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

Ecological Impact

Impacts on the social fabric of the community and well-being of the individuals and families.

Social Impact

Impacts on the financial condition of a company, as well as the the economicconditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at local, national, andglobal levels.

Economic Impact

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

Increase Awareness

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Contribution to social parity, or impact on social disparity

Equality

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

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

Innovation

Contributing to the improvement of biodiversity including species diversity, total number of protected species, and ecosystem health

Biodiversity

Providing public and private education and support services at any level or for any profession, and governmental and public administration services, including judicial, regulatory, and legislative activities, taxation, defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and the administration of government programmes

Education and Government Services

Producing and providing services that utilise the creative talent of individuals to generate intellectual property, including movies and television shows, music, live performances, advertising, marketing or public relations services, newspapers, magazines and books, and commercial printing services

Creative Services

Producing textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

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

Industry collaboration

Engage and guide customers and consumers to ensure circular use of products

Customer / consumer collaboration

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

Engaging in discussions with government bodies and policymakers to push for regulations that support the circular economy

Advocacy for circular economy policy

Implement innovation programmes

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

'Mobilise' sets the direction of and builds momentum towards long-term change, while also determining how this direction is determined and governed.

Mobilise

Environmental assessment & permits

Awareness raising events

Performance standards

Information campaigns

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


Strengthen and advance knowledge

CE Materials

Impacts

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Industries

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Materials

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

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.

Browse case studies by type of implementing stakeholder.

Implementing stakeholders

80+ circular strategies for product development 
organised hierarchically into three tiers
with tier 1 and tier 2 based on the Key Elements Framework

DISRUPT

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

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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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Argentina is the home of skilled rural artisans. Furthermore, it has an abundance of natural fibers, cultural craftsmanship and citizens eager to find employment. Slow fashion has allowed artisans to escape an exploitative fashion system. As such, this system pressures workers to toil in illegal sweatshops called talleres clandestinos. Brands and consumers that support slow fashion in Argentina uplifts artisans to earn a fair, living wage, respect from others for their artisanal skills and preserve their cultural techniques.
Slow Fashion
Slow fashion in Argentina has emerged through different initiatives. Organizations and businesses seek to make clothing with a positive social and environmental impact. The first edition of the Slow Fashion Authentic Argentino fashion contest launched in the city of Rosario in 2015. Additionally, the city municipality supported this federal initiative to promote slow fashion in all Argentinian provinces and to award designers on tailoring and sewing, textile comfort, garment functionality and innovation. Argentina Sustainable Fashion Association emerged to generate a network of artisans, producers, suppliers, designers and entrepreneurs working in sustainability in 2018.  Furthermore, it actively spreads awareness of sustainable fashion to Argentina’s general public through different initiatives, partnerships and projects.
Highlighting Hecho por Nosotros
Hecho por Nosotros is a nonprofit that holds consultative status with the United Nations. It uplifts local Argentinian producers by providing consistent, full access to global markets. Additionally, Hecho por Nosotros strives to change mindsets to create a new sustainability paradigm for the fashion industry. Its work has received endorsement from programs that aim to unite and advance sustainability actions such as the C&A Foundation, BCorps, ASHOKA Fellow, GlobalizerX and Fabric of Change by ASHOKA.
Hecho por Nosotros partners with animana, an Argentinian ethical fashion brand. Moreover, it has provided jobs to more than 3,000 artisans by increasing capacity to 364 artisan groups and 27 fiber producers over the last 10 years. Furthermore, it created a business network of 7,500 artisans to integrate them into global markets and trained 1,500 student designers in sustainable fashion. Big fashion houses exploit Latin American artisans. As a result, Argentina has combated this by purchasing quality materials and elaborate embroidery for extremely low prices and then marking it up to 1,000 times.
Slow Fashion Benefits
Slow fashion in Argentina allows artisans to escape the cycle of poverty by providing access to global markets. In addition, these markets allow them to sell their products. This provides them with solutions to Argentina’s high export tariffs and protectionist trade policies that have led to mounting unemployment rates. As a result, one-third of the population lives in poverty.
Consumers and brands that support slow fashion in Argentina allow artisans to prosper. It effectively uplifts them from the cycle of poverty, helps preserve traditional artisanal activities and shifts the focus to sustainable production. This leads to empowered communities producing high-quality products for conscious consumers all over the world.
– Giselle Magana
Photo: Flickr


Hecho x nosotros is a non-profit NGO with consultative status in the United Nations.We develop capacity-building programs alongside research and educational projects to reach innovative solutions, in order to generate a systemic change that effectively addresses social, economic, and environmental issues linked to the textile industry."A reimagined fashion and textile industry, where technology advances and empowers the business, artisans' knowledge, and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises—often marginalized in the global fashion economy—validating their wisdom, sustainable techniques, processes, and natural fibers, and contributing towards an inclusive model based on sustainability, circularity, and co-creation." ​​ Adriana Marina Founder of Hecho x Nosotros and AnimanáWe democratize the access to global textile and apparel markets for indigenous artisans, workers, and entrepreneurs (AWEs) in Latin America and Africa.Co-creating educational and business solutions to link the local supply with international demand for sustainable and ethical products.We can achieve it by providing an ecosystem based on current and evolving technology solutions, where sustainable, ancestral, and regenerative practices are fairly compensated for the added value they bring to the market.This social business b-corp promotes the revival of the Andes' culture, arts, and ancient secrets to produce high-quality, fashionable clothing.Offering an alternative way of producing, marketing, and consuming to the current dominant business model, animaná coexists with the environment, culture, modern lifestyle, knowledge, and technology of our planet inhabitants.Fairtrade, local human development, and environmentally friendly production.

Buenos Aires

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Hecho x nosotros is a non-profit NGO with consultative status in the United Nations.

Capacity-building programs alongside research and educational projects are developed to reach innovative solutions, in order to generate a systemic change that effectively addresses social, economic, and environmental issues linked to the textile industry.

Hecho X Nosotros

Animana

Hecho x nosotros is a non-profit NGO with consultative status in the United Nations. "A reimagined fashion and textile industry, where technology advances and empowers the business, artisans' knowledge, and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises—often marginalized in the global fashion economy—validating their wisdom, sustainable techniques, processes, and natural fibers, and contributing towards an inclusive model based on sustainability, circularity, and co-creation."Adriana Marina.Founder of Hecho x Nosotros