At Anthesis, we support textiles and apparel brands to reduce their negative environmental impact, from understanding more about circular design and production practices, to minimising the end-of-life impacts. During the decisive decade and beyond, Anthesis aims to amplify our impact through our clients, equipping them with the sustainability knowledge and ambition they need to drive forward sustainable performance.
We believe that creating a circular economy for the textiles and apparel value chain by 2050 is crucial and are excited to see the action and support for World Circular Textiles Day to catalyse change within the industry.
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Today, on World Circular Textiles Day, companies, organisations and individuals come together to celebrate actively working towards a circular textiles future. This day will highlight accomplishments across the industry and explore the big challenges and needs of signatories in the ongoing quest to achieve full circularity by 2050.
The roadmap to 2050 has been created in three distinct phases:
- To raise awareness around achieving a circular textiles world by 2050.
- To cultivate an online platform to capture the growth of the community.
- To build a framework for a collaborative roadmap to be developed and revised over the next 30 years until the vision is achieved.
Anthesis is taking this opportunity to become a proud signatory of World Circular Textiles Day in recognition of the need for a collaborative approach to make the vision of a circular fashion system a reality. As the sustainability activator, Anthesis aims to work collectively to find meaningful, inclusive and scalable solutions that will help transform key sectors, such as apparel, in this decisive decade, and becoming a signatory supports this aim.
For this reason, we are highlighting three projects that we are working on to support apparel and textile clients in their circular ambitions, in line with the Three Strands of the World Circular Textile Day.
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Sustainable Fibre and Circularity Support under ECAP
Peak Performance worked with Anthesis, in partnership with WRAP, in the area of sustainable fibres, to increase the uptake of environmentally sound materials and reduce negative impacts. Anthesis role was to support ECAP participants, such as Peak Performance, in developing evidence-based strategies to support the uptake of more sustainable fibres and, consequently, reduce the environmental impact of clothing being sold within the EU market.
Project impacts
In addition to the fibre strategy workshop and footprint reports, circular economy experts from Anthesis, in partnership with WRAP, also produced a report on bio-based materials in the apparel sector for Peak Performance. Some of the findings for this research provided inspiration for an Op-Ed in the renowned industry journal Apparel Insider.
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Gap’s Preferred Fibre Toolkit
Gap’s preferred fibre toolkit provides designers and product developers with a holistic understanding of the sustainability impacts of the fibres they source. The toolkit uses several indicators to assess the sustainability and commercial impact of fibres. One indicator the toolkit uses in the assessment is the fibre’s potential for circularity. The toolkit assesses the natural biodegradability of a fibre, input materials to both the fibre and production processing (e.g., synthetic chemicals/pesticides), the typical method of recycling, and actions taken to regenerate natural systems. As circularity is a key factor in determining which fibre the toolkit recommends, this encourages Gap’s designers and product designers to consider circularity in their decision making.
Project impact
The toolkit enables the ranking of fibres within categories, including animal welfare, water usage, the potential for circularity, chemicals management, biodiversity. This helps Gap to make better decisions about which next-generation fibres best fit their sustainability goals and targets.
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Vastum
Vastum is Anthesis’ digital waste tracking tool. The tool records waste movements from the producer, through waste management processes and infrastructure, to its final destination where it is reused, recycled, recovered or disposed of. One benefit of Vastum is that it prevents waste crime such as illegal fly-tipping and waste exports. By preventing waste crime, Vastum avoids pollution that can harm communities and the environment.
Vastum can be used to digitally track garments and textiles waste. This could result in an increased understanding of the lifecycle of garments, the end-of-life fate of textiles waste, and what textiles waste is available for reuse and recycling. Therefore, Vastum is a transformational, digital solution to create the intelligence needed to protect the environment and drive the circular economy.
Project impact
Vastum provides unprecedented transparency into waste sources, types and actors and uses this dataset to provide actionable intelligence to users via notifications and other tools. Data is presented in an engaging and intuitive dashboard with graphics and search tools. The waste tracking solution has the potential to be truly transformational and will deliver fundamental benefits to a number of user groups, such as governments, regulators, waste producers, the waste industry, and municipal authorities.
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Anthesis has offices in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Finland, Colombia, Brazil, China, the Philippines and the Middle East.
