Fibershed community around the world — here is a snapshot of our impact:
45,550+ Metric Tons CO2e estimated drawdown secured through four years of community carbon farming practices that will result in 20 year carbon sequestration rates
200,000+ pounds of Climate Beneficial Wool verified and moved into value chains that fund ecosystem restoration
$1 Million in investment capital leveraged into regional manufacturing, from pooling Climate Beneficial verified fiber to reshoring the latest textiles technologies and providing technical assistance to entrepreneurs
45 Fibershed Affiliate communities around the globe generating place-based visions and engagement for their fiber system
75,000+ reached with public education through community events, curriculum development, digital media and partnerships                     A new “farm-to-closet” vision for the clothes we wear, by Rebecca Burgess with Courtney White
Request Fibershed at your local book seller, or find it online at these and other sources:
Chelsea Green Publishing  |  Indie Bound, A Community of Independent Local Bookstores
There is a major disconnect between what we wear and our knowledge of its impact on land, air, water, labor, and human health. Even those who value access to safe, local, nutritious food have largely overlooked the production of fiber, dyes, and the chemistry that forms the backbone of modern textile production. While humans are 100 percent reliant on their second skin, it’s common to think little about the biological and human cultural context from which our clothing derives.
Almost a decade ago, weaver and natural dyer Rebecca Burgess developed a project focused on wearing clothing made from fiber grown, woven, and sewn within her bioregion of North Central California. As she began to network with ranchers, farmers, and artisans, she discovered that even in her home community there was ample raw material being grown to support a new regional textile economy with deep roots in climate change prevention and soil restoration. A vision for the future came into focus, combining right livelihoods and a textile system based on economic justice and soil carbon enhancing practices. Burgess saw that we could create viable supply chains of clothing that could become the new standard in a world looking to solve the climate crisis. 
In Fibershed readers will learn how natural plant dyes and fibers such as wool, cotton, hemp, and flax can be grown and processed as part of a scalable, restorative agricultural system. They will also learn about milling and other technical systems needed to make regional textile production possible. Fibershed is a resource for fiber farmers, ranchers, contract grazers, weavers, knitters, slow-fashion entrepreneurs, soil activists, and conscious consumers who want to join or create their own fibershed and topple outdated and toxic systems of exploitation.           Fibershed is a California non-profit corporation exempt from federal tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Site photography by Paige Green unless otherwise noted. For media inquiries, please click here.        

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  Fibershed engages with small to mid-scale fiber producers and designers to support carbon-cycle literacy and build a regenerative textile economy, with the twin goals of creating a vibrant local market for climate-beneficial textiles and encouraging carbon sequestration in fiber-producing agricultural systems.Promoting an understanding of the carbon cycle, sharing the latest research on compost applications on rangelands, and supporting our producer members’ transition towards carbon-beneficial farming practices, Fibershed furthers CCI’s mission of creating regenerative systems, in this case fiber systems, that reduce atmospheric carbon while promoting environmental stewardship, social equity and economic sustainability.Project ImpactIn 2011, Fibershed prototyped a “150-mile wardrobe” from regionally grown fibers, natural dyes and local labor that generated zero toxic fresh water effluent, reducing the CO2 footprint to one sixth that of conventional garments, and developing a network of over 200 urban designers and rural farmers willing to work together to build a new model for fiber systems.Fibershed has also provided education to over 5,000 students, educators, producers, and textile brands on the principles of ‘regenerative fiber systems.’ There are currently 18 Fibershed communities working across the United States, Canada and Britain.Opportunities and BarriersCreating a vibrant local fibershed that can serve as a model for broader adoption will require a combination of public education, producer programs and market development efforts. Fibershed’s producer and market development programs are designed to directly support and improve our region’s regenerative textile supply chain, with 2014 projects including:CCI/Fibershed collaboration to develop a Sonoma County wool and plant fiber producer carbon farming and composting education campaign;Producer Program: Continuing carbon farming education and outreach including updates on the USDA-NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program and other funding sources to support farm/ranch carbon planning and implementation;Support of Industrial Hemp Seed Trials, CO (May 2014) designed to test low-water, high biomass-yielding cellulose blending options for wool;Public presentations and events focused on the ‘Soil-to-Soil’ carbon cycle concept, including the Wool Symposium planned for November 2014;Life Cycle Assessment Comparison for Bast, Cotton, and Wool Fiber Farming.Fibershed’s educational focus in 2014 is to create carbon-cycle literacy for all those who attend our classes, workshops and public presentations. We are simultaneously focusing our carbon-cycle curriculum within our producer community and to all those that manage agricultural “fiber producing” lands.  “A typical wool garment produced overseas has a net carbon footprint of 33 kg in CO2-equivalents. The Fibershed approach reduces that, and can in fact sequester nearly 38kg in CO2-e per garment.” — Rebecca Burgess, Founder & Executive Director, Fibershed  Rebecca Burgess discusses Fibershed’s work as it relates to carbon and climate, at an April, 2014 webinar. For additional presentations from that webinar, visit Extension.      

United Kingdom

California

Canada

Tamil Nadu

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Fibershed

Fibershed, a not for profit organisation in California, is collaboratively revolutionising the textile economy by strengthening the relationship of regional communities with their land and culture. They empower the regional communities consisting of farmers, ranchers, spinners, natural dyers, mill owners, felters, knitters, weavers, sewers and designers by providing them with educational offerings and technical assistance for infrastructure, process developments, value added production, market connection and engaging with each other on a global platform. Fibershed aims to achieve an equitable and long lasting textile material culture through three of its current programs - Regional Textile Economies, Climate Beneficial Agriculture and Education &amp; Advocacy.

FIBERSHED : Building a Regenerative Textile Economy through Collaborative Community Movements


What do clothes have to do with agriculture? The raw material for textiles from cotton to wool or silk to cashmere, all comes from farms, rangelands or forests. The current agricultural practices of monocrop farming, usage of chemicals and pesticides, clearance of forest land for agriculture, together contribute to biodiversity loss and climate change. Regenerative agricultural practices help increase biodiversity, improve soil fertility, reduce soil erosion, sequester carbon and generally offer a more sustainable way of producing our food and fibres. Many organisations worldwide are returning back to the traditional agricultural practices for developing regenerative systems in the textile value chain.