Applications to the European Social Innovation Competition 2020 are now open! Under the theme Reimagine Fashion: Changing behaviours for sustainable fashion, the 2020 competition is looking for projects and ideas that will change the ways we produce, buy, use and recycle fashion, moving towards increased global sustainability and changing consumer behaviour at local, national and European levels.
With textiles rightly rising as a key priority under the new European Commission, this document outlines RREUSE’s vision on how to achieve a more inclusive and circular textile sector that prioritises re-use and emphasises the role of social enterprises in the value chain as part of the solution.
This paper also provides a number of key recommendations as to what specific actions the Commission should address when developing policy initiatives for the sector.
Mistra is convening a discussion in the European Parliament to explore policy solutions for advancing the European circular economy through the European Green Deal. You will hear from researchers, business representatives and policymakers on how to seize this critical opportunity.
Textiles are fundamental to our society and employs millions of people worldwide, making it among the largest in the world and an important part of Europe's manufacturing industry. However, textile production and consumption cause significant environmental, climate and social impacts by using resources, water, land and chemicals and emitting greenhouse gases and pollutants.
In Europe, the sector employs 1.7 million people and Europeans consume on average 26 kg of textiles per person per year. This briefing by the European Environment Agency provides an EU perspective of the environmental and climate pressures from textile production and consumption, and discusses how circular business models and regulation can help move us towards a circular textiles economy.
The Fibersort project aims at realising the widespread implementation of the automated sorting technology by validating it as a key value adding innovation to enable textile-to-textile recycling.
While the challenges and opportunities of used textiles are increasingly in the spotlight of governments, industry, and civil society, considerable system changes are required to transition towards a circular economy for textiles. Throughout this report, policy recommendations are formulated showing the legislative, economic and soft instruments that regional, national and the European governments have at their disposal to create an enabling environment for textiles collection, sorting and recycling at scale.
Customers from the MUD brand can lease or buy their jeans, benefit from a free repair service, and return the worn out items to have them recycled into new denim products - so that the iconic piece of clothing remains in use for the longuest time. This brand philosophy saves 78% water and 61% CO2-eq per jeans compared to industry standards.
The International Cradle to Cradle Congress - the world's largest platform for C2C - will take place in Berlin from 31 January to 1 February 2020.
The r2pi project will hold its final conference in Brussels on 24 October 2019 to present its findings on drivers and barriers to circular business models.
Rediscover Fashion is a social enterprise that produces 100 % redesigned and repurposed clothing, accessories, and home ware ranges from unwanted textiles, preventing the materials from being sent to landfill.
La Tête dans les Nuages gives a second chance to hot air balloons, advertising posters and polystyrene packaging, which would otherwise go to waste, by upcycling them into bean bags.
Reverse Resources is an Estonian company that offers an online “circular” solution that tracks and traces waste flows by connecting manufacturers, waste handlers, recyclers/spinners and brands on one platform by offering 360 degree transparency, data accuracy and real-time transactions on waste flows.
Join the R2pi consortium for a workshop in Circular Economy in Plastics/Packaging, Electronics and Textiles Workshop on 1 Oct 2019 in Cologne
Estonian leather goods maker Stella Soomlais has come up with an innovative bag design that enables old or damaged leather bags to be turned into new leather goods, with little leftover material.
Estonian company Gelatex Technologies has designed a new textile made of gelatine - a substance derived from livestock industry waste. Compared to other materials, this innovative textile is the closest thing to leather. The product is easily scalable, quick to produce and environmentally-friendly.
Globe Hope, a Finnish textiles and cosmetics SME, has been creating bags and accessories from recycled and leftover materials since 2003.
Join ACR+, Twente (NL) and Cleantech Region for a workshop dedicated to textiles, electronics and organic waste during the European Week of Regions and Cities in Brussels on 9 October 2019.
The textile industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. The Next Closet’s mission is change this and inspire people to invest in quality and reuse what they already have, so second hand can become the number one choice.
RePack is the easiest way to implement circular economy in eCommerce. Using reusable and returnable RePack packaging service means sustainability in every package.
The reusable RePack bags are and made of durable and recycled materials and come in three adjustable sizes. They replace single-use packaging as the customer chooses RePack as the mean of package for delivery from the webstore. Once empty, the RePacks are designed to fold into letter size and can be returned to a postbox, free of charge, anywhere in the world. A voucher is sent to thank the customer for the return. This is the circular economy in action.
Wolkat is an international group of seven innovative textile recycling companies. It was founded as a family business in 1948.
Today Wolkat is offering a complete circular solution for textiles. Collected textile is transformed in-house to new products for fashion, car or furniture industry. Sorting, recycling, spinning and weaving is all done in-house. All collected textile is transformed into a final product with hardly any water or any dye, leaving only 4-5 % waste from all textiles. The rest is new raw material.
To address the gap on behaviour change for the circular economy, the CSCP, Sitra and DBU have set up the Consumer Insight Action Panel, a new European multi-stakeholder initiative designed to support the transition to the circular economy by generating, applying and testing consumer behavioural insights in circular strategies for textiles, plastics and electronics. How might we innovate to enable people to reuse, repair, share, recycle, lease or use differently? Find out with us!
The conference Sustainable Consumption for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Worldwide will take place on 30 September in Berlin.
Circularity is a necessary solution to minimise the use of finite resources, but it requires a unified approach. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) and the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) have launched a Policy Hub on Circular Economy to ensure collaboration among industry partners.
Together these organisations will kick-off the development of an impactful and effective policy framework. The C&A Foundation will fund the project throughout 2020.
The Hub seeks to promote and demonstrate the value of a European policy framework that accelerates circular economy in the apparel, footwear, and textile industry. The Policy Hub will collaborate with a range of initiatives and stakeholders to support the industry in closing the loop of their business practices.
