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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 ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

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

Fashion and Textiles

Installing sensors to gather data from products and services to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Sensors, monitoring systems

Developing or utilising online platforms to enable circular economy opportunities through information, product or service offering

Online platforms

Data, knowledge & information sharing

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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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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Although Haikure has always made their jeans with sustainability as a core principle, it hasn’t led with this message in shopper-facing or B2B communications. To generate brand value from sustainability in an industry rife with greenwash, Haikure needed a way to add credibility to claims. With the launch of its Spring 2021 collection and a new B2B website, Haikure engaged Provenance to help the brand share the evidence behind its sustainability values.


Haikure is an Italian fashion brand specialised in denim and chinos, featured by a minimal-
Japanese look. The path towards the creation of a lifestyle aesthetic where the latest fashion trends and sustainability coexist, continues with the FW21/22 collection.

With one hand extended to the 80’s - 90’s and the other to a pencil ready to pollute a white
paper, Haikure draws a collection that blends together work-wear and stylish worlds.
Everything is dedicated to straight and well-defined cuts that are dominated by warm
autumn colors like brown, bone, and skin tones. Fringes and pences draw movements and
baggy effects around pants and jackets, whereas special effects such as laser treatments
and broken effects give to the denim a vintage, yet casual, aspect.
The Chinos products, mainly made by a soft and technical Japanese fabric, alternates its
composition between organic cotton and cotton mixed 2% of elastane, putting an
emphasis on the design attractiveness of the articles.
 
The denim category of the Design lab, a branch of the collection, is one in which Haikure
experiments different “non-finishings” to emphasise the quality of the raw material while
simultaneously reducing the environmental impact. The denim is neither washed nor
tinted.

Those products present a QR code that clients can scan to discover the production
processes and suppliers involved in the creation of the products, transmitting the
sustainability value and the famous Responsible innovation that reflects the DNA of the
brand.

In this way Haikure aims to elevate the Made in Italy craftsmanship (90% of our suppliers
are Italian and 100% of the manufacturing processes are made in Italy) and above all to
inform and educate the consumer.
 
This is a technology that Haikure benefits from thanks to the partnership with Provenance,
an independent London- based organisation that offers a software-as-a-service platform
for transparency with integrity.

The articles involved in the collaboration presents Organic Cotton, Lyocell, GOTS, BCI and
other certifications, ensuring to the clients the interest of the brand in researching and
developing quality and low impact products.

Read more about Haikure on the brandpage: fashionunited.com/companies/haikure


 
    See how we make our jeans            Reduce our environmental impact    Haikure is focused on reducing our impact on the environment. From using organic cotton to reducing our water usage and keeping our production in Italy, the environment is core to the choices we make. Discover how we reduce the impact of these product.                         Reduce impact    The impact of your Haikure jeans on the environment continues after you buy them. The second most carbon- intensive stage of the denim lifecycle is how you care for it. This accounts for 37% of total carbon emission. You can also recycle your jeans instead of throwing them away.           WASH WITH  COLD WATER                        HANG DRY YOURJEANS                        RECYCLED YOUR JEANS                              Use left/right arrows to navigate the slideshow or swipe left/right if using a mobile device

