Sourcing cellulose-based fibre tough for textile companies: Report

Zippers that can be removed and reused or recycled without losing fabric and limiting non-cellulose-based fibres to 2 per cent or less to ensure recyclability, while still delivering styles and comfort that appeal to customers (including jeans with stretch) have also been reported as tough requirements, as per the report called The Jeans Redesign: Insights from the first two years by Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

The report reveals the barriers, solutions and innovation gaps faced by the 72 brands, retailers, garment manufacturers, fabric mills and laundries signed up to The Jeans Redesign’s common guidelines and definitions.

To date, participants of The Jeans Redesign have put more than half a million pairs of circular jeans on the market, meeting minimum requirements for durability, traceability and recyclability, while using safe materials and processes. Although the number of circular jeans makes up just a small part of the total market, the insights gained can go a long way in informing bold action towards creating more products in this way.

“The Jeans Redesign supports organisations to build the confidence to explore and learn about how to use circular economy principles to put products on the market. The collective challenges and solutions identified made it clear where investment and innovation are needed. The Jeans Redesign demonstrates it is possible to create garments fit for a circular economy and now the concept has been proven, there’s no reason to delay progress,” said Laura Balmond, Make Fashion Circular lead, at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

To build on the momentum of The Jeans Redesign, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation calls on all businesses in the fashion industry to take bold action to adopt circular economy principles; to collaborate and innovate to overcome barriers to a circular economy for fashion; to align on definitions and parameters for regenerative production and sourcing, and put in place enabling mechanisms to support the production of materials that have nature-positive outcomes; and to create the enabling conditions for the circular economy to emerge at scale in the fashion industry, building on a set of common policy goals.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)