Reimagine Circularity : The Future of Textiles Lies in Smart Value Chains

Tex­tile indus­try – once a leader in inno­va­tion and inter­na­tion­al trade, faces inten­si­fy­ing envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges, dis­rup­tive tech­nolo­gies, and chang­ing con­sumer pref­er­ences. Glob­al sup­ply-chains, that have his­tor­i­cal­ly migrat­ed across regions in pur­suit of cheap labour and reg­u­la­to­ry arbi­trage, built on “off­shore-and-scale” mod­el are not tru­ly sus­tain­able. There is a com­pelling need to trans­form and embrace cir­cu­lar­i­ty prin­ci­ples with a new mind­set that inno­vate busi­ness mod­els aimed at ‘next life’ and not ‘end of the life’.

Unin­tend­ed con­se­quences of tex­tile indus­try result in 10% of glob­al car­bon emis­sions, 20% of indus­tri­al waste-water, and 30% of microplas­tics, are dis­pro­por­tion­ate to its eco­nom­ic val­ue add of 2% to glob­al GDP.  The sep­a­ra­tion of pro­duc­tion from con­sump­tion, glob­al­ly, has fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed the cre­ation of cir­cu­lar sup­ply chains.  At the retail out­lets in the con­sump­tion cen­tres, over 30% of cloth­ing items are nev­er sold while sup­ply chains are busy feed­ing the fast fash­ion. Over 70% of tex­tile waste ends up either in land­fills, incin­er­at­ed, or leaked into the envi­ron­ment that is already tip­ping the bal­ance of nature.

Reduc­ing con­sump­tion or adopt­ing a fru­gal lifestyle is not the answer as it will reverse growth in eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty and impose huge suf­fer­ing. We need to be resource light and encour­age sus­tain­able con­sump­tion.

Bio­plas­tics offer a sus­tain­able alter­na­tive to con­ven­tion­al plas­tics, with emis­sions rang­ing  30–42% less and being biodegrad­able. How­ev­er, they com­pete with food crops for resources and there is need to devel­op tech­nolo­gies that use agri­cul­tur­al waste. So far pro­duc­tion of bio-plas­tics remains lim­it­ed at 5.73 mil­lion tons com­pared to 360 mil­lion tons of con­ven­tion­al plas­tics includ­ing 125 mil­lion tons of syn­thet­ic fibres. Replac­ing all plas­tics with bio­plas­tics would con­sume entire corn and wheat crops, totalling near­ly 2 bil­lion tons. 

Envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious con­sumers are dri­ving a trend towards thrift, expect­ed to grow 3× faster than the appar­el mar­ket, is expect­ed to reach $350 bil­lion by 2030. This pro­motes the reuse of pre-loved gar­ments, extend­ing the life­cy­cle, but has lim­i­ta­tions of stan­dard­iza­tion, style, and qual­i­ty com­pared to fresh retail and even­tu­al­ly need to be recy­cled.

Sev­er­al brands have com­mit­ted to increased use of recy­cled fibres, aim­ing 45% by 2025 and to 90% by 2030 to align with the Unit­ed Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change. Brands are expect­ed to dis­close com­pli­ance against these tar­gets. Design­ers must shift focus on valu­ing prod­uct dura­bil­i­ty, easy dis­as­sem­bly and mate­r­i­al recov­ery rather than fast fash­ion. Addi­tion­al­ly, the full envi­ron­men­tal cost should be fac­tored into prod­uct cost, and fast fash­ion should be eval­u­at­ed based on its eco­log­i­cal impact per use.

The future demands a sys­temic shift, where nature pos­i­tive, con­sumer-cen­tric val­ue chains evolve in con­sump­tion cen­tres with local­ized infra­struc­ture for tex­tile waste man­age­ment, com­bined with AI and automa­tion, to bridge wage and skill gaps for a last­ing com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, that is vital for resilience and rel­e­vance.

The tex­tile indus­try so far has been using recy­cled bot­tles as its feed­stock for recy­cled tex­tiles, account­ing for about 11% of its total con­sump­tion. Like-to-like tex­tile recy­cling, the aspi­ra­tion of the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my, has only achieved 1 % so far.  As the pack­ag­ing indus­try seeks to ful­fill its own com­mit­ments, the tex­tile indus­try will have to devel­op its own renew­able and ‘like to like’ feed­stock sup­ply chain.

Mechan­i­cal recy­cling requires clear and unsoiled feed­stocks to deliv­er good qual­i­ty recy­cled prod­ucts due to its lim­i­ta­tions to remove col­or and fil­ter impu­ri­ties. The chem­i­cal recy­cling tech­nolo­gies are devel­op­ing fast that uses mix feed, removes col­or and promise vir­gin like qual­i­ty and per­for­mance. The real chal­lenge still remains to deliv­er vir­gin like qual­i­ty and price on a com­mer­cial scale to be able to move the nee­dle.

Achiev­ing trans­for­ma­tion in the tex­tile indus­try requires coor­di­nat­ed efforts from pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. Pol­i­cy­mak­ers should encour­age cir­cu­lar prac­tices with incen­tives and reg­u­la­tions, while indus­try stake­hold­ers need to inno­vate and col­lab­o­rate A glob­al, over­ar­ch­ing, syn­chro­nized response to cli­mate and resource use is cru­cial, reflect­ing urgency akin to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic response. This is least we owe to our future gen­er­a­tions.

In sum­ma­ry, the path for­ward involves inno­v­a­tive, nature-pos­i­tive, and tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven solu­tions, with a focus on cre­at­ing a cir­cu­lar econ­o­my that aligns with glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals. The next gen­er­a­tion of tex­tile entre­pre­neurs, busi­ness lead­ers, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers need to bal­ance pur­pose and prof­it through new busi­ness mod­els that have the capac­i­ty to deliv­er intel­li­gent, sus­tain­able, and cus­tomer-aligned val­ue chains.