Thread #5: A new textile revolution!
This week, we soft-launched ‘s new whitepaper on “Transforming Textiles” to our 5,000 employees worldwide. Next week, we will launch it with our partners at Go Circular. We also discussed other exciting pieces of news this week:
Gathering explorers across TOMRA Group
This week we rubbed shoulders with some of ‘s other ventures — corporate “startups” working to address specific areas where TOMRA’s technology and innovation capacity can be applied in new ways to lead the resource revolution. Great to learn from hands-on experiences with green business building across the Group — and to share our plans to address textile circularity. A particular highlight: a panel session with CEOs of some of Norway’s most exciting tech scaleups: Christine Charlotte Akselsen from Kezzler, Jarle Skrebergene from Aize, and Jon Gravråk from Bulk Infrastructure Group AS.
We’re talking more about circularity, but the world is becoming less circular
On 24 January, the Circle Economy Foundation presented its annual #CircularityGap report. The report shows that circularity has reached “megatrend” status, noting a 3x increase in volume of discussions, debates and articles on the matter. But talk is cheap: global circularity is still in decline — dropping from above 9% only 7.2% in 2023. The need for forceful, scalable, and economically sustainable solutions is pressing. We need to address both the demand-side and the supply-side of circularity — in other words: changing hearts and minds, but also transforming infrastructures and driving investments.
Does large-scale textile recycling reduce climate impact?
In November, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute released an interesting life-cycle analysis (LCA) study on the potential climate impact of large-scale textile-to-textile recycling in Europe. Lutz Walter of EURATEX — European Apparel and Textile Confederation, Textile ETP and Think Innovation) published a very interesting note and some pertinent questions for further research in this article. Impacting only one or selected elements of the textiles value chain will not be sufficient — it is necessary to address all parts to close the circle: from design and manufacturing, to enabling reuse and extending use, to collecting, sorting and recycling fibers to spin new yarn and new textiles.
How do we transform textiles? Follow our webcast on 7 February!
Without revealing too much form our upcoming whitepaper launch on 7 February at 15:00–16:00 CET on the Go Circular platform (sign up so secure your seat here), it is clear that collaboration across the value chain is a critical factor for enabling textile circularity. We are looking forward to discussing with Cyndi Rhoades from Circle-8 Textile Ecosystems, Dunja Matanovic from McKinsey & Company and our own Vibeke Siljan Krohn the conditions and beliefs we need to have to move forward with the transformation we need.
The BASF-Inditex jacket made exclusively from loopamide
One collaboration we are excited about, is the one between and BASF and Inditex, who recently revealed the loopamide jacket, a nylon 6 jacket made entirely from fiber-to-fiber recycled material. Interestingly, all elements of the jacket including buttons, seams and zippers, seem to be made from the same material. For anyone looking for more efficient recycling solutions, such breakthroughs are important. Since polyester is now predicted to account for more than half of total fiber production by 2030, reaching 80 million tonnes in annual production, it is essential to find ways to create a solid fiber-to-fiber recycled polyester industry.
What else did you pick up this week? Please do share things we may have missed!
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
