How TRICK Is Making a Significant Impact on Circularity

With an estimated global market of up to 1.7 trillion U.S. dollars, the textile industry is considered a vital component of the global economy, and it’s keeping growing! Despite the COVID-19 pandemic stop, in recent years, it has been growing by as much as 8%, and it is estimated to maintain similar trends in the imminent future. Nonetheless, the economic performance come along with many sustainability challenges driven by its linear production and consumption model. 

The textile sector places a substantial burden on natural resources, due to their intense extraction and utilization. Moreover, during the entire textile lifecycle, from raw material extraction to production and transportation, it contributes significantly to GHG emissions and environmental pollution caused by chemical usage. According to UNEP, fashion accounts for 10% of total GHG global emissions, more than international flights and shipping combined, 20% of global wastewater and a huge amount of waste. The most evident effect of the business as usual model in fashion, thus, is depicted by the heaps of textile waste that pile up in landfills. The fast-paced nature of fashion, coupled with consumer behaviors and the low rate of recycling, contributes to significant waste generation. Nowadays, following fast-fashion trends, garments produced annually have nearly doubled since 2000, reaching more than 100 to 150 billion items of clothing generated per year, and up to 85% of garments discarded end up in landfills.

In recent years, the concept of a circular economy has gained prominence as a transformative approach to address these issues. Unlike the traditional linear model, where products are created, used, and discarded, a circular economy seeks to minimize waste, promote resource efficiency, and encourage continuous product reuse and recycling. The Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation, the uncontested leader of the circular economy, believes that it is possible to redesign the fashion industry, with clothes made for recyclability, longevity, and reparability, with the use of more sustainable materials, and with the promotion of recycling and recovery processes. 

In the framework of the European Green Deal, the European Union also bets on a circular economy to revise the textile industry. On March 2022, the Commission adopted the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, with the aim of driving a systemic shift in the textile sector, promoting environmental responsibility, social fairness, and economic viability. Through a combination of regulatory measures, consumer awareness, and industry innovation, the strategy aims to create a more sustainable and circular textile economy within the European Union, focusing mainly on the circular design and production of garments, the promotion of more sustainable consumption behaviors, and the creation of transparent and fair supply chains. 

In the context of the textile sector, the transition towards a circular economy is a complex journey, with interconnected and multifaceted environmental and social impacts, which necessitates a comprehensive and collaborative approach involving different actors along the value chain. While progress has been made in implementing circular practices in upstream phases like design and production, downstream stages present unique challenges. 

Downstream, encompassing product use, end-of-life management, and resource recovery, is a critical yet often overlooked aspect. One of the primary downstream challenges in the textile industry is the management of end-of-life products. Clothing items often reach the end of their lifecycle without efficient mechanisms for recycling or reusing, leading to environmental and resource depletion issues. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of transparent information and technological infrastructure, which pose barriers to effective downstream management.

The textile sector's circular economy journey involves rethinking production and consumption patterns, prioritizing sustainable materials, and establishing transparent and responsible practices. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, this vision of the future of fashion requires investments, collaborative efforts, technological innovations, consumer engagement, and the transparency and traceability of data. 

TRICK CONTRIBUTION TO TEXTILE CIRCULAR TRANSITION

The transition towards a circular economic model in the textile industry requires a systemic approach involving all players in the value chain. First of all, it is necessary to map the needs of the different stakeholders and then provide them with the tools to efficiently address these needs, developing innovative circular textile value chains. This is exactly what Trick aims to do. 

Since downstream actors play a pivotal role in the effective management of end-of-life products and resource recovery, the Trick project has highlighted the needs of downstream actors in the value chain to encourage their proactive contribution to closing the loops. 

First and foremost, there is a need for transparent information directed towards consumers. This information aims to guide consumers towards sustainable purchasing choices and subsequently support them in managing the end-of-life phase of the product. Since the engagement of consumers is a key factor in the implementation of circular solutions in the textile sector, TRICK is monitoring consumers behaviors in order to assess factors that may contribute to the adoption of circular habits. First of all, consumers’ trends regarding technologies, information, and behaviors towards the circular economy in fashion were assessed through a wide survey administered across five European countries. 

Consumers resulted to be well-informed about the impacts of the textile value chain and recognized the importance of their actions in reducing them. As a matter of fact, 75% are aware of the waste generated by the fast fashion system, and 80% agree on the importance of proper disposal of end-of-life clothing and extending product life through sustainable choices.  They also seem to place significance on credible and certified sustainability information. Half of the respondents feel more confident when additional information is available and believe that green labels enhance credibility and foster a pro-environmental attitude. In addition to that, 40% of them trust technologies for traceability, like blockchain, and its associated benefits, which may include a better transparency and communication between companies and clients. These results show clearly that the tools provided by the Trick project to the downstream phase of the value chain are essential in fostering consumer attitudes towards informed choices and increasing trust in information provided through traceable systems. 

The need to access to information about the product's footprint is coupled with the requirement for technology to systematize and share this information, such as through apps and technological platforms capable of providing data on the product's history, its impacts, recycling options, etc. With data accessibility for consumers, Trick contributes to improving consumer engagement in purchasing choices and empowers them to adopt responsible consumption practices. The consumer's role becomes central due to the ability to access the platform for inserting new information and providing feedback, aligning with a product-as-a-service perspective

These tools can benefit not only consumers, but all the actors of the value chain, considering the emerging necessity of transparent data in the recovery and recycling phases. . This collaboration is essential to supporting sustainable products by thinking systemically, starting from the design phase, encouraging sustainable usage patterns, and promoting efficient recovery/recycling models. One of the key goals of the Trick project is, indeed, to offer blockchain-based technology to support a flow of transparent information among companies within the value network and towards external entities, such as consumers. Moreover, through continuous information sharing among actors in the value network regarding the nature, circularity, and impacts of the materials used, the Trick project contributes to promoting the creation of collaboration networks aimed at co-creating common value for the continuous improvement of circular solutions. This ensures accurate communication, eliminates greenwashing, and demonstrates the value of circularity by leveraging traceability. 

In addition to what has already been explained, among the services offered by TRICK, there is also the Circularity Assessment Service, a holistic approach is required for data collection across the entire value network. Specifically, the Circularity Assessment employs the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI), developed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, to evaluate the circularity of selected textile products. Given the comprehensive nature of the analysis applied to specific textile products and the involvement of multiple actors in both the upstream and downstream phases of the value chain, the Trick Circularity Assessment Service extends its focus to aspects of the downstream phase. This includes considerations such as the proportion of recyclable products post-usage and consumption (evaluating the ease of disassembly and recycling of the product or its components at the end of its useful life), the proportion of reusable products (assessing the potential for multiple uses through repair, resale, or transfer to another user), and the proportion of post-use products that end up as waste. . The Circularity Assessment Service aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of a product's lifecycle, promoting sustainable practices in both production and end-of-life phases by engaging stakeholders across the whole value chain.

SOURCES

• Euromonitor International, a market research provider (https://fashionunited.com/companies/euromonitor-international)

• https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/fashions-tiny-hidden-secret

• McKinsey, article 'Style that's sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula, October 2016; https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/fashion-industry-carbon-unsustainable-environment-pollution/
• https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/11/textile-garment-industry-sustainability-policy-measures/
• https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/textiles-strategy_en

CONTACT DETAILS

For more information, please write to:

• Prof. Natalia Marzia Gusmerotti, Department of Management and Law at University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and affiliate researcher at the Institute of Management, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (email)
• Domenico Mecca, Ph. D. Candidate In Sustainable Management at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (email)
• Greta Colombi, Ph. D. Candidate In Sustainable Management at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (email)