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This collection features a selection of case studies, based on the global *Circularity Gap Reports*, that can mitigate climate breakdown by reducing virgin material consumption, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. The latest **[Circularity Gap Report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023#download)** reveals that the global economy is now only 7.2% circular and outlines how circular solutions across four sectors can bring global planetary boundaries back within safe limits. 

In the six years of the *Circularity Gap Report*, the global economy has extracted and used unprecedented amounts of materials. The first edition of the *Report *in 2018 found that global circularity was 9.1% and it has decreased every year since—leaving a Circularity Gap of over 90%. If this trend continues, we will have to find more and better solutions to combat the negative effects of climate change. This is why we have identified case studies from across the globe—based on the needs of society and planetary health—that serve as real-world examples of the circular economy in action.

Circle Economy is a not-for-profit organisation working to accelerate the circular transition. Through the *Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative*, 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. With nature as our guide, we work alongside cross-sector stakeholders from academia, businesses, NGOs and governments to provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable interventions that transform circular opportunities into realities. 


To learn more about these interventions to accelerate the circular transition, read the latest [Circularity Gap Report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023#download), as well as previous editions of the global [Circularity Gap Reports](https://www.circularity-gap.world/global).

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Global Circularity Gap Report 2023

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Business case

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

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

Innovation

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Reduced use and withdrawal of water and rate of recycling and reuse of water

Save Water (SDG6)

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

Biodiversity

Providing water and sewage services, including water collection and distribution, water treatment systems and sewage treatment facilities

Water and Sewage

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

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

Fashion and Textiles

Producing machinery for mining, construction, industrial, and agricultural use, such as heavy duty trucks, rolling machinery, earth-moving and construction equipment, farm machinery, commercial printing and presses, machine tools, compressors, pollution control equipment, elevators, escalators, insulators, pumps, etc., including their related parts

Machinery

Producing basic and specialty chemicals, inks, agricultural chemical such as fertilisers and pesticides, plastics including packaging, and rubber

Chemical and Plastic

Using <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/information-on-chemicals" target="_blank">materials that are not toxic or hazardous</a>.

Non-toxic materials and inputs

Replacing freshwater use with rainwater, fogwater, seawater, etc.

Alternative water use

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within the same industry

Using closed loop recycled materials

Designing products so they produce as little waste as possible during production

Design for minimal waste

Designing products so they use as little materials, water, energy, etc. as possible during use

Design for resource efficiency

Designing products to remove any barriers to recycling and enable easy recyclability

Design for recycling

Solutions at all stages of the textiles value chain.

Zero Waste Textiles

Research and facilitate new technological developments to aid the transition to a circular economy.

Research and Development

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

Consumables are a diverse and complex group of products - such as mobile phones, refrigerators, clothing, cleaning agents, personal care products and paints - that generally have short to medium lifetimes in society. Textiles including clothing also consume many different kinds of resources such as cotton, synthetic materials like polyester, dye pigments, and chemicals.




Consumables

- Use bio-plastic
- Use less plastic
- Use less chemicals

Saving: 0.96 Gt emissions and 2.50 Gt material use

👚📺 Chemicals free

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

Urban Opportunities

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 framework consists of 21 complementary interventions, across six scenarios - one for each of the six societal needs we model. These interventions can mitigate climate impact by curbing GHG emissions

Note: interventions are currently focused on:
- 🏠 Housing 
- 🍎 Nutrition
- 🚗 Mobility
- 👚📺 Consumables
- 👩‍⚕️👨‍⚕️ Healthcare
-  🔊 Communication

These 21 interventions are spread across six societal needs and wants, with a set of solutions. Within these solutions are strategies on ’how to get there'.  

The framework moves beyond incremental action and provides solutions that will require behavioral change (dietary shifts towards less meat consumption, for example) and the adoption of state-of-the-art technologies in the industry to mitigate emissions in hard-to-abate sectors (such as steel manufacturing). It illustrates how continued globalisation can benefit from the uptake of digital solutions. The combined interventions showcase the mitigation potential that begins where the current country pledges end; illustrating the additional impact our interventions can bring to the NDCs. In short, the interventions provide input for a more profound fundamental transformation than the more current pathways that make up the vast majority of NDCs. 

Together, the combined interventions can almost double the current global Circularity Metric of 8.6%, bringing it to 17%. 

This results in:
• Shrinking global material use and extraction by 28%. 
• Cutting global GHG emissions by 39%—fully closing the Emissions Gap as defined in our report and taking into account the updated NDCs.
• Allowing the world to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping at 1.5-degrees of warming by 2032.

