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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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This collection features a selection of case studies, mainly based on the [2024 Circularity Gap Report](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2024). 

In this year’s Report, we shift from exploring the what to the how: exploring the different ways that we need to ‘change the rules of the game’ and create a set of conditions that discourage the overshoot of planetary boundaries and ‘undershoot’ of human development. This process has resulted in us spotlighting 12 of the original 16 solutions, highlighting the country profile that they are most relevant to, as well as placing people at the centre of this story for the first time. Based on extensive interviews and desk research, this Report aims to show governments and industry leaders that if they want to turn theory into action and scale an economy that delivers on needs within the safe limits of the planet, they need to dismantle harmful entrenched processes and align enabling elements. 

[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 an annual global Circularity Metric that measures the state of the world economy and identifies key levers to transition to global circularity. 

To learn more about these interventions to accelerate the circular transition, read the [latest Circularity Gap Report 2024](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2024), as well as previous editions of the global [Circularity Gap Reports](https://www.circularity-gap.world/global).

Global Circularity Gap Report 2024

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Policy case

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

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 electric cables and wires, power-generating equipment, including solar modules, motors, power turbines, as well as electronic equipment and instruments, including computer chips, communication equipment, analytical instruments, lasers, display screens, point-of-sales machines, security system equipment, and healthcare equipment

Electrical and Electronic Equipment

Providing residential and non-residential construction services, such as architectural, engineering, planning, real-estate, contracting, and inspection services

Construction and Real Estate Services

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

Designing products to resist damage and wear, and serve a long and useful life.

Design for physical durability

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

Advocacy for circular economy policy

Participating in government programmes that support and advance the circular economy

Government programmes

Data, knowledge & information sharing

Increase standardised data collection

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

Research and Development

Conduct research

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Monitoring & enforcement

Review and update regulation

Raise awareness and run information campaigns about  strategies for and impacts of the circular economy in different contexts.

Communication and awareness

Compact city development

Performance standards

Technology standards

Build countries consume 13% of the global material footprint, while they account for almost 50% of the population. 

Examples include countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia such as: 
- Bangladesh
- Ethiopia
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- The Philippines
- Some small island states, ...

Minimal contribution to the overshoot of planetary boundaries: these countries contribute 20% of land use change, 30% of
freshwater use, 23% of phosphorus emissions to soil, and 11% of nitrogen emissions.

To find out what country profile your country belongs to, explore [this interactive story](https://circularity-gap.world) and search for your country on the final map.

Build

The built environment, including housing, commercial buildings, and the necessary infrastructure for mobility, is essential for our livelihoods, but:
- the extraction of minerals used to produce construction materials is responsible for a quarter of global land use change,
- approximately 40% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to buildings’ construction, use and demolition, and
- construction and demolition processes drive nearly one-third of all material consumption. 

Making the built environment more circular must prioritise a heavy reduction in material use—while also closing the loop on materials and bringing secondary and renewable material choices to the fore. Our four key solutions for the built environment are:
- Make the most of what already exists: Make the most of existing materials by reusing, repurposing, upgrading and renovating following circular approaches. Where new builds are needed, use secondary materials and be as efficient as possible with urban planning solutions that follow circular design principles so that buildings can be reused, repurposed, and easily disassembled in the future.
- Be as energy efficient as possible: From the design phase, utilise circular strategies to create material- and energy efficient buildings. Couple these designs with a rollout of clean energy solutions, and prioritise energy-efficient appliances and retrofitting. 
- Utilise secondary materials: Maximise the high-value reuse of buildings and components where possible. Ideally, enable the utilisation of construction and demolition outputs and ensure that as much of it as possible is recycled to avoid the need for virgin materials, such as sand and gravel.
- Prioritise circular materials and approaches: Transition to using renewable wood, timber or cross-laminated timber instead of steel and concrete, or move to other locally available materials. Utilise mainstream modular construction and prioritise lightweight frames and structures to reduce cement and steel use, as well as green roofs where possible.



🏢 Built Environment

**Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all**

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Progress towards achieving SDG8 has been challenging and the world is far from reaching most of the targets. The lingering effects of COVID-19, cost-of-living crises, trade tensions, uncertain monetary policy paths, rising debts in developing countries, and the war in Ukraine can each significantly set back global economic growth. Combined, these crises are placing the global economy under a serious threat. Global real GDP per capita is forecast to slow down in 2023, putting at risk not just employment and income but also advances inequitable pay for women and decent work for young people. 

