We need radical evolution in infrastructure and tech advancement and production methods in order to restore our planet and to close the loop. A tax “of one penny per garment” produced would raise £35 million to invest in better clothing collection and sorting in the UK (Environmental Audit Committee, 2019 cited in Edwards, 2022), and nearly $500 billion worth of investment into smart eco materials and recycled materials is needed between 2023-2050 in order to replace virgin materials with lower-impact alternatives (Deeley, 2022).

Material Recycling Hubs & System Development

More investment needs to be put into companies like Newlight Technologies and Fairbrics who are "spearheading the production of regenerative materials from greenhouse gases." The only recycled material that "has achieved meaningful scale" is recycled polyester from PET bottles, however there are scaling issues as it is also in high demand in other industries, including consumer goods (whose products are more suitable for recyced PET). We need to invest in research into other material recycling processes that are better suited to garment production. (McKinsey & Company, 2022)

Our start ups can support our recycling company partners by using their materials for their garments to create "business ecosystems to help them scale." We do however need to invest in new textile collection and sorting infrastructure to ensure that there is sufficient feedstock (McKinsey & Company, 2022). One of the current barriers to circularity is a lack of collection and sorting schemes. For example, the collection rate of unwanted textiles from households is 30-35% on average. Between 18-26% of gross textile waste (pre and post consumer) in Europe by 2030, could be used in garment recycling to produce new fabrics (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Technology and investment must be behind the circular economy, so that globally we can roll out product and material processing hubs. We need Circular Textile Hubs on every continent “creating efficient flows of resources in line with…planetary boundaries for the textiles industry.” We must learn to balance resource use with a growing population (World Circularity Textiles Day, 2020 cited in Edwards, 2022).

According to the Business of Fashion, "recycled fibres such as polyester, polyamide or man-made cellulosic fibre can in many instances be produced at price parity or at a lower cost than virgin fibres when the full value chain is scaled" (McKinsey & Company, 2022). As new taxes (potentially 25%) are added to the cost of virgin fibres, and the production of recycled and eco materials is more efficient, "a virtuous circle of innovation, investment and further scaling" into the circular economy will be created (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Significant emissions caused by long distance transport between recycling facilities and the source of the feedstock is another challenge. Companies must follow in Textile recycling group Renewcell’s footsteps, who plan to put plants harbourside, and long term in Asia and the US (McKinsey & Company cited in Edwards, 2022).

At Re:GenZ we have partnerships with high profile companies including Renewcell, Ambercycle and Worn Again Technologies who specialise in textile-to-textile recycling. This technology is due to scale as it has caused a large amount of investor interest. Last year Worn Again raised £27.6 million from investors such as H&M (to fund a new textile-recycling demonstration (plant in Switzerland, McKinsey & Company, 2022). Our material recycling partners need our investment, as their economies of scale cannot be reached until a significant number of fashion brands commit to using eco materials. These new less damaging materials have the same (or better) texture, longevity and performance than traditional materials.

Material Sourcing Issues

Eco material companies are struggling to gain high volumes of material orders from brands as they are worried about risk and want to conduct consumer and product testing. This then has a knock on effect on their investors who want evidence of commitments from fashion brands. They also have to figure out their own waste collection methods in order to produce feedstock which "requires an entirely new layer of infrastructure and investment" (Deeley, 2022). The wholesale market for plant-based leather is predicted to be at $2.2 billion by 2026, so we have also partnered with Bolt Threads, who manufacture a mock leather made from mycelium (the root structure of fungi; Deeley, 2022).

We are going to have more problems with the food supply chain as resources are increasingly more scarce. This potentially could have a positive outcome in that textile circularity may have a chance to prosper. Plant based and lab grown meat would also help with land and resource scarcity for cotton growing. But, fast tracking circular recycling production would generate new, raw materials, in turn reducing the need for agricultural land. Modernising traditional farming methods would also help. Examples include; “vertical and container gardening, plant-based and lab-grown meat...if not we either live without food or clothes” (World Circularity Textiles Day, 2020 cited in Edwards, 2022).

It is extremely important that we work out planetary boundaries, and “carry out in depth analyses” to establish limitations for each system. E.g. “how much circular polyester the planet could sustain, or how much circular cellulose could be integrated into existing systems.” If we established metrics we could “figure out the full ‘Circular Cycle Analysis’ of textiles from a systems approach, capturing the benefits of embedded carbon and cyclability.” (World Circularity Textiles Day, 2020 cited in Edwards, 2022).

