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"The circular economy is needed to get to net-zero emissions"

Designers and brands must go beyond recycling and focus on making bigger, systems-level changes to help the world move to a circular economy and ultimately reach its net-zero goals, says Ellen MacArthur.

Today, we use the equivalent of1.6 Earths a year to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it takes the planet one year and eight months to regenerate what we use in a single year.

Much like running up financial debts, which can result in bankruptcy, when we draw down too much stock from our natural environment without ensuring and encouraging its recovery, we run the risk of local, regional and eventually global ecosystem collapse. The circular economy is a way to solve this by decoupling economic growth from the consumption of finite resources.

It's about redesigning products, services and the way our businesses work to shift our whole economy from one that is locked into a take-make-waste system to one that eliminates waste, circulates products and materials, and regenerates nature.

Designers must go way beyond simply rethinking how they make individual products

The circular economy gives us a framework that can help to solve our biggest global challenges at the same time. And the last two years have seen circular design and innovation rapidly increasing, pretty much everywhere.

Around the world, we are seeing more and more businesses use the circular economy to change the way they work and tackle the root causes of climate change, biodiversity loss, waste and pollution.

However, to drive action forward, it is crucial that we focus upstream to prevent waste before it is created. Designers must go way beyond simply rethinking how they make individual products and consider the entire system that surrounds them.

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Six fashion brands pushing circular design beyond recycling

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This includes the business models, the ways in which customers access products and what happens to those products when we have finished with them, so we can keep the materials in the system for as long as possible.

The opportunities are clear and renewed ambition levels from 2021 are positive but shifting the system is a challenge. We need scale and we need it quickly.

Some very strong examples of designers and big companies innovating for a circular future are featured in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's recent study, which focused on rethinking business models for a thriving fashion industry.

Innovation continues to ramp up as the world seeks solutions to plastic pollution

Research revealed that by maximising the potential of economic and environmental impacts, circular business models in sectors such as rental, resale, remake and repair have the potential to claim 23 per cent of the global fashion market by 2030 and grasp a $700 billion opportunity.

The study cites tangible examples of how businesses such as [luxury resale platform] The RealReal and Rent the Runway (RTR), among many others, are innovating to embrace circular models.

In other industries, we are seeing refurbished electronics as a growing space. This January, Back Market – a Paris-based business that refurbishes iPhones – was valued at $5.7 billion, making it France's most valuable startup.

Innovation continues to ramp up as the world seeks solutions to plastic pollution. But invariably, this market faces a lot of its own barriers. Efforts concentrating on downstream solutions such as recycling are undoubtedly a necessary component.

But we need to ensure that we eliminate all problematic and unnecessary plastic items, innovate to ensure that the plastics we do need are reusable, recyclable or compostable, and circulate all the plastic items we use to keep them in the economy and out of the environment.

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The circular economy is needed to get to net-zero emissions. While 55 per cent of emissions can be tackled by the transition to renewable energy, the remaining 45 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the way we make and use products and food, and manage land.

To deliver the climate and biodiversity benefits of a circular economy, businesses and governments must work together to change the system, and this means redesigning the way we make and use products and food. This shift will give us the power to not only reduce waste, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions but also to grow prosperity, jobs, and resilience.

We are continuing to witness an abundance of positive circular innovation centred at tackling climate change – not least UK-based Winnow, which works to reduce food waste through data and now saves 61,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. Our next steps must be to ensure that continuing innovation is supported and enabled to accelerate and scale.

We need to work together to create a system that allows us all to make better choices

Transitioning to the circular economy requires all stakeholders across systems to play their part. The role of all businesses, regardless of size, is vital if we are to find new, circular ways of creating, delivering and capturing value that also benefits society and the environment. No one can say how long this transformation will take, but what we can say is that it is already well underway.

We need businesses and governments to work together to create a system that allows us all to make better choices, choices that are part of the solution to global challenges rather than part of the problem.

Ellen MacArthur is a former round-the-world sailor, who retired from yachting to launch the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2010. Dedicated to accelerating the shift towards a circular economy, the charity has partnered with some of the biggest brands in the world and published a number of influential reports on plastic pollution and textile waste, alongside practical guides on how to design products and garments in a more circular way.

The post "The circular economy is needed to get to net-zero emissions" appeared first on Dezeen.

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Six fashion brands pushing circular design beyond recycling

A new book by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation features pioneering fashion designers and brands who share their approach to designing for a circular economy. Here, editor Elodie Rousselot picks six of the most innovative.

The Circular Design for Fashion book is part instruction manual, part manifesto, and features practical insights from more than 88 contributors ranging from luxury conglomerates to independent labels from London to Lagos.

Following on from the foundation's more general guide to circular design, this latest publication zeroes in on the global fashion industry, which emits more greenhouse gases every year than France, Germany and the UK combined. Eighty-seven per cent of the textiles used to make clothing end up incinerated or in landfills.

Nigerian label Orange Culture (top image) contributed to the Circular Design for Fashion book (above)

But in the last few years, many brands and designers in this space have started taking steps to eliminate waste and pollution from the lifecycle of their products.

"I think we're witnessing a beautiful moment in the industry, where many are actively looking at how they can change their businesses and the way they design products to be fit for the circular economy," said Rousselot, who is a strategic design manager at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Circular design is about regeneration

This includes thinking beyond just end-of-life solutions, such as turning plastic bottles into T-shirts, to instead move towards actively regenerating local ecosystems and communities.