With governments today seeking effective ways to lead their nations out of these related crises whilst also taking into account these planetary boundaries, green economy (in its various forms) has been proposed as a means for catalysing renewed national policy development and international cooperation and support for sustainable development. The concept has received significant international attention over the past few years as a tool to address the 2008 financial crisis as well as one of two themes for the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). This has resulted in a rapidly expanding literature including new publications on green economy from a variety of influential international organisations, national governments, think tanks, experts, non-government organisations and others.

In parallel, tourism is one of the world's fastest-growing industries and an important source of foreign exchange and employment, while being closely linked to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of many countries, especially developing countries. Maritime or ocean-related tourism, as well as coastal tourism, are for example vital sectors of the economy in small island developing States (SIDS) and coastal least developed countries (LDCs). 
The World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities".

Finally, this goal entails decent work, employment creation, social protection, rights at work and social dialogue to be represented as part of integral elements of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Furthermore, crucial aspects of decent work are broadly rooted in the targets of many of the other 16 goals.

Achieving SDG8 will require a wholesale reform of our morally bankrupt financial system in order to tackle rising debts, economic uncertainties, and trade tensions, while promoting equitable pay and decent work for young people.

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal8](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal8)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/green-economy](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/green-economy)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/sustainable-tourism](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/sustainable-tourism)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/employment-decent-work-all-and-social-protection](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/employment-decent-work-all-and-social-protection)

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8. Decent work and economic growth

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

**Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation**

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The manufacturing industry’s recovery from COVID-19 remains incomplete and uneven: some high-income regions achieved record-high manufacturing value added per capita in 2022 but levels in LDCs were not much higher than the 2015 baseline. 
In the aftermath of the pandemic, data show that higher-technology industries recovered faster and proved to be more resilient, pointing to the need to promote innovation and technology transfer in a way that benefits all countries. 

Inclusive and sustainable industrial development has been incorporated, together with resilient infrastructure and innovation, as Sustainable Development Goal 9 in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

To achieve Goal 9 by 2030 it is essential to support LDCs, invest in advanced technologies, lower carbon emissions, and increase global mobile broadband access.

This goal's target includes:
- develop quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, including regional and transborder infrastructure, to support economic development and human well-being, with a focus on affordable and equitable access for all;
- promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and, by 2030, significantly raise industry’s share of employment and gross domestic product, in line with national circumstances, and double its share in least developed countries;
- increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises, in particular in developing countries, to financial services, including affordable credit, and their integration into value chains and markets;
- by 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities;
- enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending;
- facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in developing countries through enhanced financial, technological and technical support to African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States;
- support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries, including by ensuring a conducive policy environment for, inter alia, industrial diversification and value addition to commodities;
- significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal9](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal9)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/industry](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/industry)

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9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure  

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

**Reduce inequality within and among countries**

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Before the pandemic, the incomes of the bottom 40% of the population grew faster than the national average in a majority of countries. The impacts of the pandemic and uneven recoveries in different regions of the world threaten to reverse that trend and further worsen global inequality. 
Record numbers are being forced to flee conflicts and economic hardship. By mid-2022, one in 251 people worldwide was a refugee, the highest proportion ever documented. 

This goal's target includes: 
- progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average;
- empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status; 
- ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard;
- adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality;
- improve the regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions and strengthen the implementation of such regulations;
- ensure enhanced representation and voice for developing countries in decision-making in global international economic and financial institutions in order to deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate institutions;
- facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies;
- implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, in accordance with World Trade Organization agreements;
- encourage official development assistance and financial flows, including foreign direct investment, to States where the need is greatest, in particular least developed countries, African countries, small island developing States, and landlocked developing countries, in accordance with their national plans and programmes;
- reduce to less than 3 percent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 percent.

Achieving SDG 10 requires concerted efforts to address the root causes of wage disparities and access to resources both within- and between-country inequality. 

Source : [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10)

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10. Reduced inequalities

Reduce inequality within and among countries

🏢 Built environment

Based on extensive interviews and desk research, this Report aims to show governments and industry leaders that if they want to turn theory into action and scale an economy that delivers on needs within the safe limits of the planet, they need to dismantle harmful entrenched processes and align enabling elements - policy, finance, and people

- Build circular expertise and skills: Ensure people are skilled and trained to ensure a just transition where opportunities and decent livelihoods are fairly distributed across and within societies.


