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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 the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Scalability

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)

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

Fashion and Textiles

Extracting and gathering wood through forestry and producing wood and paper products

Wood and Paper

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within the same industry

Valorise waste streams - closed loop

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

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

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

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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     This list contains names and contact information for innovator companies that have a Canopy policy, and that have developed technologies and processes that enable the production of man-made cellulosic fibre (MMCF), viscose, paper, and packaging from fibres that are an alternative to wood-based feedstock. Canopy has crafted this directory as a tool to support purchasers of forest products in their search for Next Generation Solutions with a lower environmental footprint.     Mill    Technology    Product in EcoPaper Database    Product Available    Seeking Investment       Fibers365 GmbH, based in Germany, offers carbon-negative fibers and substrates for paper and packaging, using an exclusive, chemical-free pulping technology for straw and other cellulosic non-wood biomass, such as miscanthus, rye grass, hemp, flax, banana stems, tomato stems, bagasse, and grapevine stems. By focusing on annual plants, with all relevant biogenic emissions in production and consumption compensated within one year, Fibers365 provides a viable and ecological alternative to fibers from wood biomass, too often originating from deforestation, forest degradation, or monoculture wood plantations. Their decentralized concept allows for pulped biomass without producing chemical waste streams usually associated with sulfite and sulfate pulping; a way to close supply chain and circular nutrient loops at the farm level; and offers competitive pricing for the resulting pulp. They are seeking strategic partners for global rollout.               Fiber-X is a research and development production center in Finland focused on developing textile yarn, packaging and other products using agricultural residues, in order to mitigate the climate impacts of crop burning and extensive water consumption associated with cotton production. Fiber-X is looking for global partners to scale their next generation concepts.                  GreenKey LLC is a technology company formed to advance the development of sustainable solutions for replacing products and packaging materials made from plastics and other high footprint sources with alternative cellulose fibers such as agricultural residues. Unlike conventional pulping operations, the GreenKey process requires no heat, no harsh chemicals, and eliminates effluent. GreenKey provides a lab to test their pulp in a variety of applications and can install their 'drop-in' technology and machinery at new or existing facilities.                  Nafici Environmental Research, based in the UK, has developed and patented EcoPulping, an innovative low carbon process that converts wheat straw and other agricultural wastes into unbleached pulp for use in paper and packaging. EcoPulping uses much less energy and water than conventional pulping methods and is economic even at small scale. This means that production plants can be developed close to packaging mills, many of which are looking for cost competitive and sustainable alternative sources of fibre. NER is starting to license their technology and the first commercial EcoPulping plant is under construction in China. They have already tested wheat and rice straw, reed, date palm leaves, corn stover, cotton stems and more. Prior to licensing, they carry out feasibility studies in a UK pilot plant for clients who want to use new or similar raw materials, before designing an EcoPulping plant to meet their specific needs.                     RE-Leaf is a research and cellulose production enterprise in the Ukraine that is creating and scaling a low footprint and low water use pulping technology designed to process urban wastes (fallen leaves) and agricultural fibres into pulp for paper and packaging. They plan to have the technology available to scale on each major continent.                  ReStalk is a US-based startup implementing regenerative solutions by transforming agricultural residues into valuable pulp and packaging products, while offering a better alternative to burning or disposing of bio-waste in a landfill. ReStalk has aligned its efforts with larger scale cultivators, businesses, local, state, and federal officials to implement their vision of a greener hemp industry. The patented pulp process employed uses a fraction of the water and none of the toxic chemicals associated with traditional pulping.                  Tensei is a R&D materials company, focusing on helping businesses to develop new products primarily from annual crop waste and perennial plants. Tensei has the necessary tools and partners to take a seed idea and enable it to get to market through a fibre supply chain that has been specifically developed for this purpose. Diverse products developed to date from alternative agricultural fibres include specialty papers and food packaging. Furthermore, Tensei is working with companies to help them to generate value from their own bio-waste streams which in turn could also be added into Tensei pulp fibre supply chain.                  Bast Fibre Technologies Inc. is a bast fibre engineering firm based in Canada that develops, manufactures and markets IP protected enhancements for hemp, flax and other bast fibres; and delivers these fibres to high-value consumer and industrial product markets. BFTi’s proprietary processes allow the transformation of annually renewable bast fibre feedstock from a variety of sources into high-performance, luxe-quality, eco-friendly (biodegradable, compostable, plastic/microplastic free) end products in the non-wovens market.                  The Liva Reviva line, by Birla Cellulose, is their circular viscose fibre line using 20% industrial fabric (pre-consumer cotton) waste. Their goal it to continue innovating in order to incorporate post-consumer textile waste into their process and increase the recycled content of the fibre to 50% by the end of 2020. Aditya Birla and Birla Cellulose are working with Canopy to eliminate Ancient and Endangered Forest fibre from their supply chain. As such, they achieved a green shirt ranking in 2019 Hot Button.                  