*This framework was developed in the Circularity Gap Report 2021. Read more about it [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/resources/circularity-gap-report-2021)*






Global Circularity Gap Report

An intervention-based framework for nations and stakeholders working towards circular countries

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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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 Roughly half of India’s $2.64 billion worth of textile exports comes from the southern city of Tiruppur. While this business has brought many economic benefits to the city, these benefits have been met with numerous environmental and social drawbacks. With 700 dyeing units, Tiruppur is one of the biggest offenders of generating hazardous waste, and the bleaching and dyeing units use large quantities of water. Most of the water is discharged as effluents containing a variety of dyes and chemicals. These garment factories discharge effluents onto land or into the Noyyal River, leading to contamination of the ground, surface water and soil in and around Tiruppur. Unfortunately this is not an isolated case; the fashion industry has caused large amounts of pollution in countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand.
The Dutch company DyeCoo has developed a process of dyeing cloth that uses no water or chemicals, besides in the dyes themselves. Its technology uses reclaimed carbon dioxide as a dyeing medium in a closed loop process. The technology uses highly pressurized supercritical carbon dioxide, halfway between a liquid and a gas, that dissolves the dye and transmits it deep into the fabric. The carbon dioxide then evaporates. Eventually, the carbon dioxide is recycled and used again. Ninety-eight percent of the dye is absorbed by the cloth, resulting in vibrant colors. In this process, the cloth does not need to be dried, which cuts the processing time in half, uses less energy and eliminates costs.

DyeCoo’s technology opens up many new opportunities for the textile industry such as production closer to market, shortened lead times and less use of Earth’s most valuable resource, water. The company has already established partnerships with major brands like Nike and IKEA. Additionally, DyeCoo was recently recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the top leaders in Circular Economy. DyeCoo is one of several companies making an active effort to develop products and solutions that will deliver superior business results while improving the lives of others.
by Sudarshan Nagaraj on Viewpoints on innovation 


 DyeCoo uses patented and industrial proven technology based on CO₂, instead of water. So how does it work? The technology uses reclaimed CO₂ as the dyeing medium in a closed loop process. When pressurized, CO₂ becomes supercritical (SC-CO₂). In this state CO₂ has a very high solvent power, allowing the dye to dissolve easily. Thanks to the high permeability, the dyes are transported easily and deeply into fibres, creating vibrant colours.
WE WORK WITH PURE DYES
CO₂ dyeing does not need added process chemicals to dissolve dyes. Our technology uses 100% pure dyes and with more than 98% uptake, we don’t waste any of it.
ZERO WASTE WATER
No process chemicals, no water, no waste water and therefore no waste water treatment is necessary. The CO₂ we use is reclaimed from existing industrial processes, recycling 95% of it in a closed loop system.
AVAILABLE ON INDUSTRIAL SCALE
We can proudly say that we deliver great results on an industrial scale, which is not to be taken for granted when implementing a completely new technology. In fact, DyeCoo is the only company that has been able to scale up CO₂-based textile processing technology to a proven industrial scale, winning industrial and commercial endorsements from both textile mills and end users.
ENERGY EFFICIENT
CO₂ dyeing is a dry process, eliminating the need to evaporate water. The addition of efficient colour absorption and short batch cycles makes our technology very energy efficient.
LOWER PROCESS COSTS
Short batch cycles, efficient dye use, no waste water treatment all contribute to significantly reduced operating costs.
VIBRANT COLORS
We use 100% pure dyestuff giving beautiful, vibrant colours. The dye is distributed evenly over the fabric and the technology allows for easy colour correction. The dyestuff penetrates deep into the fibres creating intense colours with excellent quality characteristics.
GEOGRAPHICAL FREEDOM
Dyeing without water equals geographical freedom, becoming completely independent from clean water availability. We can dye fabric in the middle of the Sahara. This opens up new opportunities for the textile industry, allowing production to occur closer to market, shorten lead times and disconnect from Earth’s most valuable resource … water.


How the process of dying textiles could turn CO2 into a valuable resource while avoiding using any water at all. Watch Olaf Lohle, Co-founder of #CleanDye at our first Circular Table Talks broadcast

https://t.co/ZkwunLQedG 



It is estimated that the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions – more than international flights and maritime shipping combined.

According to the European Environment Agency, textile purchases in the EU in 2017 generated about 654 kg of CO2 emissions per person.
 
The way people get rid of unwanted clothes has also changed, with items being thrown away rather than donated.

Since 1996, the amount of clothes bought in the EU per person has increased by 40% following a sharp fall in prices, which has reduced the life span of clothing. Europeans use nearly 26 kilos of textiles and discard about 11 kilos of them every year. Used clothes can be exported outside the EU, but are mostly (87%) incinerated or landfilled.

Globally less than 1% of clothes are recycled as clothing, partly due to inadequate technology.
 
The new strategy aims to address fast fashion and provide guidelines to achieve high levels of separate collection of textile waste.

Under the waste directive approved by the Parliament in 2018, EU countries will be obliged to collect textiles separately by 2025. The new Commission strategy also includes measures to support circular material and production processes, tackle the presence of hazardous chemicals and help consumers to choose sustainable textiles.

The EU has an EU Ecolabel that producers respecting ecological criteria can apply to items, ensuring a limited use of harmful substances and reduced water and air pollution.

The EU has also introduced some measures to mitigate the impact of textile waste on the environment. Horizon 2020 funds RESYNTEX, a project using chemical recycling, which could provide a circular economy business model for the textile industry.

Netherlands

Europe

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DyeCoo

<p>DyeCoo, a Netherlands-based company has more than 15 years of experience in CO₂ technology. With extensive knowledge in design and engineering equipment, DyeCoo provides clean textile processing solutions on an industrial scale. Their mission is to lead the textile industry to a lean and clean future with the world’s first 100% waterless and process chemical-free textile processing solution.&nbsp;</p>