Circularity in Textiles: Sustainability Trends in the UK Textiles Industry

Circularity is the latest trend in textile sustainability. This paves the way for the textile industry to use this concept in their green initiative. VTT, one of Europe’s leading analysis organisations, published a trend report recently, describing circularity as a “megatrend’. It also discussed how companies from several industries were collaborating to advance sustainability. 

The EU also has a strategy for sustainable and circular textiles. The strategy urges every business to make the textiles it uses in their products ‘recyclable’ and ‘circular’. 

Circularity & Sustainability

In a circular system, products and materials are never wasted. They are regenerated through various processes such as recycling products, refurbishing, re-manufacturing and composting.

Circularity has 3 principles:

1. To eliminate waste and pollution.
2. To regenerate products and materials.
3. To regenerate nature. This involves moving from a linear economy to a circular one.

A circular economy "supports natural processes and lets nature thrive". In this type of situation, we reduce producing waste. This is a more resilient structure – it’s better for humans, businesses, and the environment. 

How to Move to a Circular Economy

The global focus is transforming the linear structure by managing the system and altering our throw-away economy. This involves eliminating waste, circulating resources and regenerating nature.

We need to change the way we manufacture and produce products and what we do with those products so they don’t end up as waste.

A Sustainability Leader in Textiles

Major textile business Lindström, which operates throughout Europe and Asia, uses circular business models. It says this is “designed to reduce the over-production of textiles and conserve natural resources”. It quotes statistics on textile waste from earth.org: 

1. Every year, manufacturers produce 1.92 million tonnes of textile waste. 
2. Global emissions from the clothing industry will increase by 50% by 2030
3. Fashion is responsible for 20% of global water waste
4. It takes 20,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton
5. Almost 10% of microplastics dispersed in the sea every year come from textiles.

Follow our Sustainable Circularity Initiatives

At maake we also produce and print on fabric sustainably. Last year we won the 2023 Twyg Awards for Most Ethical Fabric and Best Custom Printing. Here are our suggestions for more circularity:

1.     Minimise Your Company’s Environmental Impact

• Give fabrics a second life instead of producing more. 
• Manufacture new textiles on demand – and only as much as a customer orders.
• Ensure fabric is hard-wearing.
• Produce fabric in the most sustainable method possible.
• Be more innovative in the recyclability of clothing and textiles.
• Close the loop: reduce excessive textile production.
• Conserve natural resources – we use water and energy as sparingly as possible.

2.     Create Circular Business Models – Give Fabric a Second Life

McKinsey recently wrote an informative piece on circularity. Their data shows how by reducing the number of waste manufacturers they currently produce, we could use more sustainable methods to manufacture products. Manufacturers who are not being sustainable are responsible for creating lots of emissions.

If businesses change how they manufacture products, this doesn't mean they will produce less. On the contrary. They are wasting less!

Just like we do at maake, these businesses print on demand. They print the amount of fabric a customer orders; no more.

Our Innovative maakeLess Waste Initiative

What’s more, the offcuts of fabric we end up with are given away to customers as part of our maake Less Waste initiative. This is our ‘Zero-to-landfill’ initiative: we find homes for any ‘waste’ fabric generated in our production process. Best of all, the fabric is free! It’s our way of reducing fast fashion and excess waste in textiles.

We offer Upcycling Bags in 3 sizes – small (approximately 1kg), medium (around 2kg) and large (up to 15kg). We fill the bags with selected fabric offcuts – cotton, velvet, linen etc.

The fabric is usually plain white, ivory or a natural colour. Sometimes we include a few printed fabrics as well. This is ideal for a variety of home and office projects. They are normally the full width of the fabric (140-150cm), and vary in length from 20cm up to 2m.

All you have to do is add one or more Upcycling Bag to your shopping cart (they are free no matter how many you add). If you wish to save on carbon emissions and collect the fabric yourself instead of us delivering it to you, you can do so. All you need to do is click and collect.

We also give you a reward – a maake Less Waste initiative certificate that you can share with your friends and followers!

Order your free Upcycling Bags here!

Circularity Models Around the World

Globally, governments are endorsing circularity. So is Britain. In February, the government announced a plan to establish the first centre for circular economy research in the world. The UN will back this centre.

This is part of the government’s aim to “transition to a greener future”. It is called the International Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Resource Management in the Circular Economy, and opened in April 2024. The centre links to 5 institutions that do resear – University College London (UCL), the University of Exeter, Brunel University London, Swansea University and the British Geological Survey.

How to use Circularity in Fashion

On its website, wool brand Woolmark explains that wool “can help brands enter more easily into the development of circular products”. 

“Circular design of textile products in the textile industry uses regenerative materials, ensures clothes are used more often and provides pathways for reuse, recycling processes and biodegradation at end-of-life,” it says. 

The website offers insight into circularity in textiles and discusses using textiles like wool, with textile circularity. Wool is a perfect example of a “100% natural, renewable and biodegradable” resource,

Biodegradable textiles like wool contain no microplastics, so they do not pollute our oceans or land. Synthetic textiles are different.

Woolmark says designer Victoria Beckham is the perfect example of a fashion brand that “showcases circularity with wool” using higher-quality textiles.

The designer used the natural dyeing process from Tintoria di Quaregna for her 2024 knitwear collection. Tintoria di Quaregna is a Woolmark licensee.

Beckham's entire collection featured high-quality sustainable materials and standards. It also featured a label on each garment where future owners could write their names. This encourages “the use phase of each product to be extended”. Woolmark believes that to extend the life of textile products, we “can reduce their environmental impact by up to 68%”.