People

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

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.

Thematic Areas

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**These 17 Goals recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.**

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, and especially on the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York which let to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. A major blueprint came out of this: The Sustainable Development Goals: 17 overarching goals—and 169 targets—that governments are aiming to meet by 2030. Significant progress has been made in terms of poverty, health and inequality, but there's still a way to go. This is where the circular economy comes in: by circulating resources multiple times, the circular economy tackles issues of scarcity and allows all to access what they need—without overburdening the earth. If it's implemented in a holistic way—affording attention to social considerations and the fair distribution of resources— it also offers a pathway for achieving the SDGs; and the link between the two is ever-growing. To read more about the link between the SDGs and the circular economy, click [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/blogs/how-the-circular-economy-can-help-us-reach-the-sustainable-development-goals).

It is the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues. TheDSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.
Alongside this, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.
In addition, the UN Secretary-General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

To read more information: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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In the 2024 Report, we shift from exploring the what to the how: exploring the different ways that we need to ‘change the rules of the game’ and create a set of conditions that discourage the overshoot of planetary boundaries and ‘undershoot’ of human development. 

This process has resulted in us spotlighting 12 of the original 16 solutions, highlighting the country profile that they are most relevant to, as well as placing people at the center of this story for the first time. 


Based on extensive interviews and desk research, this Report aims to show governments and industry leaders that if they want to turn theory into action and scale an economy that delivers on needs within the safe limits of the planet, they need to dismantle harmful entrenched processes and align enabling elements:

- Create a level policy playing field: Set the ‘rules of the game’ through policies and legal frameworks that incentivise sustainable and circular practices while penalising harmful ones, thereby shaping the nature and scale of economic activities across industries and nations. 

- Get the economics right: Adjust fiscal policies and practices to create true prices and ensure that circular solutions are funded so that they can replace linear norms.

- Build circular expertise and skills: Ensure people are skilled and trained to ensure a just transition where opportunities and decent livelihoods are fairly distributed across and within societies.

Enabling factors

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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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On 24 April 2013, the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed five garment factories, killed at least 1,132 people and injured more than 2,500. Only five months earlier, at least 112 workers had lost their lives in another tragic accident, trapped inside the burning Tazreen Fashions factory on the outskirts of Dhaka. These disasters, among the worst industrial accidents on record, awoke the world to the poor labour conditions faced by workers in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh.
For some of the lowest wages of the world, millions of people, most of them girls and women, are exposed every day to an unsafe work environment with a high incidence of work-related accidents and deaths, as well as occupational diseases. Most of the factories do not meet standards required by building and construction legislation. As a result, deaths from fire incidents and building collapses are frequent. Since the Rana Plaza disaster, no fewer than 109 accidents have occurred. Among these, at least 35 were textile factory incidents in which 491 workers were injured and 27 lost their lives. In the absence of a well-functioning labour inspection system and of appropriate enforcement mechanisms, decent work and life in dignity are still far from reality for the vast majority of workers in the garment industry and their families. Given the hazardous working conditions and the high risk of exposure to employment injury in this sector, the provision of adequate benefits is of critical importance in compensating injured workers for the loss of earnings they are likely to suffer, and to ensure that they have access to the medical and associated care required by their condition. Access to some form of financial compensation or support for dependent family members who lose their breadwinner can also make the difference between life in dire poverty, where children and older people are forced to work to survive, and life at or just above subsistence level. At present, the only form of financial protection available to workers and their dependants is set out in the labour code, which requires employers, when liable, to provide specified payments to injured workers or survivors. A recent amendment to the labour code requires employers to insure themselves against liability, but no such obligation was in force at the time Tazreen caught fire, or when Rana Plaza collapsed. The amounts of compensation envisaged are also very low and take the form of lump sums, offering inadequate protection to beneficiaries against ill health and poverty in the medium and long term. The system is also plagued by major practical application issues (e.g. evasion, lack of proper enforcement, absence of effective recourse), with the result that legal entitlements very rarely materialize. Despite the magnitude of the losses suffered by the victims of the Tazreen and Rana Plaza accidents and their survivors, no compensation was paid in application of the labour code provisions on employer liability. A small number of global buyers and local players made some payments to victims in the months following the disasters, albeit on a voluntary basis. 
To redress the situation more substantively and ensure that injured workers and dependants of the deceased were effectively compensated, both financially and in respect of medical and other relevant care, global and local stakeholders got together and agreed to an unprecedented coordinated framework. With the ILO acting as a neutral chair, an Arrangement was adopted, providing a single approach to compensation consistent with ILO standards, and more specifically with the Employment Injury Benefits Convention, 1964 (No. 121). 