"Circularity is about designing for systems change, for a future where instead of being a source of global challenges like climate change or biodiversity loss the industry can become a solution to those issues," Rousselot argued.

"Fashion is a huge lever in the overall economy because it touches every one of us, and it also has links to the way we manage lands and agriculture because of the crops we use in order to produce fibres," she added.

"All of the contributors we have in the book go beyond designing aesthetically attractive, durable products with materials that are sourced sustainably, and incorporate aspects of community, place and designing for a better system."

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In her research, Rousselot found that this move from an exploitative to a reciprocal relationship with nature often goes hand-in-hand with rediscovering indigenous knowledge and expertise.

"There is a real movement of going back to what is already known," she said. "Circular design is a new thing in Western countries. But when you speak to some designers in China or Africa, they'll tell you that's just the way that they do things."

Below, Rousselot spotlights six contributors from the book who are leading the charge towards a circular fashion industry.

Photo is by Jolaoso Wasiu Adebayo

Orange Culture by Adebayo Oke-Lawal

Adebayo Oke-Lawal designs gender-fluid garments that are produced using a supply chain that is 90 per cent local to Nigeria and spans everything from material sourcing to dyeing and printing.

Through his Lagos-based label Orange Culture, the designer works to ensure that money stays in the community while educating his suppliers and staff about sustainable production methods so they can carry the learnings into other projects.

"Orange Culture uses the offcuts from its manufacturing process to form new products or elements such as lining," Rousselot said.

"They've also started asking their customers to return unwanted clothes, so they can be remade into new garments and resold. It goes beyond being a repair service. It's almost like giving another story to the garment."

Raeburn by Christopher Raeburn

Christopher Raeburn started working with surplus fabrics and garments while studying fashion design in London in the early 2000s, buying unworn military jackets from the 1950s for £1 each and transforming them into new garments.

Since then, he has worked to scale up the use of reclaimed materials for mass production via his own British Fashion Award-winning label Raeburn, as well as transitioning Timberland to regeneratively farmed leather in his role as creative director for the footwear brand.

"He was one of the first to bring this practice to a commercial scale, in a way that is attractive and different from what you would expect from an 'eco brand'," Rousselot said.

"The community he is creating around circular design is the most beautiful thing about his work. He now has a space in east London where his team organises workshops so people can learn new techniques and sew together."

Icicle by Ye Shouzeng and Tao Xiaoma

Founded by husband-wife duo Ye Shouzeng and Tao Xiaoma in 1997, Chinese brand Icicle draws on five core materials – cashmere, linen, wool, silk and cotton – which are responsibly sourced and minimally processed to keep the focus on the fibres' natural beauty.

All of the brand's design and manufacturing is done in-house at its own factories, in order to ensure traceability while safeguarding the welfare of garment workers.

"They are bringing this different perspective to circular design, which is based on traditional Chinese philosophy and runs counter to the Western idea that we're born, we die and then that's it," Rousselot said.

"In many Eastern countries, life is already seen as a circular system of reincarnation. So Tao philosophy is all about living in moderation and in balance with nature. That's a very regenerative way of looking at life and Icicle is really bringing this philosophy to every detail of what they're doing."

Marine Serre

Beyond her trademark crescent moon print, French designer Marine Serre is known for making 50 per cent of all her collections from reclaimed textiles such as household linens (above), carpets and towels.

Awarded the prestigious LVMH prize in 2017 and stocked by major retailers such as Selfridges and Browns, Serre's work shows that waste materials can have a place in the luxury fashion space – despite their dirty reputation.

"She's extremely cutting edge in the way she designs with these textiles," Rousselot said. "In fashion design, usually what students are taught to do is to define a colour palette that will guide their collection and then find the fabrics to match."

"But of course, when you start designing based on the material, this guides the colour palette and everything else about your collection. So it's a totally different starting point."

Photo is by Asia Werbel

Fibershed

Fibershed is a non-profit that helps brands to access hyper-local textile supply chains, making use of regenerative farming practices that trap carbon in soil rather than just emitting it.

In collaboration with its regional arm in South East England, designer Phoebe English recently created a range of garments presented at the COP26 climate conference (above), for which all textiles were grown, dyed, spun and processed within a 250-kilometre radius of her London studio.

"This approach means you are not growing hectares of cotton, you're growing different types of crops that naturally thrive in the area such as nettle or hemp," Rousselot said.

"These crops are grown in a way that is balanced with the environment and actually helps rebuild soil health, captures carbon and fights biodiversity loss."

Nkwo by Nkwo Onwuka

British-Nigerian designer Nkwo Onwuka developed a new African textile called Dakala, which resembles handloom-woven cloth but is made by stripping and sewing together pieces of discarded denim.

With the aim of "weaving waste into wealth", she now trains local women in Abuja to use their skills in traditional textile crafts to create new clothing from the mountains of garment waste that are shipped to Nigeria from western countries.

"She's also started looking at sourcing cotton locally," Rousselot explained. "Nigeria doesn't grow a lot of cotton but unlike in Kyrgyzstan, where it's a cause of desertification, in Nigeria it can grow rain-fed so it doesn't require extra irrigation."

"She's creating this system where profit is distributed locally so that the living and working conditions of local communities can improve through her activity."

The post Six fashion brands pushing circular design beyond recycling appeared first on Dezeen.

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