 The fashion industry’s supply chain is notorious for being opaque, concealing human rights and environmental abuses. With more vocal demands from governments, consumers, NGO’s and other stakeholders, fashion brands face increased pressure to track and communicate supply chain information. Yet most brands still have a path to travel. As the 2020 Fashion Revolution Transparency Index highlights, among 250 brands researched, the average transparency score is just 23% (Fashion Revolution, 2020). This low score clearly exposes how much is still required to increase transparency across the industry. What is hampering fashion brands from providing supply chain transparency? Clothing companies around the world have benefited from globalisation to produce their products at ever lower costs, boosting margins and profitability. Today, a garment’s journey from origin to wardrobe goes through dozens of steps, often in multiple countries. Brands will have information on their tier 1 suppliers, the factories where their clothes are sewn and packaged. However, they often have only limited knowledge about where the fabrics are spun and dyed, where buttons, labels and tags came from and/or where the raw materials were grown or extracted.  The recent upheaval around the Xinyang region of China highlights the opaqueness of the industry, and in this particular case, the cotton industry. According to reports, 20% of the world’s cotton is grown in the Xinyang region. Until recently, however, many fashion companies, let alone any consumers, had any knowledge about this region. They were not aware of the controversial labour programmes involving the minority Muslim Uyghur population. Portrayed as glowing examples of the Chinese government assisting millions of poor people into work, more and more evidence is emerging that these workers are in fact forced into these camps whereby next to working in poor conditions they are subject to ideological training to give up their religious practices. Transparency would allow companies to be aware and be able to step away from such practices. Increased transparency requires products to be fully traceable, with all processes clearly documented and tracked. For traceability to happen in our globalised world, identification and analyses of suppliers across all tiers is vital to ensure sustainability standards are met, managed and enhanced. With the rise of the conscious consumer, there is also an increasing call from the market to start providing the social and environmental footprint of textiles, apparel and footwear. To meet the challenge of transparency, more and more brands are now looking towards new technologies, and specifically blockchain. But how does blockchain work, and how can it help improve transparency?  The blockchain solution to track and trace fashion items  Blockchain is often cited as the solution for many of the world’s problems. The technology is already being used in finance, healthcare, real estate and art. In the fashion industry, it is regularly mentioned as a promising solution to better track and trace activities throughout the value chain. Yet, few companies have yet adopted the technology So how does it work? Blockchain provides ‘a shared digital ledger which records all the transactions in a public or private peer -to-peer network’. In other words, a blockchain is a group of information blocks which carry digital information related to activities and transactions around a product.  Through a blockchain, each garment can have its own ‘digital passport’ where all information is stored. At each step in the supply chain, a recording is made of the company involved, the materials and processes used, to whom the item was sent on and the transaction date and time. At retail level, information can also be added about consumer purchasing behaviour or other relevant information. Through the technology, it is very difficult to change any of the information once it is recorded as all the details are stored in blocks and hashes, both of which are very secure. These blocks then link up and create a chain – through their own hash and the hash of the previous block. If one block is tampered with, all the following blocks will fail. Blockchains allow companies, and their customers, to track their product, identify the journey it made, and all the processes involved. From point of origin, through processors, manufacturers, shippers to retailers, the blockchain records all this relevant data, which cannot be tampered with. It offers an effective way to trace back where a product came from and the processes involved. The diverse benefits of blockchain Blockchains can help increase a brand’s transparency and improve the traceability of its clothing, but what other opportunities might this present for the fashion industry?  The digital passport for each item of clothing offers a number of solutions to transparency problems. It allows companies to: Log all essential information in one place. Blockchain is distributed and managed by individuals along the supply chain, helping to keep a track of all the transactions in a secure space. It also allows all stakeholders to view the information in the blockchain, improving the efficiency of information streams.Ensure authenticity and prevent counterfeit. Blockchain information is secure and precise, preventing modification of the presented information. This means brands can distinguish themselves from counterfeit goods in the market, raising awareness among consumers. Improve accountability. Because all activities and companies can be more easily tracked, companies are under more pressure to ensure that processes and practices within their organisation are fair and environmentally friendly. Increase the connection between consumer and product. By providing consumers with more knowledge about a product and its journey, they will have a stronger relationship with the product and an understanding of the processes involved. This increased connection could (theoretically) lead to consumers caring more about their products, seeking repair and re-use options where necessary and thereby extending the use-life of each product.  What stands in the way of blockchain adoption today? The development of blockchain technology in the fashion industry is still relatively new. Only a small group of companies have adopted the technology, and those that have mainly use it for internal monitoring. The first and main barrier to entry for many is the investment required. Other barriers are:  Limited scalability and speed. Setting up a whole value chain with blockchain is work intensive, because it involves getting all stakeholders on board. Therefore, while blockchain might work today for smaller projects, it is more complex to realise mid- or high-complexity projects. Additionally, the technology is relatively new in the fashion world and it is slow, taking time for a transaction to be validated.Lack of adequate skills. As blockchain is relatively new, there are still few developers comfortable with programming for blockchain or putting in place systems within companies. This means that costs are high, and companies always need to work in partnership with the blockchain development agencies.Recording false information. Blockchain technology allows you to ensure information has not been altered, but it cannot ensure the integrity of the information recorded in the first place. If a party along the supply chain enters false information onto a blockchain, it will remain in the digital file. This means that monitoring of the different links in the chain remains important and work-intensiveEnergy use. While, theoretically, blockchain should help monitor energy use and thereby reduce it in the supply chain, today the blockchain systems in themselves use a lot of energy. Recording all the ledgers in safe environments requires a lot of data storage. This means that, for now, the technology is not yet supporting the move to a low-carbon fashion industry.  