Our partners who grow natural eco materials are using regenerative agriculture, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, "by prioritising outcomes like healthy, nutrient-rich soil that absorbs water and minerals." This contrasts traditional farming methods "where short-term yields and profitability come at the expense of long-term land degradation" (Deeley, 2022). We are working with grassland regeneration charity Savory Institute, whose Land to Market programme will provide our startups with "a verified, direct sourcing solution for regenerative agriculture." Land is verified as regenerative if the farming practises show a trend of net-positive impact on the environment by improving land health (by increasing biodiversity and the amount of atmospheric carbon captured in the soil). This partnership with our clients enables them to establish "a more traceable, ethical supply chain that also reduces overall carbon emissions" (Deeley, 2022).

Food waste needs more exploration in terms of material development and could help us to join the dots holistically across other industries. Bacteria has also been shown to have potential application for fabric dying processes and growing fibres in a lab environment. This would alleviate some of the strain being put land, which could be saved for growing food. In terms of farming methods, we need to return "old school" regenerative farming, where we are looking after the soil and a variety of crops are grown in one location; bring in different pollinators (Circular Fashion Course 3: Materials, 2022).

We need to look at garment design in terms of different speeds as opposed to the natural vs synthetic argument. We can manufacture trench coats out of recycled polyester that would last for 30 years, would be timeless due to their design, can be waterproofed with a kit, and are designed to be recycled at their end of life. In contrast, we can also create more trend focused pieces like patterned shirts that are designed to be worn for a couple of seasons, then are donated or turned into a coat lining. In terms of biodegradable materials, we can create really "short term" items like jackets made out of paper and dyed using natural products like walnut (Circular Fashion Course 5.2: Design for Speeds, 2022).

With macroeconomic pressures weighing on fashion supply chains, supply chain disruptions are predicted to impacting growth of the economy. The solution to this is nearshoring, by creating new, local manufacturing hubs. "By moving manufacturing closer to consumer markets, brands can increase their speed to market while reducing the cost of transport and duties and mitigating various risks, including those related to inventory" (McKinsey & Company, 2022). We already recommend that our clients manufacture in the UK or Eu to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, and improving water stewardship. Small-batch production will also help our clients to quickly respond to a shifting market "while reducing inventory costs," and eliminates possible environmental damage caused by overproduction. Other areas that we look into with our clients is efficiency in manufacture and inventory management, and potential opportunities to use AI to "predict volumes and to track sell-through rates for products" (Kent, 2023a).

Material Recycling Systems Need Development

During mechanical recycling garments are collected and trims are chopped off leaving smaller bits of fabric. The fibres are then pulled out of these pieces and respawn into new textiles. One of the downfalls of mechanical recycling is that everything that remnants of waste garments remain like the dye colour and chemicals which is challenging, as it means that we can't recover materials from landfill due to legislative issues concerning chemical production. Another problem is that is cutting down the fibres, we are reducing their quality; longer fibres make good textiles, so these recycled materials often need reinforcement using virgin materials (commonly polyester is added to recycled cotton; Circular Fashion Course 15.1: Recycling Types, 2022). Another type of recycling is Thermal, which melts and reforms synthetic materials like polyester, although there can be a loss of quality in the recycling process and due to the materials age. (Circular Fashion Course 15.1: Recycling Types, 2022). The most common approach is shredding packaging like plastic bottles which can be made into the pellets which are the building block to make fibers or anything polyester.

Some companies have invested in chemical recycling, which uses chemical dissolution to break down the molecules in different fibres so that they can be adapted into different types of textiles. We can use chemical recycling to break cotton down into cellulose or to remove the elastane from polyester so that we can re-spin it into a new textile (Circular Fashion Course 15.1: Recycling Types, 2022). The biggest challenge at the moment is contamination between materials. For example, it is really hard to recover cotton and polyester blends, but one of our partners Worn Again have developed technology which can chemically dissolve and extract these two materials from garments. Future development and investment will provide us with more solutions to recycling post consumer garments and achieve "high value output recycling"(Circular Fashion Course 15.1: Recycling Types, 2022).

