Supply Chain
Textiles

Textiles manufacturers can't avoid circular economy principles forever ... The textile sector is water intensive and wasteful. As cotton prices fluctuate and agricultural land for food runs out, it needs a new business model

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Textiles manufacturers can't avoid circular economy principles forever ... The textile sector is water intensive and wasteful. As cotton prices fluctuate and agricultural land for food runs out, it needs a new business model Claudia Cahalane IMAGE INDIA-UN-ENVIRONMENT Agricultural land can't be used for fibres when it's needed for food. Keeping textiles circulating makes business sense. Photograph: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images

A pair of fair trade jeans made with recycled material and organic cotton from Dutch company Mud Jeans would set you back more than €100 (£83). It's a high price for most people – but founder Bert van Son is renting the jeans out for a monthly fee of €5.

'We want to make good quality, ethical jeans available to more people,' says van Son. 'We also want to keep hold of our valuable fibres and materials. To lease them rather than sell.' Renting out, rather than 'giving away' products, offers the company some protection from fluctuating cotton prices, a need which became strongly apparent when the price of cotton tripled between 2010-11.

'We launched the lease-a-jean service with incentives for returning the jeans at the end of use, so that we can re-lease or turn them into other products,' says van Son. 'Repairs are provided for free and the customer can keep the jeans for as long as they want or swap for a new pair and keep renting or return at the end of the rental period.' He jokes that not only does it give the company resilience and a competitive advantage, 'we can also rent out jeans with a genuine vintage look, we don't have to spend time, money and energy on that, like others do'.

Speaking at a Resource event, Realising the Opportunities of the Circular Economy, at London's ExCel centre earlier this month, the businessman told delegates that the company has now branched out into fleeces and has inspired another Netherlands company, DutchSpirit, to lease its fair trade suits in a similar manner.

'Leasing means that you pay for the use of the suit and the ownership stays with DutchSpirit,' says founder Erik Toenhake. 'During 24 months you pay a price of between €25 and €35 a month. In the mean time, the suit is insured and if there are any problems we will replace that particular piece.'

Research by WRAP (pdf), the government-funded resource efficiency programme, found that in 2011 the UK disposed of roughly 1.8m tonnes of textiles, of which 350,000 tonnes were landfilled. The CO2 impact of clothing consumption equates to approximately 38m tonnes, and an annual water consumption of 6,300m cubic metres, according to the report.

The push towards making the most of the current clothing and fibres in existence has expanded in recent years. Alongside these new leasing initiatives we've seen clothes-swapping parties, clothes take-back services at shops such as M&S and H&M, and the arrival of designer clothes borrowing service Rentez-Vous, all aiming to reduce the need for virgin materials, as well as saving users money.

Those leading the sustainability agenda in the textiles sector, such as Kate Goldsworthy, senior researcher at the Textile Futures Research Centre, say it is crucial that the clothing industry now focuses even further on a 'cradle-to-cradle' circular economy approach.

Speaking as someone with 15 years of textile design experience she wants designers to keep focusing further on what will happen to their products in the future. She points out that textile production has 'been moving steadily towards blended fibres in order to produce new functionality, and this has been a serious barrier to recycling levels.'

In her upcoming paper, Design for Cyclability, Goldsworthy talks about new business opportunities that lie in composting services and the repolymerisation industry, where there is a large amount of activity around trying to recycle mixed-fibre materials. Eco Circle in Japan and Worn Again in the UK are two companies working in this area. 'But designers also need to find solutions that are 100% mono-material without sacrificing functionality,' says the researcher.

Goldsworthy has been inspired by new initiatives in textiles sustainability. Puma's InCycle range of biodegradable and recycled products is a good example of how forward-thinking design is reaching the mainstream, she says.

And, there will increasingly be less choice but for textiles manufacturers to work within the principles of a circular economy.

'Resources are becoming more scarce and we're running out of land for growing food. Agricultural land can't be used for fibres when it's needed for food. Keeping textiles and fibres endlessly circulating makes good business sense,' she concludes.

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