Circ has a technology to recycle fibres using water as a solvent, making their tech one of the cleanest in the recycling industry and cost competitive with virgin materials. Circ has developed a textile recycling solution that makes high-grade dissolving pulp. This pulp can be made into viscose and Lyocell type fabrics. They can environmentally and economically process pure cotton fabric and poly-cotton blends, shifting the linear fashion system to a circular one. The technology can also recycle polyester or poly-cotton blends into the building blocks of virgin-grade polyester. Using their clean process, they reduce polyester to its monomers (terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol), which allows them to recover value from old apparel and textiles.                     Circular Systems is a materials science company, focused on the development of innovative circular and regenerative technologies, transforming waste into valuable fibre, yarn, and textile fabrics for the fashion industry. Their waste-to-fibre platforms Texloop™ Recycling and Agraloop™ Bio-refinery, combined with their proprietary Orbital™ Hybrid Yarn technology, allow them to offer break-through solutions for the most efficient management of textile/apparel and agricultural waste streams.                  Seattle-based Evrnu is creating fresh-engineered fibres with NuCycl™ technologies to extend the lifecycle of today’s single-use textiles by converting pre and post-consumer materials into pristine new fibres. It is currently being adopted by leading global brands and retailers.                  IDEPS GmbH, is an Austria-based developer of innovative solutions for textiles. The company has patented a technology that allows efficient recycling of organic fabrics, separating fibers in mixed fabrics (polycotton), and bleaching without the use of harmful chemicals. Unlike other chemical recycling methods used, it does not contain enzymes and acids and does not require special conditions. It allows obtaining of cellulosic mass from old textiles without additional energy consumption.                  Infinited Fiber Company offers a closed loop solution to the textile disposal problem. The technology allows you to turn textile, cardboard and agricultural waste into new natural fibre. It is applicable for exiting pulp and viscose fibre manufactures, thus reducing investment costs. Backed by long-term research and open business attitude with two years of industrial piloting, Infinited Fiber is already combining forces with investors and fashion companies worldwide, through licensing their technology.                     Lenzing has developed and scaled REFIBRA™ technology which upcycles textile scraps from the garment industry and post-consumer recycled cotton waste into new TENCEL™ lyocell, which now features up to 30% recycled raw material content (some post-consumer cotton waste is mixed with pre-consumer cotton waste). Lenzing’s five-year vision is to raise the industry bar by producing fibers with REFIBRA™ technology by having up to 50% recycled content from post-consumer cotton waste to make textile waste recycling as common as paper recycling.                  Nanollose, based in Australia, is a biotechnology company that is developing a process to repurpose liquid waste from food and beverage industries to produce microbial cellulose that is then regenerated into their Nullarbor fibre. The Nanollose technology has been designed to be compatible and implemented into existing manufacturing equipment that produces cellulosic based fibre. They have successfully made fibre, fabric and a garment using their technology and are focused on developing a supply chain ecosystem and initial commercial offerings.                  Renewcell is a technology company that was founded in January 2012 by a group of cellulose researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and a small investment company. The company has developed a new, patented, recycling process for turning cotton fabric waste and other cellulosic textiles (such as viscose) into viscose grade dissolving pulp. In 2016 Renewcell invested 48 M SEK (~$5 M USD) to scale up its technology and build a 7000 ton/year industrial recycling plant in Kristinehamn, Sweden. In 2019, Renewcell made its first commercial sales of 100% recycled dissolving pulp, branded CIRCULOSE®, to a number of dissolving pulp buyers. They will launch in retail with selected global brands in 2020. Renewcell is now looking for investors to fund growth and capacity expansion outside of Sweden.                     Spinnova, based in Finland, and inspired by the way a spider makes its web, has developed a unique mechanical process to create textile fibre from agricultural fibres like wheat straw and other cellulose biomass with minimal water use, low C02 emissions and zero waste, while not using any harmful chemicals. And there is no dissolving or regeneration involved. The resulting spinning-ready fibre can also be upcycled again into new high-quality textiles in the Spinnova process without dissolving or harmful chemicals or adding fresh fibres. The company is seeking financing options to speed growth and scale.                  Worn Again Technologies, based in the UK, is focussed on solving the challenging issue of converting polyester and polycotton blended textiles, and PET plastic, at their end of use, back into circular raw materials. Their advanced recycling technology is able to separate, decontaminate and extract polyester and cellulose (from cotton) from non-reusable textiles and polyester bottles and packaging to produce dual PET and cellulose outputs, therefore putting sustainable resources back into production supply chains. They have the support of leading brands and pioneering partners, such as H&M and Kering, as well as angel investor Craig Cohon, previously a senior executive of The Coca Cola Company and owner of Cirque du Soleil Russia.                  Early Adopter of Next Gen MMCF Pulp:  In 2019, Tangshan Sanyou, a viscose producer, became an early adopter of Next Generation MMCF solutions by introducing ReVisco, a viscose staple fibre made from 50% post-consumer recycled content dissolving pulp supplied by Renewcell. The company had to adapt their technology to successfully run the post-consumer recycled fibre. ReVisco was launched into the marketplace in 2020 with H&M’s Conscious Action series. Tangshan Sanyou is working with Canopy to eliminate Ancient and Endangered Forest fibre from their supply chain. As such, they achieved a green shirt ranking in 2019 Hot Button.                  If your company has an innovative, low-footprint technology that provides a recycled or forest-free alternative for dissolving pulp, viscose or rayon, or forest-free alternative for paper and packaging, contact Canopy to join our cadre of Next Generation Solution providers.  nextgensolutions@canopyplanet.org
Updated December 2020      

