Circular Fashion. Irma Ahmeti (She/Her) | Communication and circularity.ID Operations
In the past year we had the honor to work with great brands to take another big step towards circularity in the apparel industry. Our circular design trainings are a source of extremely fruitful exchange and it makes us proud that we have already been able to reach numerous achievements through our trainings and workshops.
Today many companies are seeking clear guidance on how to design for circularity. Together with Zalando we developed the Circular Design Criteria, a set of tailor-made actionable guidelines and requirements to guide circular product development in the right direction. The criteria are aligned to industry standards as well as concrete recycling requirements, based on our expertise and that of our valued partners. Our Circular Design Criteria are an essential building block in the direction of industry-wide environmental sustainability standards, as they are in line with the EU proposal and thus serve as an approach to transform our industry to sustainable practices.
In addition to the development in partnership with Zalando, circular.fashion has collaborated with several other fashion brands and retailers adapting the Circular Design Criteria to their individual case. Over the past year, collaborations have been undertaken with brands such as GANNI, Hugo Boss, among others.
Challenge
Our awareness for more ecological as well as social justice is constantly increasing. In order to firmly anchor this, it is important to establish new legal regulations. Not only on the federal level but also on the EU level there are new laws that oblige the textile and clothing industry to take more responsibility. Of course, we see the new EU regulations mainly as a great opportunity, but they also bring with them the challenge of always staying up to date. The biggest challenge in this sense is how we can translate these regulations into actions. But it is not only on the legal level that we face challenges. As the interplay between the various partners in our industry is highly complex, there is often a lack of transparency. We do not only need more transparency in our industry but also a stronger collaboration among the different actors like sorters, recyclers etc. to scale up the infrastructure in our industry.
Need
To achieve our circularity goals, we do not only need more transparency, but above all we need to start sharing our knowledge with each other. We need more knowledge sharing from partners in the value chain which can e.g. be enabled through more collaborations. In order to consolidate this great togetherness and create more circularity, more standardization would be particularly useful so that all partners in the value chain can communicate uniformly and have the same opportunities.
In order to meet the ambitious goals of the EU textile Strategy, clear guidance is needed from the EU on how to take actions to achieve those goals. We are excited to further see how the EU strategy for textiles will evolve.
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