Updates

A report from the Sorting for Circularity Europe project says that as much as 74%—a total of 494,000 tonnes—of low-value, post-consumer textiles is readily available for fibre-to-fibre recycling in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. texfash.com reports.

The partners in the Monitor for Circular Fashion, created by the SDA Bocconi School of Management, presented their best practices during the recent Milano Fashion Week.

The Responsible Sourcing Network has released new standards for fabric mills and updated the existing ones for spinning mills in a bid to assist fabric and spinning mills in due diligence efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate forced labour involved in cotton production.

Three leading brands’ associations have decided to tackle workers’ grievances from shared factories. This new collaboration will initially be piloted for a year, with the objective to improve working conditions in their members’ supply chains and to offer learnings for the industry to align access to remedies.

Launched today, the new Horizon Europe project CISUTAC will support the transition to a circular and sustainable textile sector. CISUTAC aims to remove current bottlenecks in order to increase textile circularity in Europe. It will also raise awareness among EU citizens about the environmental impact of buying new clothes and the benefits of reusing, donating and shopping second hand textiles.

The textile services sector, especially industrial laundries, which provide critical support to the healthcare and hospitality industries could be severely hit by the ongoing energy crisis in Europe. Many of these units are SMES and stand in the danger of having to shutter down if energy prices are not immediately capped.

The New Cotton Project has released its second white paper, authored by Aalto University. The new document, among other things, discusses the process of transitioning to circularity and analysing business from a value creation perspective. This is then followed by business models innovations: a review of the literature and guideline for measuring success.

The International Cotton Advisory Committee has embarked on a data storytelling drive for its members with the launch of the new data portal. All publications will be migrated to this portal, and the same analyses as earlier would be now provided using the latest in modern and cutting-edge data science technology.

A draft report prepared for the US Congress has reiterated the textiles and fashion industries as the leading sources of microfibre pollution. The report has identified current gaps and research and also highlighted current pro-active work being done on the problem the world over.

Endeavouring to extend the lifespan of products, footwear major Adidas and designer Stella McCartney have launched the first of its kind sportswear garment designed to demonstrate the potential of a circular fashion ecosystem.