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Y et challenges abound. Recent statistics are daunting. Consider these takeaways from an Eileen Fisher Foundation report called Hey Fashion! commissioned through Pentatonic, a design and technology consultancy specializing in sustainability: e fashion industry is valued around $2.4 trillion and employs over 45 million people worldwide. However, the industry simulta- neously, loses about $500 billion of value every year due to lack of recycling and clothes thrown into landfills before even being sold. Further, less than one percent of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing. Additional market research finds that 150 billion new clothing items are produced annually; this volume of clothing produced and discarded is outpacing what recyclers can process. It's estimated that apparel makes up 6.7 percent of the world's GHG emissions, rising to 8 per- cent when footwear is included, according to Qantis. Textile Exchange shares that our clothes only compose 0.5 percent recycled pre-consumer, and 0.2 percent of recycled post-consumer waste. If these and other projections aren't reversed, experts believe that global textile waste will increase by 60 percent annually by 2030, when it will be an estimated 148 million tons per year. "Given the damage the linear model creates, a new approach to business is required. Circular means using resources wisely and generat- ing revenue from what was already made," writes Nicole Bassett in a blog post. Bassett, founder of e Renewal Workshop, and pioneer of the "repair, reuse, recycle" model, is currently the Circularity Lead at Bleckman Solutions, a supply chain logistics specialist with warehousing and fulfillment. Bleckman acquired The Renewal Workshop earlier this year, expanding its services to include Collection/Trade-In, Renewal and Resale of items ready for the next use. Circularity as a Team Sport "A big focus right now for Unifi is textile-to-textile recycling. Unifi sees this as the future and is 100 percent committed to supporting it." says Chad Bolick, VP global key accounts at Unifi. Bolick, with almost 30 years of experience in the textile industry, and 15 with Unifi, likens this era of textile-to-textile recycling to the early 2000s when Repreve was evolving and recycling plastic bot- tles. "ere is a lot of buzz around the topic, but maybe still lacking a full understanding of how it hap- pens and what's needed to make it happen, in regard to collection and sorting," explains Bolick. "A lot of the infrastructure is still being built and a lot of tech for textile-to-textile recycling is still evolving." Bolick highlights three market drivers advancing circularity in today's marketplace: a fast fashion mentality that clothing is a short- term use; a younger generation asking 'what do we do with all this CIRCULARITY ROLLS OUTLOOK SHIFTS IN HOW INDUSTRY WORKS AND INVESTS IN A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE. BY EMILY WALZER ere is progress on the circularity front these days, as suppliers prioritize actions to advance textile- to-textile recycling, establish comprehensive cross-sector collaboration and bring to market materials developed for circularity. Growth is happening in take back programs, resale technologies and eco legislation. And increasingly executives are adopting "circular thinking" that promotes reductions in production and consumption, along with new perspectives on how businesses define success. 38 • November/December 2022 sportstyle • sportstylemag.com DESIGN

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