Following a number of recent tragedies such as the Tampoco and MultiFabs factory fires in 2016 and 2017, as well as earlier accidents such as the Tazreen fire and the Rana Plaza disaster, local authorities and stakeholders at the national and international levels, with the involvement of organizations such as the IndustriAll Global Union and Clean Clothes Campaign, took bold steps to strengthen occupational safety and health, labour inspection services, skills training and rehabilitation services in the long term, notably with the support of the ILO and of global buyers. Action has also been taken to implement a national employment injury scheme in Bangladesh based on the principles of Convention No. 121 and a mutual consensus on the core elements of the scheme. The operationalization of an Employment Injury Insurance (EII) scheme will inevitably take time, possibly two to three years at best. Until an EII scheme becomes operational and capable of collecting contributions and paying benefits, it is crucial that in case of another large-scale industrial accident such as the Rana Plaza collapse or the Tazreen building fire, a proper bridging solution be in place to provide for appropriate health care and compensation to the victims in an efficient and diligent manner and on a temporary basis.
Following series of consultations and ground work on legal framework, costing and bridging solution, a consultation meeting was conducted in Geneva in November 2017. The State Minister, Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) was the Chief Guest, and the Secretary in Charge, MoLE was the Chair.
In that meeting, the forum came up with a suggestion that a tripartite policy level committee on EII may further analyse the ground works done by the ILO and decide future steps for introducing an Employment Injury Insurance in Bangladesh. In late November 2017, in the Project Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting, this proposal was endorsed and a notice issued to established a tripartite committee on EII. The committee is chaired by the Addtional Secretary, MoLE, and represented by Bangladesh Employers' Federation (BEF), Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA), National Coordination Committee for Workers' Education (NCCWE) and IndustriALL Bangladesh Council (IBC).
The first meeting of the committee is expected to take place in early May 2018. The committee will come up with recommendations within two months from the first meeting which will be around July 2018. 

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 Following the disaster in Rana Plaza in 2013, where a garment factory collapsed, resulting in the loss of 1,136 lives, we were asked to develop a methodology for assessing the structural safety of the factories in Bangladesh.

Understanding the importance of the garment industry for the people of Bangladesh, employing more than four million people, we came up with a pragmatic approach for carrying out the structural safety assessments, focusing on critical life–safety issues.

Driving change

Post-Rana Plaza, we have supported a number of clients in driving an agenda of change. So far, we have inspected over 800 factories there for Inditex (Spanish retail group) and the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety - an umbrella organisation of clothing companies, employers and workers' representatives. We have provided clear advice on actions required to ensure the safety of the workers, including closure of a small number of facilities. In addition, we have overseen and provided a quality review role on an additional 750 fire, electrical and structural factory inspections which were commissioned by the International Labour Organisation on behalf of the Bangladesh Government. 

Bangladesh

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Arup is an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, architects, consultants and technical specialists, working across every aspect of today’s built environment.

ARUP

Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A. is a Spanish multinational clothing company headquartered in Arteixo, Galicia, in Spain. Inditex, the biggest fast fashion group in the world, operates over 7,200 stores in 93 markets worldwide. Subsidiaries include Zara, Bershka, Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear.

Inditex

International Labour Organisation

Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety

<p>Following the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, ARUP were commissioned to design and test a rapid structural assessment methodology of the structural safety of textile factories in Bangladesh, lead the implementation and train local engineers to ensure it is used correctly. To date, ARUP’s methodology has been used to inspect 3,700 textile/garment factories in Bangladesh.&nbsp;</p>

ARUP develop rapid methodology for assessing the structural safety of textile factories in Bangladesh 

Business case

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

Ecological Impact

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 and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

Utilise waste streams as a source of secondary resources and recover waste for reuse and recycling

