CAMPBELL HALL, N.Y. — May 27, 2021 — Building on the success of its work researching, mapping, modeling, and linking circular textile-to-textile systems in the United States, Accelerating Circularity today announced the launch of a new project based in Europe. In discussing the organization’s expansion, Founder and President Karla Magruder said: “We think of successful projects as those that can be repeated and scaled to maximize their impact. The launch of Accelerating Circularity Europe exemplifies this approach and advances our goal of enabling the industry to achieve a scaled, global, circular textile system.”
The founding members of Accelerating Circularity Europe’s Steering Committee represent leaders in global retail, circular supply chain, and textile recycling. They include DuPont Biomaterials, European Outdoor Group, GIZ, Gr3n, Inditex, Lenzing, Recover™, Recyclatex Group, Reverse Resources, Texaid, and Zalando.
Laura Coppen, head of Circularity at Zalando, said: “We are excited to join the ACPE Steering Committee to advance the industry in the ‘end of life’ product stage. With our reach as a platform, we can contribute to scaling circular textile systems and move away from linear to circular business practices. To do that we need to collaborate across the industry to scale solutions quickly, and we believe this project does just that. Our circularity strategy aims to integrate the principles of circularity into our business, with our brand partners and for our customers. We aim to ensure that products don’t end up in landfill or are incinerated and we see this project as a great way to learn and build better systems in the long term.”
Chief Sustainability Officer at Recover™ Helene Smits stated: “Recover™ believes that scalability is one of the main challenges of a circular textile industry, and we have included it as a core pillar of our strategy. Accelerating Circularity Europe can be a strong facilitator of this initiative and we are very enthusiastic to be a founding member of the ACPE Steering Committee.”
Speaking about Reverse Resources’ decision to join the Steering Committee, Sales Marketing Lead Marieke Koemans-Kokkelink added, “Creating a European-wide collaboration enables us to digitally follow (and improve) the textile material flows through circulation.”
The Steering Committee will set the strategy and make decisions for the European project. They will convene a Brand and Retailer Working Group for the development of take back programs and circular product specifications. Select collectors, recyclers, and preprocessors will comprise a Spent Textile Working Group to address challenges in collection, sorting, and feedstock preparation. As in the U.S., The European project will unfold in phases: research and mapping, modeling and linking, then trials and evaluation. The new project will expand upon the work done to date and adapt it to the European context.
There are multiple ways to participate in the project: NGOs can become Collaborating Organizations, a network of complementary and mutually supportive entities that amplify the work. Companies can join the technical working groups and can also become System Partners once the project launches the trial phase. Organizations may register their interest via acceleratingcircularity.org/stakeholder-registry.
Posted May 27, 2021
Source: Accelerating Circularity
