Circularity

Scientific research and industrial collaboration are defining Finland’s textile transformation. Lindström Group, led by President & CEO Juha Laurio and SVP (Strategy & Sustainability) Kati Pallasaho, shows how data-driven workwear systems can support circular production and recycling. With RFID-enabled garments, flexible manufacturing, and end-of-life recovery, the company aligns with Finland’s goal of combining competitiveness with environmental responsibility.

Scotland has announced a £2m Circular Textiles Fund with focus on five key areas to help the UK constituent country reach net-zero by 2025. A texfash.com report.

The recently announced American Circular Textiles (ACT) policy group, focused on advancing circular textile policy in the US has its roots in a gathering of stakeholders to endorse New York’s Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act. A texfash.com report. 

Implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) along side supporting measures is widely believed to incentivise eco-design. texfash.com talks to Toby Connock, Consultant at Eunomia, the agency that was commissioned by the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF) and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) to conduct a study on the role of EPR and supporting policy measures in driving a circular economy for textiles in Europe.

A new report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), US has recommended strategies to address problems of post-consumer textile waste. The report recommends other improvements that businesses and governments can undertake to increase reuse and recycling of textiles.

Doing away with secondhand garments is easier said than done because people do need access to affordable clothing. Founder of Nairobi-headquartered Africa Collect Textiles (ACT), Elmar Stroomer, believes it is time to add a waste tax on imported items and the funds should be invested in high-end collection and recycling infrastructure.

Nairobi-headquartered Africa Collect Textiles (ACT) is run by ordinary people with extraordinary ideas on how to divert textiles from landfills. No one believed recycling clothes would work in a country where a sizeable proportion of people wears secondhand clothes from abroad. Founder Elmar Stroomer tells us why and how it does.

The European Union Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, is one of the key people behind the European Green Deal and also, by that reason, of the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. Sinkevičius tells texfash.com how the Strategy works.

The EU Textiles Strategy is laudable in many ways—it rightly assesses the dominance of fast fashion and disposable textiles, and integrates environmental and social concerns in its analysis. A fundamental weakness is the limited connection to the CO₂ challenge, and the imperative to become fossil-free or fully biobased by 2050. There is a total lack of proposals related to biobased fibres.

The much-awaited 'EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles' has been announced. It has a broad vision, wants to clamp down on fast fashion and textile waste, and is insistent on action through a slew of measures and a host of guidelines.