Use waste as a resource

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

Valorise waste streams - closed loop

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within the same industry

Closed loop upcycling

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

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

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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           (Source: ZARA)    Renewcell is partnering with Zara for a capsule collection made with Circulose, a branded biodegradable raw material from 100% recycled textiles used to produce textile fibers.  Soon operating at commercial scale in their new plant in Sundsvall/Sweden, the 100% textile-to-textile recycled material Circulose by Renewcell AB, Stockholm/Sweden, continues to save waste from landfills by creating value through circular supply chains with brands around the world. Fibers produced with Circulose can help brands to limit the use of virgin textile fibers, reducing the climate and environmental impact caused by raw material production and waste.   For Zara, a brand of the Inditex Group, Arteixo/Spain, this collaboration is part of Inditex’s Sustainability Innovation Hub, an open-innovation platform. The aim is to work alongside start-ups, academic institutions, and tech centers to promote and scale initiatives developing new materials, technologies and processes that reduce the environmental footprint of fashion and help advance towards more sustainable production.      

  
ARTEIXO – Fashion brand Zara, a company of the Inditex Group, has announced the launch of a capsule collection made from Circulose, the recycled fibre of Swedish innovator Renewcell. Renewcell’s technology dissolves garments with high cellulosic content into a pulp which can be used to yield what are claimed to be virgin-equivalent raw material to make new clothing. “Collaborations with such global brands, bring our vision to change fashion at scale to life, and our rapid growth would not be possible without partners like Zara joining this shift. We are delighted to reveal this collection made with Circulose as the latest step in our ongoing collaboration,” said Patrik Lundström, CEO of Renewcell. In a press statement, Rewnewcell said: “Soon operating at commercial scale in their new plant in Sundsvall, Sweden, the 100 per cent textile-to-textile recycled material Circulose by Renewcell continues to save waste from landfills by creating value through circular supply chains with brands around the world, now with Zara.” For Zara, this collaboration is part of Inditex’s Sustainability Innovation Hub, an open-innovation platform. The aim is to work alongside start-ups, academic institutions, and tech centres to, “promote and scale initiatives developing new materials, technologies and processes that reduce the environmental footprint of fashion and help advance towards more sustainable production.” The collection made with Circulose is available beginning August 4 at www.zara.com
	 

 STOCKHOLM, Sweden — August 4, 2022 — Zara, the global fashion brand and part of Inditex Group, is partnering with Renewcell for a capsule collection made with Circulose®, a branded material produced from 100-percent recycled textiles.
Circulose, developed by Renewcell, is a biodegradable raw material used to produce textile fibers for fashion like viscose and lyocell. Fibers produced with Circulose help brands to limit the use of virgin textile fibers, reducing the climate and environmental impact caused by raw material production and waste.
“Zara is one of the largest fashion brands in the world, a testament to its power to influence real change within the industry. Collaborations with such global brands, bring our vision to change fashion at scale to life, and our rapid growth would not be possible without partners like Zara joining this shift. We are delighted to reveal this collection made with Circulose as the latest step in our ongoing collaboration.” said Patrik Lundström, CEO of Renewcell.
Soon operating at commercial scale in their new plant in Sundsvall, Sweden, the 100-percent textile-to-textile recycled material Circulose by Renewcell continues to save waste from landfills by creating value through circular supply chains with brands around the world, now with Zara.
For Zara, this collaboration is part of Inditex’s Sustainability Innovation Hub, an open-innovation platform. The aim is to work alongside start-ups, academic institutions, and tech centers to promote and scale initiatives developing new materials, technologies and processes that reduce the environmental footprint of fashion and help advance towards more sustainable production.
The collection made with Circulose is available beginning August 4 at www.zara.com.
Posted: August 4, 2022
Source: Renewcell Page 2   Textile World print magazine is FREE to qualified textile professionals residing in the United States, Canada or Mexico.Textile World digital edition and eNewsletters are FREE to textile professionals worldwide.    Our customer service department is available from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST at 678-483-6102, or by emailing jdavis@textileworld.com  
   

Spain

Stockholm

Arteixo

Renewcell

<p>Inditex's fashion brand Zara has partnered with Swedish textile-to-textile recycling innovator Renewcell on a capsule collection made from its Circulose branded material, which is produced from 100% recycled textiles</p>

Zara taps Renewcell Circulose for new capsule collection

Inditex takes-back used clothing across selected retail stores. The pieces are
either repaired and reused or recycled. Inditex therefore teams up with NGOs
and recycling firms to divert worn clothes from ending up at landfills.

