There's one more alliance. And, this one is called the American Circular Textiles (ACT) policy group. The new group is focused on advancing circular textile policy in the US.
The group: Announced last week, the ACT comprises CSG (Circular Services Group), RRS (Resource Recycling Systems) and 11 founding organisations. The ACT aims to align fashion’s circularity community on the development of supportive policy to address the challenges to scaling domestic textile recovery and end-of-life solutions, the country's nation’s fastest-growing waste stream. The initial focus is on textile reuse.
The founders: The ACT group has its roots in a gathering of stakeholders to endorse New York’s Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act.
Rachel Kibbe, CEO of CSG, and Marisa Ader, Senior Consultant from RRS, emphasised on the urgent need for a formal working body to represent the interests of circular fashion and its stakeholders. Kibbe and Adler argued that ACT would provide a critical missing piece in achieving the research, funding and policy support that the circular economy will need to scale up in the US.
The launch: The ACT group held its first monthly meeting on 2 June and will host learning sessions and workshops to engage in an open dialogue about the challenges to scaling reuse. The 2022 objective is to align on and publish a position paper by the end of the year, outlining industry-supported policy mechanisms that will advance textile reuse, a preferred materials management approach starting at the top of the circular economy waste hierarchy. The position paper will be directed to local and state legislators, policymakers, and government officials.
The founding members: The founding members are reuse and rental service providers, including:
- thredUp
- Rent The Runway
- The Real Real
- CaaStle
- Thrilling
- Trove
- Treet
- Recurate
- SuperCircle
- Fashionphile
- Tersus
The plans:
- In the coming weeks, ACT will onboard additional select circular economy service providers, including repair organisations, as well as brands and retailers, industry NGOs, non-profits, academic institutions, and government agencies.
- The group is action-oriented and will facilitate honest dialogue concerning the fashion sector’s unique circular economy challenges, agree upon supportive policy recommendations, and provide learnings from outside stakeholders.
- In 2023, ACT will expand its scope to include textile recyclers and other stakeholders in the circular economy value chain to holistically address textile end-of-life issues.
- The long-term mission is to establish a formal body to support companies and organisations involved in the circular economy in the apparel and footwear sectors.
What they said:
As a leader in recommerce, Rent the Runway has long believed in the power of wearing and celebrating clothing to its fullest potential as a way to curb the enormous amount of waste the industry generates. To take our collective work to the next level, we need solutions that will help scale textile recycling and reuse once a garment has reached the end of its wearable life. We’re happy to join ACT and drive progress on this important work together.
— Megan Farrell
Head of Sustainability
Rent the Runway
As a founding member of the ACT Policy Group, the team at SuperCircle is excited to build coalition with leaders in retail and create meaningful progress towards ending textile waste. The goals of this group are core to our mission of keeping clothes out of landfill, and we hope that, alongside these fantastic operators and thought leaders, we can help shape supporting policy.
— Stuart Ahlum
Co-Founder
SuperCircle
