Creating a circular economy for fashion | Rethink sustainability

Waste in fashion is on a massive scale, and less than one percent of recycled textiles are converted into new, wearable materials. But very gradually, that may be changing. The FT’s Madison Darbyshire takes a closer look at three companies moving toward a circular economy for fashion, each in a different way.

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Waste in fashion is on a massive scale.

It's an industry where less than 1%
of recycled textiles

are converted into new wearable materials.

Even more ends up in landfills.

But very gradually, that may be changing.

I'm traveling to the Isle of Wight,
off the UK's southern coast,

to find out more.

We are on our way
to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation,

which is a nonprofit
that focuses on the circular economy.

The foundation promotes
a vision for a fashion economy

in which nothing ends up as waste.

I'm meeting Laura Belmond,
a project manager.

Hi, I'm Laura.

Welcome to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Every second, the equivalent
of one rubbish truckload of clothing

is landfilled or incinerated globally.

In a circular economy, instead of it
operating in this one-way system,

we, from the very outset,

look at creating something that designs
out the waste from the beginning.

In terms of business opportunity,

there's a huge spectrum for the companies

to actually move towards
a circular economy.

One company working towards
a circular model is a nearby freshwater.

Welcome to the team, I'm Martin.

Madison. Nice to meet you.

Teemill is an online platform
built by the clothing company Rapanui.

It allows brands to print and create
their own sustainable garments.

All of its products
are made from organic cotton,

and central to its business model

is combating the inefficiency
built into the fashion industry.

One of the big problems with fashion,
as well as the material wastage,

is actually the overproduction.

It's a stock way.

We actually make what people need
when they need it,

which means making products
in the seconds after they're ordered.

In 2018, Teemill shipped 1 million shirts.

The company estimates
that using sustainable materials

adds about 25% of cost,

but says it offsets that by maximizing
efficiencies in other places.

It costs more money.

So, what we need to do is find savings.

Teemill minimizes waste
and streamlines production

using its own creative engineering.

The whole factory is powered
by renewable energy.

Everything that we make
is designed from the start

to come back to us when it's worn out.

So every Teemill T-shirt
has this bar code on the care label,

which when you're done with your T-shirt,

you can scan it,

and it'll generate a postage label

and allows you to send
the shirt back for free,

and then Teemill gives customers
a discount on their next order

in order to incentivize people to recycle

instead of throw
their clothes in the trash.

There are, of course,
a variety of approaches

being used to move closer
to a circular economy.

In Central London,

I'm meeting with Cindy Rhodes
of Worn Again Technologies,

which focuses on recycling textiles
at the molecular level.

We've developed a process
that can take polyester and cotton,

dissolve it in a vat,

separate both the polyester and cotton.

Blended fabrics tend
to be harder to recycle.

This here is a polyester pellet,

which is the building block
that then gets melted down,

extruded into fiber yarn and textiles.

Then what we're able to do
with the leftover cotton

is dissolve that,
separate out all the dyes,

which then get separated
and spun back into a fiber.

Worn Again plans to license
its technology to other businesses,

crucially at an affordable price.

It was really important
that the process itself is low cost,

that we're not creating
a premium product

that the industry has to pay more for,

and that consumers ultimately
have to pay more for it.

In nearby Islington, Jonathan Mitchell,
founder of Brothers We Stand,

is tackling the challenge
from a different angle.

Brothers We Stand,
a commerce online retailer

where you can shop menswear
that is made more sustainably,

often made from recycled materials,
but crucially also made to last.

The company makes
a small amount of clothing itself,

and that's all of its suppliers.

We have our six-point standard,

and every product on our site
must meet that standard.

And it includes points
like designed to please,

made to last,

and also stand out social
and environmental impact.

Brothers We Stand says production cost
using sustainable materials

around one and a half times
higher for basic T-shirts,

and customers do pay a premium.

But despite that,

sales have grown by more than 50%
each of the last two years,

albeit from a small base.

More people wanting to consume clothes,

and also other things more sustainably,

and I want to provide
a solution to these people.

A recent study by McKinsey
found that 78% of sourcing managers

said that by 2025, sustainability
would be a significant factor

for consumers purchasing
mass-market apparel.

It will not be quick or easy,

but as we saw in the Isle of Wight,

companies are already beginning
to build circular models on a large scale.

A sign of things to come.

Subtitles by Maurício Kakuei Tanaka
Review by Jenny Lam-Chowdhury