The tech-driven companies targeting the fashion industry A few different technology companies have decided to step into the fashion arena, providing different types of services.  For blockchain technology to be effective, these companies must work closely with the brand to develop customised solutions. The following companies are claiming the space: Arianee: Arianne is a start-up which helps luxury brands authenticate their products digitally. Each luxury item gets its own digital certificate with encrypted records that capture all the products details. These include the acquisition dates, materials, and more. The start-up validates the items for the consumer from brands of the likes of Balenciaga. Provenance allows brands to make the sourcing and impact behind their products transparent. Enabling consumers to access and trust in business sustainability through software which gathers and presents information and stories about products and their supply chains. Through connecting this information to goods – in store, on pack and online, everyone is able to access the origin, journey and impact of their products. Trust Trace: platform seeks to improve sustainability communication through understanding sustainability preferences of customers and strengthening brand equity. Trust Trace map multi-tier supply chain for full visibility – empowering all stakeholders and ensure compliance to ESG guidelines. Aura: A blockchain solution to addressing common issues across the luxury industry, enhancing the overall customer experience. Allowing consumers to access product history and proof of authenticity of luxury goods – from sourcing to sales, all the way to second-hand markets. Brand adoption in the wild west of blockchain The significant time- and financial- investments required for blockchain to work at scale has hindered mass adoption. A handful of luxury brands have been the first to step on board to prove authenticity of their products. A number of other large companies have allegedly also started looking at possibilities, including H&M for their Arket and COS brands, though we haven’t been able to find any large-scale consumer facing applications. One of the reasons for this could be that many large fashion companies are reluctant to provide full transparency to their customers, hesitant to lose a competitive edge by divulging the names of their partners, materials or processes.  Small and medium-sized brands focused on sustainability are less hesitant to shed a light on their supply chains, though very few have ventured into the world of blockchain. One brand that has taken the step is Haikure, a denim brand with a mission “to respect the planet and people via the promotion of a new lifestyle where the latest fashion trends and sustainability can coexist”. For each product in their collection, Haikure provides a product passport via a QR code which leads the consumer to an online page, providing information around the product. Through a partnership with blockchain technology company, Provenance, the denim brand is able to publish the journey of the product, including the social and environmental processes in place in each of the factories involved.   Screenshots from the Product Passport of one of Haikure's denim products showing how information about the supply chain is collected and presented. Within the fashion industry, blockchain is still in the early stages of development. The luxury brands have been the first to step onboard, clearly seeing the value of the technology to prove authenticity and combat the counterfeit market. The brands exploring blockchain as a tool to improve social and environmental sustainability within their supply chains, however, are largely still holding off. Despite its promise of improving transparency and traceability, the obstacles to putting in place the technology are still high. Moreover, there are few use cases in the market, so it is difficult to assess the added value to companies or consumers.  Nevertheless, blockchain does provide a concrete solution to tracking a product’s journey from raw material to closet, and beyond. It could support companies with better ways to monitor social and environment issues, to collaborate more closely with various stakeholders and to better communicate a product’s story to consumers. As the leaders of the pack work together with blockchain companies to develop customised solutions, more packaged blockchain solutions are likely to be developed that brands can more easily adopt. It is undeniably a space to watch for all those seeking a fairer, more circular and more transparent fashion industry! As Good Brand Guru, we seek to explore ways to make the fashion industry more social and environmentally sustainable. We do not claim to have the answers. Rather, we seek to enable conversations and knowledge sharing. Do you have thoughts, knowledge and/or opinions about blockchain technology for the fashion industry? Let us know below! References:  Top image source: https://appinventiv.com/blog/blockchain-in-fashion-and-retail-sector/ [accessed 4 May 2021] Fashion Revolution. 2020. FASHION TRANSPARENCY INDEX 2020 - Fashion Revolution. [online] Available at: <https://www.fashionrevolution.org/about/transparency/> [Accessed 3 May 2021]. Kelly, A., 2020. 'Virtually entire' fashion industry complicit in Uighur forced labour, say rights groups. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/23/virtually-entire-fashion-industry-complicit-in-uighur-forced-labour-say-rights-groups-china> [Accessed 3 May 2021]. Haikure. 2021. Tracking. [online] Available at: <https://haikure.com/pages/tracking> [Accessed 4 May 2021].  

Italy

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Provenance 

Haikure

<p>With sustainability in its DNA, Haikure, a sustainable Italian fashion brand specializing in denim jeans, developed a partnership with technology company Provenance, focusing on allowing its sustainable actions to be evident for the consumer. The solution created was a digital passport of each product, which gives the consumer access, from a QR code, to obtain information about the entire product tracking. In this way, the company provides greater visibility to its suppliers (90% are Italian) and informs and educates consumers about sustainable fashion. As a result, the company strengthens its relationship with stakeholders, based on mutual trust, in addition to pursuing its mission of "<em>respecting the planet and people by promoting a new lifestyle where fashion trends and sustainability can coexist</em>".</p>