We asked four experts in the circular and sustainable fashion field what areas investment needs to be going into in terms of materials, circular processing, and textiles as a whole.

Rachel Sheila Kan

Fashion Circularity Specialist (Author & Troubleshooter at Circular Earth, Ecosystem Architect at The Ecosystem Incubator)

I think it's massively got to be in the systems and processes. Getting those things back and putting them back into the system. At the moment, it's cheaper to throw it away or to incinerate it, or to write it off to charity. Actually, a lot of the companies that I speak to about upcycling their deadstock in their warehouses, they say they actually get a tax rebate for sending it to a charity place. And that charity place is probably not going to make the best use of that stuff. You know, if it's unfashionable or if it's something people don't like or whatever. So I think it's got to go into infrastructure for circular systems, for relocalisation or decentralisation so we can still have large companies - they could just be decentralised over a lot of areas. So we don't have to see it as being a problem financially, it's just how we actually reorganise our whole systems process in accordance with value of waste. We can actually start to hold our value in that waste whether it's going for second use upcycling, third use something else and back into the circular system. I feel it has to be in that, and generating new publications that are of high integrity that can go to the circular route but having that access to as many companies as possible and not being elitist about, you know “okay, only this, this certain high end brand,” you can use this because…they've accessed it and there’s a whole bunch of people out there that really need to transform their stuff - like now. Otherwise we are putting even more stuff into the system and there is going to continue to be that problem on the downstream. So it is access as well to me, because otherwise people will just continue to go in and get in substandard quality because that's what their business is about.

Professor Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas

Professor of Marketing & Sustainable Business at British School of Fashion

I think I would just add to that that lots of the textiles are stuck in the wrong places…it's such a big global system. And that's, I think, one of the main problems. And lots of it does go down again to…import export regulations. There's so many things that are kind of systemic behind the scenes that are real barriers. So, I think there are a lot more people able to be involved in circularity. There's a lot more people wanting to be involved in that. But I think sometimes there's really simple things like that, which are much more to do with sort of localised…legislation and the fact that textiles are made in one place, shipped somewhere else, stored somewhere else. I think that actually investing in understanding how…you could join all the players together in a more logical way would be good. But I think also sometimes when we just think about that…it’s kind of ignoring the problem of trying to minimise the waste in the first place. So whether that's fast fashion just churning out, you know, obviously polyester is cheap because there's so much of it and then not slowing down or making it or whether it's higher price points, people being less fussy about matching dye lots and that sort of thing. I think it's just that there's so many root and branch things that just lead to textile waste before things even get to customers…I think it is thinking about how we actually minimise that. And again, I think if people…weren't rewarded for having waste, then we'd have less waste. But at the moment, as Rachel said, it might end up being, well, financially easier just to burn, destroy, give away things rather than thinking about not having them in the first place. I mean, that's sort of, again, a bit of a fundamental thing to really look at. So we should not be kind of continue rewarding people for overproducing and putting stuff into a system that's just really overwhelmed. But being more targeted is difficult because there's so many people invested in the continuing overproduction.

Natalie Binns

Sustainable Fashion Consultant & Freelance Head of Buying

I think that what Rachel said about open source and accessibility to all of this kind of tech and things that are happening is so important. I'd say also scaling. So it's investment in not just the tech, but actually scaling it to a commercial level that's useful to more than just, you know, a few individual businesses. The other thing I was thinking about there when Natasha was talking about overproduction is whether we need to also invest in education at the other end for consumers. And how do we change the mindset of consumers to consume less and to go back to the old days of repair - so repair, recycle, reuse, etc., and investment into local communities to amplify the repair opportunities in your local community. I think a lot of people don't realise that they could get something repaired, and they could get something repaired quite cheaply, quite cost effectively. We've seen investment into businesses like The Seam, which is bringing repair again a bit more accessible to everybody. So, I think more investments to actually push from the consumer end at the same time.

Jo-Anne Godden

Founder RubyMoon (the world’s only not for profit gym to swimwear company) and Circular Specialist & Mentor: Circular Product & Textiles Development & Design.