 Recently, garments produced by Tangshan Sanyou Group Xingda Chemical Fibre Co.Ltd,  Remanufactured rayon staple fibers ReVisco™ were launched in H&M's designated stores online and offline as a spring/summer environmental conscious action limited series, completing a new life of recycling textiles to garments.                                         ReVisco™ is an innovative line of TangCell® products that reproduces cotton/regenerated cellulose fiber products using innovative  and sustainable technologies derived from used cotton textiles. The global fashion industry is on a path to sustainability, with Sanyou's successful mass production of ReVisco™ fiber in June 2019 marking a milestone in the viscose fiber industry's use of recycled cotton. 50% of the raw material comes from recycled cotton fabrics after consumption. The recycled cotton pulp is provided by Re: newcell, a Swedish company. The remaining 50% is made from FSC COC wood pulp and reviewed by Canopy models. After nearly a year of efforts by various parties in the viscose industry chain, the sustainably recycled viscose fiber has been transformed into garments by renowned fast fashion brand H&M and went on sale on April 23. Ekman, a multinational pulp and paper group, has built a bridge. Tangshan Sanyou Group Xingda Chemical Fibre Co.Ltd, Re:newcell, a Swedish company with advanced recycled textile technology, Södra, a well-known association of forest owners, and H&M have teamed up to create a successful sustainable development case from raw materials to garments.                                         Currently, ReVisco™ has two products. One, co-developed with Re:newcell, contains 50% post-consumer cotton textiles. The product has achieved mass production in June 2019 and is currently sold to brand owners; The other is to cooperate with Södra, which contains 3% post-consumption cotton textiles, for mass production in February 2020. Sanyou will continue to deepen the cooperation with Södra, so as to strive to produce more than 20% post-consumption textile fiber as soon as possible, and sell it to the downstream cotton mills through all channels.                       

China

Tangshan Sanyou

<p>Tangshan Sanyou introduced in 2019 ReVisco, a viscose fibre which contain 50% post consumer recycled content which is supplied by Renewcell. ReVisco was used in H&amp;M Conscious collection.</p>