New efforts from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Fashion for Good’s recent industry report show opportunities for a circular fashion industry.
Several of the world’s leading fashion brands are uniting to explore innovative ways to generate revenue without producing new clothes, as announced by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This groundbreaking initiative, unveiled at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen last month, is called The Fashion ReModel and aims to establish circular business models as a standard in the industry.
Brands such as Arc’teryx, Arket, Cos, H&M Group, Primark, Reformation, Weekday, and Zalando are among the first to participate in this Foundation-led project. The initiative’s goal is to find solutions and overcome challenges that decouple revenue from new garment production, moving towards the long-term objective of creating a circular economy for fashion.
Managing fashion waste streams
Currently, the fashion industry predominantly operates on a take-make-waste model, generating millions of tonnes of clothing worn briefly and then discarded. Each year, 100 billion new garments enter the market, with vast amounts ending up in landfills or being incinerated. Circular business models such as rental, resale, repair, and remaking aim to extend the lifespan of products. A recent study by the Foundation estimated that circular business models could comprise 23 percent of the global fashion market by 2030, representing a $700 billion opportunity to reshape the future of fashion.
The Foundation, an international charity focused on accelerating the transition to a circular economy, hopes this project will initiate significant changes in business practices with the support of policymakers. “Through their participation in The Fashion ReModel, this group of organisations are taking the next step on the road towards a circular economy for fashion,” Jules Lennon, Fashion Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, said in a statement. “In order to challenge conventional linear models and create a new normal, brands must decouple revenue from production by accelerating efforts to redesign the products of the future, as well as rethinking the services and business models which deliver them to customers and keep them in use. The fashion industry is rooted in reinvention and we welcome business-led action towards a world where, instead of being worn once and discarded, clothes can be used many more times and threaded through the lives of more people.”
“We’re looking forward to working with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation again,” said Leyla Ertur, Head of Sustainability at the H&M Group, which has worked with the foundation on several fronts, including the Jeans Redesign, which Ertur says pushed the fashion giant to explore “what circular design could mean for our product assortment.” Now, she says, the Fashion ReModel is set to do the same with circular business models. “The opportunity presented by decoupling the fashion industry’s growth from resource use is huge and this project can help us better understand how to further scale these models.”
Dominique Showers, Vice President of ReBird at Arc’teryx, also highlighted the brand’s commitment. “Arc’teryx is committed to a circular future, building products to last and equipping our guests with the tools and education to keep their gear in play,” Showers said. “We’re excited to be one of the first participants to join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s demonstration project, The Fashion ReModel, to reimagine circularity for the outdoor industry, rethinking the way we approach design and waste to build a future in which everything we create can be given a second life.”
Sorting for Circularity Report
In a related effort, Fashion for Good released the Sorting for Circularity USA report, providing groundbreaking insights into consumer disposal behavior, textile waste composition, and fiber-to-fiber recycling potential in the United States. This report, the first of its kind in the country, aims to inform decisions regarding investments, infrastructure development, and steps towards achieving circularity in the textile industry.
The U.S. produces significant quantities of post-consumer textile waste. Currently, only 15 percent of this waste is recovered, while 85 percent ends up in landfills or incinerators. With impending policies in the European Union and some U.S. states, coupled with commitments from both public and private sectors, there is increasing demand for infrastructure to support post-consumer textile collection, sorting, and recycling.
The Sorting for Circularity USA Project focuses on converting textile waste into a valuable resource by examining the interplay between consumer behavior, waste generation, and recycling technologies. The goal is to create a system where all textiles are effectively utilized, significantly reducing waste. Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good, stated, “The Sorting for Circularity USA Project addresses a key challenge in the textile industry: transforming textile waste into a valuable resource.”
The survey found that 60 percent of respondents divert textiles, while 40 percent discard them, primarily due to factors like condition and fit. The waste composition analysis revealed that more than 56 percent of post-consumer textiles are suitable for fiber-to-fiber recycling, with cotton and polyester being the most common fibers. This indicates significant potential for these textiles to be used as feedstock for mechanical and chemical recycling processes.
“With these new findings, we can enhance collection systems to capture more textiles, calculate the financial potential for textile recycling, and build supportive, data-driven policy, “said Marisa Adler of RRS. We are eager to continue building upon this research to advance further opportunities for textile circularity.”
The report highlights a $1.5 billion opportunity for fiber-to-fiber recycling by redirecting non-rewearable textiles from landfills and incinerators to recycling streams. It outlines strategies for growing the U.S. textile recycling industry, emphasizing the financial value of improving efficiency, increasing commodity valuation, and implementing policy mechanisms like extended producer responsibility schemes. Collaboration among stakeholders — including brands, governments, retailers, consumers, collectors, sorters, recyclers, and financial institutions — is essential to promote circularity, invest in research and development, and advocate for supportive policies and incentives to drive technological innovation.
There is also potential to build on these insights by assessing the feasibility of different sorting business models and semi-automated sorting technologies to create a demo facility suitable for closed-loop textile recycling. This involves evaluating the commercial and technical feasibility of a semi-automated sorting process and identifying investment opportunities to scale solutions nationwide.
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