At the end of the year, good questions were raised again – such as why people continue to buy cheap fashion even though it is not sustainable? Gen Z in particular is environmentally conscious, but is still addicted to fast fashion. In this context, it is questionable whether consumer festivals such as Black Friday are still relevant. Less seems to be more.
For large clothing companies, there is the contradiction of wanting to continue to grow but still having to meet net zero targets. Here, legal regulations, especially in the EU, provide new impulses, opportunities, but also confusion. A series of studies and reports in the last three months of the year show opportunities in the circular economy and textile-to-textile recycling is finally increasing.
initiative
TrusTrace, the supply chain traceability and compliance platform, has partnered with leading brands, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and OpenAtlas, to create a delivery-level compliance solution tailored to real-world scenarios. The Deforestation Compliance Solution is designed to help companies comply with and demonstrate deforestation-free deliveries in line with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
Textile recycling
The three-year European research project SCIRT (System Circularity and Innovative Recycling in Textiles) celebrated its conclusion at the end of October. The findings are intended to accelerate the transition to a circular fashion industry. As part of the project, 18 European partners worked together under the leadership of the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO). The entire textile value chain was involved, with both industry and research institutes working together to develop innovative solutions that both reduce fashion’s environmental footprint and meet the needs of brands and consumers.
A good two years ago, in July 2022, the four textile and shoe suppliers On, Patagonia, Puma and Salomon announced that they had joined forces with the French biochemical company Carbios to use its unique biorecycling technology to recycle synthetic fibers to improve the recyclability and ongoing reusability of their products. At the end of October, they presented the fruits of their collaboration: the first garment made from 100 percent textile waste in a biological recycling process developed by Carbios. It is a white T-shirt created from colored and mixed textile waste.
A guest article by the organization Circle Economy examined which two solutions are available for textile recycling. With the Biomimicry Institute’s “Design for Transformation” pilot project, she is doing pioneering work in the processing of mixed textile waste in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Eeden is also investigating how mixed fibers can be recycled in the future and brought back into the textile cycle as new textile fibers. The start-up from Münster is about to build the first recycling plant for polyester-cotton blends that works on an industrial scale. FashionUnited spoke to Co-CEO Steffen Gerlach and Ida Marie Brieger, Business Development.
Reports
At the beginning of October, the report “Towards a Dutch Circular Textile Industry” by Invest-NL, an investment company that finances sustainable and innovative projects, provided interesting ideas for other countries that want to explore the opportunities and challenges of a circular textile industry. A circular textile industry in the Netherlands has great potential, but requires targeted measures from companies, political decision-makers and investors, they conclude.
The second-hand clothing sector contributes billions to Europe’s gross domestic product and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in Europe and Africa. This was shown in a report by Oxford Economics entitled “The socio-economic impact of second-hand clothing in Africa and the EU27”.
The Fashion Council Germany (FCG) and Ebay Germany published the study “Status of German Fashion 2024” in November, which, together with the Oxford Economics research institute, examined the economic importance of the German fashion industry (clothing, shoes, accessories, bags and jewelry). A look was also taken at the key challenges and opportunities of the industry as well as the effects of global trends such as sustainability and globalization.
In collaboration with the H&M Foundation, Amsterdam-based organization Circle Economy released the latest edition of its Circularity Gap Report at the end of November. For the first time, the organizations have conducted an in-depth study of the textile industry, revealing that it is only 0.3 percent circular, compared to a global average of 7.2 percent. The report analyzes how the industry contributes to various environmental impacts and models six potential circular economy strategies.
The watchdog Public Eye proposed 33 concrete goals for a fairer fashion system in its “One-Earth Fashion” report published in December. He highlights that the fashion system is further exacerbating the climate crisis facing the earth.
Interviews
Finally, a few interviews that you shouldn’t miss. For example, Reju CEO Patrik Frisk talked about his new textile-to-textile regeneration company and concluded that there is very little that cannot be reused.
The founder and CEO of the Amsterdam bag label O My Bag, Paulien Wesselink, told more about the implementation of social responsibility, such as ensuring that producers in India receive a living wage. Additionally, O My Bag is innovative and uses materials such as Mirum, a plastic-free, plant-based alternative to leather.
The Düsseldorf start-up Retraced already supports around 150 fashion and outdoor brands with their 15,000 international suppliers in digitizing their supply chain, including Victoria’s Secret, Calzedonia, Tom Tailor, Marc O’Polo and Vaude. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Retraced, Philipp Mayer, explained that digitalization is not an end in itself for Retraced: With its SaaS* platform, the company wants to help brands not only achieve their sustainability goals, but exceed them and ensure that their products sourced, manufactured and marketed responsibly.
In October, the Bempflingen company Cotonea announced that it wanted to present comprehensive and groundbreaking CO2 and energy analyzes of a total of 460 fabrics, which analyze the entire value chain from the cotton plant to the finished fabric. Reason enough for FashionUnited to want to find out more about data acquisition and processing. Roland Stelzer, Managing Director of Cotonea and the traditional company Elmer & Doubt, answered all questions in detail in December.