For me, it's about investment in the system change. So for example, in Europe, through the EPR system…starting between 2025 and 2030. The system is that each garment that gets imported pays a fee for its recycling. So that in itself will mean less garments get imported. Hopefully the amounts will be high enough to deter fast fashion manufacturers…just bringing excess garments, overproduction, because it's cheaper; it's dirt cheap for them to do so and they can dump it if they don't need it. That's going to stop, and each garment manufacturer is responsible for the end of life of that garment. They are forbidding export of garments into non-OECD countries. So no more exports to third world countries which have no infrastructure either to deal with all this excess waste. I think what's really important is the investment needs to be at that governmental level in order to bring about this system change - because it's a massive system change. Right. No one is saying that it isn't.

I think someone mentioned collaboration before. Yes. Obviously, that is fundamental to what is going to need to happen. And that's already happening across the board between fast fashion brands, small brands, recyclers, textile companies they are already collaborating, and particularly in Europe, for this system change. So it's really great that that's happening. But unless you have this legislation…it doesn't happen. And that investment doesn't happen. So I think consumers are already confused about textiles. I mean, I can hardly keep up with what's going on in textiles. And I…do know about textiles. So I think taking the onus off consumers and just putting that value back in, because if you know that your jeans cost £50, not £5, you're going to take the hem up, you're going to repair them, right? Naturally. Or you're going to ask someone to do it for you. [I] would always get my leather shoes repaired to prolong their life because…I love them. I want to keep them on my feet for as long as possible. So it's kind of all of that. It's that introducing the value back. And unless we do that, we really aren't going to see any change whatsoever. The investment has to be at government level, system level, and it's legislation that's really going to push this, nothing else. I mean, we've all been working this for years, right? We knew this 12, 15 years ago. What's happened; nothing? Because there's been no legislation. Now that's finally coming, as I mentioned. And now suddenly all the textile fairs over the last 2 to 3 years, everyone's scrambling to get stuff in place at last, because they know EPR is coming and they know they're going to be in trouble if they don't put these systems in place. That's the only thing I can see that's going to make any difference.

Natascha: I think to be fair on the education piece, in the UK, we're not very well educated about sustainability in general. There are a lot of greenwashing opportunities and even to be honest…it's a shame to see how circularity has suddenly become the new badge for everything without really maybe necessarily understanding what that is or actually implementing it…I think education wouldn't be a bad thing to invest in. I mean, a lot of people got more interested in their food in the UK with a sort of idea of slow food and, you know, badging things, understanding a little bit more about their food, not saying they understand very much about that. So I think it could we could do with some education as well. I think there's been some moves to put more about sustainability in general into the curriculum at all different age levels. And it's certainly something that universities have been a bit slow to think about in terms of design. I mean, it's something that troubled me a while ago that a lot of the fashion education was very basic around materials and sustainability and nothing really about ethics and social side and nothing really about systems. I think that can be probably quite overwhelming as a student as well to think you've suddenly got to take on the entire global textile and fashion industry, and maybe you just wanted to design something nice to switch to make something or be part of an industry that seemed a bit glamorous. I think it really does necessitate different. And I think a lot of that education that's coming out has been quite informal, which is great. But I think…there is definitely a space for it. I do also…wonder because I don't I don't think students or lecturers have a great time at the moment either. And I consider ourselves part of the extended fashion system and also slightly exploited in that I don’t think we're benefiting from having a really warm and value led industry. I think it would be nice if it could extend into our sector as well.

So what is our hot take on this at Re:GenZ?

Our clients have the opportunity to set a benchmark for other brands and to “leverage the industry’s weak performance to catalyse materials transformation and establish themselves as sustainability leaders" (McKinsey & Company, 2022). 60% of fashion executives from big fashion players are considering forming deeper strategic partnerships with their suppliers to navigate supply chain disruptions, benefit from innovations and mitigate other risks. At Re:GenZ we have already covered this through our partnerships with eco material production companies. Over the next 5 years capacity planning, virtual sampling and supply chain transparency are among the "key areas for digital investment."

It is our job with our clients to educate consumers on their job as potential suppliers of resources back into the industry, which would make clothing landfill “a thing of the past” (World Circularity Textiles Day, cited in Edwards, 2022). We also need to work on our storytelling to them, as consumers need to be persuaded to buy circular garments. Our clients must educate their customers on reducing their consumption and to invest in garments that are timeless and long lasting. If we unify our efforts we could achieve “ambitious global commitments, like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals” and eradicate the use of virgin resources. (World Circularity Textiles Day, 2020 cited in Edwards, 2022).