Global Fashion Agenda

2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment

At Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2017, Global Fashion Agenda called on fashion brands and retailers to sign a commitment to accelerate the transition to a circular fashion system. We outlined four immediate action points to accelerate the transition to a circular fashion system:

• -Action point 1: Implementing design strategies for cyclability
• -Action point 2: Increasing the volume of used garments collected
• -Action point 3: Increasing the volume of used garments resold
• -Action point 4: Increasing the share of garments made from recycled post-consumer textile fibres.

By the 30 June 2017 deadline, 64 companies and corporations had signed the 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment representing a total of 142 brands and 7.5% of the global fashion market. Signatories commit to setting targets in one or more of these four action points for 2020 and to annually report on their progress. Global Fashion Agenda will support the brands in implementing the commitment through knowledge sharing, policy engagement and by facilitating industry alignment.

A new textiles economy

One garbage truck of textiles wasted every second: report creates vision for change

Ellen MacArthur and Stella McCartney co-host the launch of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new report A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion's future in London. The report, created by the Circular Fibres Initiative which launched in May this year, calls for the fashion industry to adopt this new vision and create cross industry collaborations to achieve it.

Clothes are an everyday necessity, and for many an important expression of individuality. Yet the industry’s current take-make-dispose model is the root cause of many environmental impacts and substantial economic value loss. Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. An estimated USD 500 billion value is lost every year due to clothing that’s barely worn and rarely recycled. If nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. As well as being wasteful, the industry is polluting: clothes release half a million tonnes of microfibres into the ocean every year, equivalent to more than 50 billion plastic bottles. Microfibres are likely impossible to clean up and can enter food chains.

A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future presents a positive new vision for a system that works, and summons the creative power of the fashion industry to build it. In a new textiles economy clothes would be designed to last longer, be worn more and be easily rented or resold and recycled, and would not release toxins or pollution. Exploring new materials, pioneering business models, harnessing the power of design, and finding ways to scale better technologies and solutions are all needed to create a new textiles economy.

Creating a new textiles economy sets a new level of ambition for the fashion industry, and will require an unprecedented scale and depth of collaboration. Industry leaders including Core Partners H&M, Lenzing, and NIKE Inc., and C&A Foundation as Philanthropic Funder, endorse the new vision and report, to which they and over 40 influential fashion brands, leading businesses, NGOs, public bodies, and experts have contributed. McKinsey & Company has also contributed research and analysis. Now the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is calling on the entire industry to rally behind this new vision and to launch a new wave of cross-industry collaboration and innovation to achieve it.

$1 million awarded for new materials to tackle the causes of ocean plastic pollution​​

Clean-ups play an essential role in dealing with the symptoms of ocean plastics pollution, but they do not address the causes. They cannot keep pace with the rising tide of plastic pollution. More than 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the ocean each year, yet the three biggest clean-ups deal with just 0.5% of that volume.

To tackle the plastic pollution crisis, there is an urgent need for innovators, industry and governments to develop systemic solutions that prevent plastic from becoming waste in the first place. That is why the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched its $2 million New Plastics Economy Innovation Prize, funded by Wendy Schmidt, Lead Philanthropic Partner of the Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative, and operated by challenge partner NineSigma, who helped identify potential solutions from around the world.

For these innovations to have greatest impact, businesses and governments must work together to create a system in which plastics do not become waste, by committing to scale up such innovation and provide the necessary collection and sorting infrastructure.

That is why the Ellen MacArthur Foundation welcomes the latest steps from leading businesses and the French and UK governments towards creating a circular economy for plastics.